perspectives by sharing our different backgrounds.
ZDT -
One of the best things that we would do on our car journeys from Oxford to Wallingford was to go through various “what if” situations [Applebottom – why did we never come up with a “what if a guy swims in front of the race and then you go full smashy smashy and break a blade”? Foolish] We would discuss calls and responses to certain race situations, using not only our own experiences, but also what we had learnt by watching many, many previous boat races.
KA- That visualization was huge for me, so that when we got on the water and ran into situations, I felt like I wasn’t seeing it for the first time. We could also share technical feedback we’d heard from the coaches on the water. In the beginning of the year, we would rotate line-ups a fair amount. Having us communicating on what the coaches were focusing on allowed us to pick up right where the last session left off. That was also a huge help to me as I had to essentially learn a new rowing language, as I moved from American to GB rowing terms. It helped to have a translator.
ZDT -
I think we had pretty different style to start off with, and whilst I may have been doing the translating, I felt like I learnt a massive amount from Katie. She had a certain, dare I say it, cocky American attitude which I really admired, and listening to her on the water, then talking to her about her calls off the water, really allowed me to bring some of this confidence into my own coxing. Another major part of coxing on the Tideway is steering, and I loved getting to line up against Katie when we did our side-by-side battle paddles. I trusted her steering implicitly, and at the end of the day I knew she had my back. She wasn’t going to try and screw me over on the water, but rather we would both steering honest lines, allowing each other to shine.
KA- I will say, the day I overheard Zoe yell
“Yah boys!” on the water was a moral victory. The side-by-side racing with Zoe was one of my favorite parts of coxing at Oxford. Sure, we were always looking to get a bit more out of every turn from each other, but that was the point – I wanted her to give me her absolute best, so I could try to match it. One final piece to consider is the psychological benefits of having a teammate in another cox. Rowing is always referred to as one of the greatest team sports, but few people think of the bonds between coxes. As pressure built through the season, that time before and after practice sessions with Zoe helped me transition from regular life into rowing and vice versa. Whether it was sharing daily success or a boot- throwing rant in the locker room, we understood what it would take for each of us to get a seat in the race and could help each other get out of our own heads in order to keep moving forward.
What is the best way to prepare for calling the first minute of the race?
KA- Whether it is the start of a head race, match race, or six-lane sprint, the first minute of the race is one of the most structured pieces of the race. Some coxes choose to script the first minute. Precision in timing and structure of your calls is directly linked to the effectiveness of the first minute. Once you have a race plan, very little should change from the first minute.
ZDT- Katie is right, the first minute of the race needs to be precise, clear, and predictable to your crew. I rarely talk about the positioning of other boats in the first minute of the race, except for perhaps a brief and simple “our bow ball is ahead” or “it’s a pack”. At the end of the day you really can’t change anything within the first minute to be reactive to another crew, so I find it is best to keep the focus almost exclusively on the pattern my boat wants to row, and our processes.
KA- Second all of that! (It’s like we’ve planned this!) The starting line is busy
and loud; keep your calls clear and concise. I suggest using the same words for the high strokes and shift. There is no time for them to think about what you’re saying. The crew should have one accepted definition and reaction to the calls. You could say “banana” but, as long as the entire crew knows exactly how to respond to that call, it works. Within this minute, I always think of there being a few milestones that need to be hit/said. Tell them to breathe and very clearly call the shift and emphasize how you will do it. One example I picked up from a BU cox is instead of saying a lot and then “in two, in one,” to tighten it up, you could say shifting onto base (knowing this needs strong accelerated strokes through the finish) saying “finishes two, finishes one, Go!”
ZDT- Whilst personally I’m not a big fan (for that read I massively disapprove of) the two, one, go-type calls, I completely agree on everything else. Personally I am shifting away from what I see as a more old-fashioned approach of shouting a command on every single stroke of the start (think “draw, draw, wind, wind, wind...”) and am saying less and less off the start. I still have a defined structure in my start sequence, but this is actually something I picked up when coxing the Boat Race – the noise in the first minute of the race was so intense that we knew few of my calls would be heard. It seemed logical, therefore, to stay quiet so the most vital commands wouldn’t be lost in the shuffle. I decided I actually preferred this less is more approach, and am sticking with it for the time being.
KA- The skill level of your crew will determine how you approach the call (we can’t all be coxing the national team), so you will have to use your discretion on the clearest way to get into a good rhythm. To wrap it up, the one-minute mark is pretty tough physically and psychologically, the legs and the lungs hurt, and it happens to line up with the time where you need to be getting into your very best rhythm. So remind them the legs will recover, take a deep breath, and keep pushing.
ROW360 // Issue 001 61
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