Know your Audience
The next time you get into a racing situation in practice make sure you know who is in your boat. Sometimes the best motivation for a rower is simple information.
Information like:
- How much farther until the line?
- How many seats will it take to get even?
- How many seats until the lead?
After your rowers hear the information, make them accountable for the information. Call out individual rowers to execute making up the difference or execute taking the lead.
Then give them the all important update. Did they achieve the goal? If not did you give them a call to implement the execution? Only after your rowers know the situation then you can add some spice to the piece. However, do not underestimate the value of giving your rowers the information that it is going to take to win. Be their eyes and be their teammate not the noisy boom box they tune out. The next time you get into a racing situation in practice make sure you know who is in your boat. Sometimes the best motivation for a rower is simple information.
Posted at Saturday, March 14th, 2009 in: Advanced Coxswain
If you call them to execute say, taking the lead and they fail, how do you convey/handle that so as to not discourage them.
thanks,
This is my four year coxing.
That is a really hard position, when you set a goal ( whether it is taking seats or pulling away) and you don’t achieve it.
When this happens I usually tell the crew that we are still moving very strong, but the other crew/s are also moving well.
I then ask them to prove to me, who wants it more. I ask them to show me if it will be them that stands on the 1# position or the other crew.
Get them to think about a couple mintues of physical pain, and a win.
Or letting go and it hurting physically and mentally for a lot longer.
As a follow-up to Kane’s response I would say that you could also go in a different direction. If you put that goal of two seats out there and they don’t get those seats, why not look at their rowing and choose one technical point to focus on as well as their effort. For example, you could look at their catches and see that they are missing some water at the front end and give a call for getting blades back and down for a quicker lock with no missed water. They should be able to improve that after a strong call, get excited about that technical improvement and hopefully it makes the boat move faster, but none the less, it’s something to be positive about.
I really like this comment, thanks for sharing this Matt. You are absolutely right seeing the positive side of things. If something different needs to happen during a practice or race coxswains need to make a call for change. Especially for long and draining practices….you have to be there for your teammates by not giving up. You need to provide the opportunity for all the rowers to buy into the change. Great coxswains then follow up the call by identifying one positive change, hopefully the speed of the boat getting faster, so that your rowers will now believe in your calls and execute them together.