A Community for Coxswains 

Welcome to  CoxPod – a podcast for Coxswains. I'm Anne, I'm Breana, and I'm Sally and we're three coxswains with a combined 50 years of experience in the seat. We have decided to share our knowledge with coxswains everywhere via this podcast and ultimately, we hope to create a community among our audience where coxswains can learn from each other. Today's episode is about giving feedback. 

ANNE: Exactly. And of course, it's common sense when we think about it. From the moment we're born, there's all sorts of feedback and we each develop styles of giving feedback and incorporating it - but we also bring this to our favorite sport. And we're likely to be more comfortable with some aspects of feedback than others but in order to grow and improve, it really pays to hone our ability to give and receive feedback - and hence - this episode.  So Sally, I'm going to turn to you first because you've been coaching and coxing for a long time ... even back to the years when Richard Nixon was still alive ... and you've had to express rowing terms in various locations, settings, and sometimes different languages. What do you have to say about the real life importance of explaining things - like things that translate to better coxing skills or the importance of being precise with your language. 

SALLY: So what you've delicately stated is that I am old and that I have been coxing since MS-DOS was a new and hip fascinating technology (um ... you can google that later). But one of the things I've learned, and one of the very painful lessons I have learned, is that when I'm coxing ... when I'm talking ... the burden of understanding the statement is placed on me being able to explain it to the listener. So as a coach - as a coxswain - I can say, "Hey look out! The bridge is coming." And if the bow person doesn't understand it, it gets expensive. To try to improve my communication style I have recorded myself and played it back. And I think I am saying Shakespearean prose and (I think) sonnets worthy of Homer are slipping out of my mouth ... and realize much later that I say very confusing things like, "Hey, that thing - do that"  or  "Put that other thing with the next thing that's blue".  And I'm not always as articulate or as understandable as I think I am. So I think it's really important to step back and hear how you are expressing yourself.

BREANA: I think that's a great point and you're very diligent about that in a way that a lot of coxswains should look up to, you know. Not everyone goes as far as recording themselves and thinking about the clarity of their terminology. 

ANNE: Exactly, and we're going to be exploring the importance of your own personal style as you both give and receive feedback. It pays to really understand this process - to practice it and to become more efficient and effective - both in coxing and it'll transfer over to your personal life as well. Let's talk about some typical areas of feedback that coxswains might give. 

SALLY: One of the more difficult lessons I learned is understanding that not everybody thinks or speaks like I do. What's really interesting in communication is I will say something that I believe is concise, factual, and descriptive - and the person listening to it doesn't hear it the same way. So if I am talking to a bunch of engineers or a bunch of scientists (or Breana), I can't talk about flowery poetic descriptions and imageries and feelings. I think Breana read about a feeling once. But if I talk to Breana about angles and minutes and calculations, that's something that her mind can grab onto and my message is better conveyed to her. So I can say, "Breana, we're gonna hit the bridge in 30 seconds". Breana knows what's going to happen whereas if I'm talking to Anne, talking about angles and hard and fast numbers might be slightly distracting because Anne is the only one who has emotions in this group. So if I talk to Anne, I might try to be a little bit more lyrical ... a little bit more poetic ... trying to talk about things that she's better able to grab onto. So I might say, "Anne, we're going to have a cataclysmic event in 30 seconds". You know, maybe not that lyrically, but it's just a different way of conveying the same message in a manner that the audience is going to be more apt to process and accept quickly. And I think there's a real nuance to that. 

ANNE: I think you do a great job Sally - in considering your audience, and I think that you know yourself pretty well - so you take those two factors into account as you are considering what feedback you're going to dole out, right? So how do you find out whether your approach is working or not and then, what do you do if it isn't?

SALLY: Well ... hard line ... is my approach is working ... did we hit the bridge? Yes or no. I mean, that is the worst case scenario. Was I able to instill enough panic in both of you that we have adjusted our course and respected mass and didn't hit the large, solid and possibly damaging object? Honestly for me, if I'm able to convey something to you - if I'm able to convey arms and body away, or change the power application, or draw something out of you to make the boat faster (to make the boat flow better), to change and shape your focus. I get feedback on how the boat is moving and then later I get feedback (or not) on land. I won't lie to you - I have made really bad calls. I have had people grab me by my shirt collar and ask me never to say those words to them again. I have been duct taped to light posts, y'all. (There's a reason why I always carry a pocket knife.) But seriously - for me - the feedback is: am I able to (in a pithy way) make a statement that I feel you understand. And I gauge understanding by: is the boat performing the way I think it should. And I do make snap judgments based on like - I know I am rowing with a bunch of MIT engineers, or I'm rowing with a bunch of (like) painters, or I am rowing with this woman who designs car engines (that one was incredibly intimidating). I try to get to know the person. I try to listen to how they talk. I pay attention to the words out of their mouth because that often tells me how they see and how they communicate ... and then I try to mirror and try to focus my communication on a style that is very similar to their communication style. 

ANNE: Right. I'm glad you're really emphasizing the importance of - when possible - understanding your audience and utilizing language and references that will make the most sense to them and touch them quickly so that they can respond quickly because that's what you're all about, and that's what we should be all about. And so the first part of thinking about giving feedback is assessing not only your own skills but who is your audience (again as you say) and utilizing terminology that will make sense. So I assume this applies to all the typical areas of feedback that coxswains might give. Breana do you want to weigh in on some of that?

BREANA: Yeah, I thought this might be an important thing for us to address just to make sure everything's on the table - especially if there are any newer coxswains listening to us who haven't had the whole breadth of these experiences yet - or maybe even if you're very experienced, you haven't sat down to think about it this way in a while. So the most obvious thing we do as coxswains, of course, is give technical (you know) corrective feedback. And we intend to have many - I imagine - future episodes that are all about specifically how to give that kind of feedback and how to identify problems. And that's, you know, one obvious thing that coxswains are told is their job. But there's another category of feedback as well that we've kind of been alluding to which is: how is our boat doing during this practice or during this race situation? So we may be providing factual information like ... how we are doing objectively in terms of the race positioning ... maybe one side just started to out-pull another and you need to get straight in your lane in a sprint race. That's, you know, purely objective information ... reminding rowers that they need to budget their energy at the start of a head race and remembering (of course) always that rowers, you know, may be accustomed to seeing information on an erg screen that they don't have any more in the boat. And so you are responsible for providing that information for them. So we kind of have that factual side and then we have our emotional, motivational side of race information - especially where this again comes down to what Sally was talking about - where some rowers are the type that need things phrased in a negative way. They need to be told they're running out of time in a race, you know, they need to hear something like that that motivates them. And others need to be, you know, brought out of their own heads and put in the mindset of like - we're a team and we can do this together. So there's a whole suite of, you know, just those couple of options of things that are our categories where we give feedback. 

SALLY: And I think there's a very, very wide spectrum on positive feedback. I don't want to give anybody the impression that (like) engineers don't appreciate flowery language, but in the moment - in the heat of it - how to be sharp and pithy and have the biggest bang for your buck is really, really critical. And just knowing that audience, I think, is really what makes and breaks coxswains - especially in that head race. And when you do have an engineer and an artist in the same boat, how does one balance that? You can't do this ... yes you can ... there's a whole dichotomy. 

ANNE: It is. It is a part of the challenge of the sport and if people who are listening have particular challenges or suggestions, we certainly would love to hear them and share them as well. It's something that a lot of us think about at various times. Going back to the specifics of types of feedback that we are responsible for, one of the other ones is situational awareness. So it's really important that we are able to provide timely - but not too much - timely information about things such as landmarks or wakes of boats or big gusts of wind that might be coming ... the location of other teams or other boats ... and at the same time, helping them to be comfortable enough so that they are not tempted to look out of the boat or be distracted by all that. So that again takes some experience, but it's important for the coxswain who is really attempting to be informative not to be over-informative. You have to finesse and assess what exactly is important that needs to be shared with the rowers. So not everything that we see (and I sure hope not) not everything that we see and hear should be shared. So taking good judgment and toll of what it is that you're trying to convey and just reporting the important stuff, right? 

SALLY: One of the things is mitigating distraction and I'm going to pick on Anne and Breana because they're staring at me ... and I'm also far enough away they can't physically hurt me. So some people 'not knowing' is the distraction and if they don't know where they are in the race ... they don't know the stroke rating ... that sets a spiral in their mind. Perhaps (maybe) Breana is kind of one of those people (just ‘cause I need a dichotomy here), but to better serve Breana, I have to be very informative. Maybe (perhaps) Anne maybe doesn't need that information and knowing if I say, "Okay. We hit the 450. We've got whatever to go". That might not serve the same purpose for Anne that it would Breana, and knowing and appreciating that there's going to be different levels of anxiety - different levels of 'need to know'. Like, maybe Anne is only clinging one stroke to the next stroke to the next stroke and if I tell her that we've only done 400 meters, that seems like an impossible wall has just descended upon her. I think knowing that, and knowing your sole goal is to mitigate distraction and keep them on their sole task - which is pulling and how do I get them pulling. You guys are okay with me making fun of you, right? 

ANNE: We love it when you make fun of us, Sally. It's quite all right. 

BREANA: I'm inspired by this imaginary rower version of myself.

SALLY: So - I am 6'2", 220. I am the tallest. You can be - 6' 1 and 3/4", but I am the tallest! Okay, so another thing to think about in our feedback loop when we're racing is: reactionary comments versus planned comments. And planned comments are: I've worked with the crew ... I know the crew ... we're going to do a start, 10 high, lengthen out, sprint it to 250, get gold, then have hot cider afterwards. That is the planned event. But sometimes (shockingly) things don't go according to our plan and stuff happens in the boat. So at the 350, I can't sprint. Or at the 350, I have to sprint because if I don't make a move now, we are not going to medal. And it's okay to change it up, but when you're doing it, you have to change it up in a way that the rowers appreciate and understand. Sometimes they don't need to know all the information, but they do need to know that we're making a move ... and then sometimes because people have emotions (and Anne has been working very diligently on explaining emotions to me) not everybody's going to react the same way when they go anaerobic. People start crying. I don't call it crying ... I prefer 'leaking'. So they start leaking from their eyes and stuff happens and how to change my calls to support and keep them in the fight for what's left of the thousand meters ... for me, it's a very fluid dynamic when trying to offer feedback. And if 3 seat's sobbing, I might not make as many strict technical corrections on 3 seat as I would 5 seat - because it's always 5 seat's fault - always. 

ANNE: Well, I'm glad you're sorting out the differences between (sort of) the reactionary versus the planned feedback because we do both, right? Coxswains that are open and creative enough - and in the moment enough - to understand what their boat is doing have to make some changes. And I think that - at least for the types of crews that I often end up coxing for races - it pays for me to have a conversation before the race. And sometimes even, you know, going down to the start (or whatever) it is - just to sort of state the obvious - because people are generally anxious or they're amped up or they're having their own internal conversation. I like to be as straightforward as possible and I say, "We have our race plan ... however, I want to let you know that if I make a call for something else, it's because that's what we need at the time" ... so that they don't (you know) when they hear something that is unexpected, they don't freak out and think that I'm panicking. It's because I'm deliberately making that call. 

BREANA: I want to say, too, that I think it's important for us to say that you may  - at the beginning of your coxing career - just be in the fully planned race plan stage. You may start out just saying: my coach gave me the race plan ... it's all I can do to just manage that and get into the stake boat. I mean, we're mostly talking about sprint racing at the moment, and get successfully straight down that course and not interfere with anyone else. And as you start to gain confidence in that realm, you can add on tidbits here or there. So maybe you're like - I'm gonna follow this race plan to the letter until the sprint and then I'm gonna (if I feel confident), I'm gonna gauge. I'm gonna look around and see if there's maybe a change that I could make that would help our boat do the best. And then next race, you say to yourself - okay we have this planned - like, you know, lengthen 20 in the middle of the race. I'm gonna allow myself the freedom to say like - after we've passed the 250, I'm to deploy that when I feel us get short. And I'm going to work on feeling this thing and deploying this move as needed instead of in an exactly planned place. So there's ways to build up. Eventually a coxswain will reach the point where you can get in a boat and not know anything about those rowers (you know) beforehand, and pull off a successful race based solely on what you see going on around you. But it's totally fine - as you start - to ask your coach to give you a prescribed race plan and work with them on that ... and then build up gradually, you know ... allow yourself a little freedom here and there. You know, a great other option is to say: I have two planned moves that I can insert whenever I want. I had a coach really early in my career help me with that. So they said, 'Okay you've got a couple of focus tens that you can deploy when you feel that the time is right. So you only get two, but it's your choice when to insert them into the race'. So I wanted to offer that up for coxswains of all levels listening today. 

SALLY: I think that's brilliant Breana - especially if you think about the race plan like a recipe ... a recipe with slightly more ingredients than ramen or microwave popcorn. It's a good idea that you make it 'to the letter' a few times so that you understand the nuances before you start randomly adding ingredients ... like olive oil to a pie crust might not be the best choice, but you don't know what the pie crust will taste like without the olive oil. You don't know what's good or bad or different until you've done it a few times. I mean, we have the fortune of thousands of races behind us so that we're able to very easily pivot. Especially for a novice coxswain, get the race plan. Talk to your rowers. Be prescribed for the first few times. Understand the feedback that they need and ask for - the first few times. And then start, you know, going all Julia Child. (Breana, you can google who that is, too ... saying.) 

ANNE: And Sally - you just provided a perfect example of trying to tailor the content of the message that you just delivered to an audience that might be into cooking. So thanks for giving that real time example. And I also appreciate what you both talk about in terms of skill development, right? That's an important thing and we want coxswains at all different levels to enjoy this podcast. So we're talking to people from the beginning of their careers to those people who are more advanced and have more experience. And if you listeners have suggestions, let's hear them as well because we're going to learn from each other. I'd like to pivot just a little bit about another type of feedback that we might need to provide, and it's something that I struggle with from time to time. And it's 'discipline'. It's a regathering of the team - either an individual or the team as a group - and an example is: if there's talking in the boat. What do you both think about things related to (sort of) structure or discipline?

BREANA: Like you Anne, I've also let this area slip sometimes, I might say. Like, I was very attracted by the discipline side of rowing - as other people who've come from a sport or activity such as marching band as we have - that requires that ... where that's (you know) lauded and valuable. People, you know, who come from that environment may feel the same. But I've slacked sometimes with little things, you know. It's hard to know the balance between something like: okay, on our team we let it run and then we put all the blades down together. And if you just had a really hard piece and three seat just goes ahead and just sits easy before (you know) the whole rest of the boat is at arms away  ... waiting for your command to drop the blades ... sometimes I let that slide. You know, I try to read the situation and decide - is this the right time to get really harsh and be a disciplinarian or is it better for us to focus on (you know) celebrating how that really hard piece went - or something like that. Similarly, you know, the occasional talking in the boat. Is this the right time to get pedantic and disciplinary about it and assert your authority just because you can, or are there times (you know) where you can let something slide in the name of the spirit of what's going on in the practice? And I think there is a way to find a balance here between maintaining discipline and maintaining your authority ... but also not becoming someone that the rowers hate. There's a way to be someone that they respect. But I'll own that I don't always hold myself to the standards that I'd like to sometimes. 

SALLY: Well, I'm kind of like huh - standards? There are rules? Should we be following them? I don't see it as lax, Breana, in you. I just see it as that you're prioritizing what needs to be done. Lax to me connotates lazy, and these are words I don't actually associate with you. 

BREANA: Well thanks. 

SALLY: I think the primary thing is safety and if anything's going on that - in any way - puts the boat in danger or potential danger, that's when I really come down hard. But I think words are weapons and I can yell and scream and drop the f-bomb and do all these things, but I think it was Machiavelli who said once, 'You use something, it's gone forever'. So once I use my temper ... once I use that shock value to snap all the rowers in ... it's not going to carry the same weight. If, like, they didn't slap their oars down together, like phooey, we look bad in a sports graphics picture - versus they didn't bury their blades and we're going to hit the bridge abutment. In giving feedback, I weigh how serious the situation is . The other thing I really pay attention to is (because I do cox a wide spectrum of people ... from people who don't know how to, or choose not to feather in the middle of a race ... to former national champions and Olympians) and their expectations and their behaviors and their rote knowledge is so drastically different. I might get on the ex-national teamers case mostly because it's fun and their feet are tied in and they can't hurt me in the moment about you know not following protocol, but the novice who's just terrified and a puddle of emotions and doesn't know not to talk - if I use a harsh word there, I will destroy them. I will destroy this moment. I will destroy what could be a beautiful and self-achieving event. So I try not to (unless we're gonna die, which there have been times I was full-on convinced we're gonna do 'Thelma and Louise' with an eight over a dam or something), but unless something like that is going to happen, I try to mitigate my feedback and my voice situationally like that. And recognize and appreciate some rowers just ... they don't know to be disciplined and it's not their fault. They just haven't lived through it yet. 

ANNE: Yes, what I'm hearing you both say is something actually I also try to ascribe to - which is that you reserve that really, really firm commanding voice (or verbal feedback) for really truly unsafe things ... things that are either about to happen, or you're preventing them from happening. You know, like people who are looking back at the dock as you're landing, for example. I tend to be pretty firm and directive about not looking back at the dock because it shifts the trajectory of the boat. So if it happens repeatedly or there's something else that's unsafe, I'm going to be incredibly direct. 

SALLY: One of the things to think about, too, is people don't often have coxswains ... people don't often have skilled coxswains, so they have been on their own and thinking independently how to dock - how to do these things - so when somebody gives you feedback on docking, they're not always insulting you, they're letting known their fears. I have been in this situation and even though I think I am 6'2", 220 (very svelte, very buff), I'm not. And I am a little tiny girl on a dock with a bunch of 6'4" old men who have been coxing even before I was born, and sometimes it's hard to get your authority in that situation. And I will tell you right now, you are not going to get authority by screaming at them. If you're trying to talk and this 64-year-old guy is looking back behind you and he rowed for Harvard and then the Olympic team and then he was the first one to row on Mars (because he's awesome), you are still the coxswain. Assert your role, but if you come out and you come out shrieking, you are reinforcing his impression that you are a little nervous girl. But if I say, "Oh come on now, Bob, all of us have jobs. Yours is to pull hard. You did that - way to go. Let me try to dock". Or he's giving you feedback ... you need to do this and this with the wind and you did, "Oh that's awesome. I didn't appreciate the current, Bob. Thank you so much for telling me, now let me focus so I can do this right". You know, there's a way of talking to them that they feel heard and you still get to do what you need to do. If I go, "Bob, I'm a coxswain for 48 years" and I start yelling, they're never going to hear it. But if we're approaching the dock and he's helped  - or worse yet, he starts tapping with his oar and I've lined up the bow - there are better ways of handling that situation than just like being a little girl and stomping. And I would like to just state: I have had the princess ballerina stomp and twirl fit ... where yelling and shrieking. It doesn't help. It really doesn't help. 

ANNE: Well, I like the specific sort of words that you're offering us - you're giving us some options and ways to approach things. And isn't that really what we're trying to convey here is that there are numbers of ways and sometimes better ways ... but emphasizing that it's about knowing your audience, right? It takes you back to the opening remarks that you had, Sally, about the importance of that. And when you're not familiar with a crew these skills are even more critical, right? And speaking of different crews, I know each one of us has coxed a boat (or boats) that the rowers are from a totally different region or country. So what do we need to keep in mind when we jump into those boats? 

SALLY: If you have the time and you have the luxury, trying to talk with your crews beforehand. Because just saying, "Hey, this is the command I give to stop ... when you hear 'way enough' or 'easy all' or 'let it run' ... what do you do?" Because I will tell you - just like there are accents in this country - there are regional accents and dialects to rowing. And you can say 'way enough' in one crew and that means they arms and gunnel the blades away. You can say 'way enough' to another crew and they hold water and break the boat. So knowing the difference is super, super, super critical ... because I have said the wrong thing at the wrong time and it has ended up very wrong. 

BREANA: This has been so important, especially the more diverse coxing experiences I've been able to have, but I don't think there's any harm in acquiring this (you know) flexibility as early as possible in your career. Because yeah, regional differences on a global scale - we have completely different rowing terminology in some countries. So anytime I'm coxing an international boat that I want to stop, every possible phrase comes out. We got: let it run.... we got 'way enough' ... we got 'easy all'. But even just, you know, to unpack one of those: 'easy' (typically an American rowing) means to go lighter but continue rowing. But if you say that to a British athlete, they're gonna stop. So it's important to understand all these different things. Again, for safety purposes, we're in a crowded international race ... we're in the warm-up lane ... someone has abruptly stopped in front of us and we got to curtail our start that we're practicing immediately ... and so I just am busting out every phrase that I have. But even within the United States, if you especially have just had your coxing career concentrated in one region thus far, you may not be aware that there are completely different terms in other parts of the country - subtle little things that, you know. You maybe went through your high school or college career thinking were the words that the rowing world used. You may be surprised to discover that they're different. So one that comes to mind for me is the idea of the boat being 'set' - which I have said my whole life - a term that some California athletes that I know use is 'on keel' instead. So we're talking about the same thing ... the idea that the boat is going straight through the water, not tilting to port or starboard, but it's a completely different term. So if you have, you know, moved to a new area or you're hopping into a boat for a team that's from a different place, it can be worthwhile to learn these things or at least realize them on the fly. You know, you say, "Hey, the boat's not set, like, can we fix that" and then stroke seat gives you a weird look, you may (you know) want to describe a little bit. And if you have the luxury of time (again) and ask them, "Like, what's your word for this phenomenon because we all feel it and let's learn this so that we can improve and be speaking the same language you know - literally - together". And I would say these skills are really critical especially (again) the more diverse experiences you have. Oftentimes, people give well-meaning advice to coxswains which is - just get to know your crew and then have a shorthand with them so that by the time you're on race day, you can just say 'sit up' or I've even heard coxswains as far as saying a word like 'hey' and the athletes know what that means. But if you have not had the luxury of spending months, you know, working with the same team (which you may not have had), no matter what scenario you're coxing in, that approach is not necessarily going to work. So it also behooves you to have this backup skill set of immediate flexibility where you may literally ... all you have is the row up to the start line to establish your shared language. So it takes a special ability, I would argue, to be able to assess what's going on and come to the best common (you know) shared understanding that you can in the time that you're given. 

SALLY: I think keeping it fluid and remembering it's not about you. If you gave this command and it always has worked in the past, that's awesome. But remember, just because they aren't following the words doesn't mean they're disrespecting you. It just might mean they don't understand. And I think that's an important thing to remember about giving feedback is: if they don't do it, is it because they physically can't do it - they are too exhausted? Is it because they don't understand what you're telling them? Or is it just that they can't do it ... it's not in their physiological makeup? And in giving this feedback, if I am riding three seat because she is not doing this or he is not doing that and I keep picking on them and I keep trying to get this (aside from the safety issues like, you know, bridge abutment ... dock ... other boat) and they don't do it, I shouldn't get mad and upset. This isn't happening out of disrespect, because I think that falls into a whole other feedback loop, just being aware and understanding sometimes they don't understand you ... which is really hard when your adrenaline is pumping. 

ANNE: Yes, I totally hear you, Sally, and it's sometimes important when you give feedback of whatever nature and there is not any response - or a response that you expected that feedback to generate - then the first step is to: A) don't react ... don't let that get to you. Your job is to be creative and to come up with something that works, something different that works, because repeating the same thing over and over is going to be very counterproductive for all parties concerned. And I think also, sometimes, in terms of giving feedback, let's talk about the fact that sometimes you - as the coxswain - may understand that the row is being affected (or some particular move is being affected) by just one or a couple of individuals in a larger boat, but sometimes I've found that it pays to (kind of) give feedback to the entire boat that is addressing the problems originating a few. But if you give general feedback, often things will correct - rather than sort of picking on those one or two individuals, and particularly when there's a race scenario. 

BREANA: I've definitely taken that approach before, especially, yeah - race stereos absolutely and scenarios of mixed skill levels we could say ... or maybe about of all novices ... or a boat that's kind of a mix. I think very experienced rowers are sometimes yearning for individualized feedback and if you give a correction to a very experienced boat that's really only for one or two people, I think sometimes well-meaning rowers who are doing the right thing interpret that as, 'Oh I should make a change'. And I've had them, you know, give that kind of feedback before - like, 'Well who is it who's not tapping down?' But in a mixed skill level boat, it's important to