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BREANA: Welcome to CoxPod, a podcast dedicated to coxing topics. I'm Breana.  

ANNE: I'm Anne. We're experienced coxswains who continue to learn a great deal from the broader coxing community  and from sharing with each other. Our primary goal is to promote ongoing skills development, and we're happy you're joining us.

BREANA: I've been spending a lot of time at sprint races  and I've got some audio to share with you, Anne.

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Audio clip – “Two minutes. Two minutes. Everybody get their point. Lane four – get your point – lane four. Lane three get your point.”

ANNE: Wow,  that audio clip sends us straight to the start line.  And for me personally as a coxswain, that is one of the most intense times possible.  So I just want to take a breath. Okay, now I am at the start area. But if you think about why it's so intense, there are so many responsibilities that we have as coxswains,  and we are trying to execute a large number of complex tasks in a very compressed timeframe and high stakes environment. So that is kind of setting the stage for where the audio clip of “Get your point” takes me at least.  What about you? Maybe you're cool, calm, and collected, but for me, that's an intense spot. 

BREANA: No, I completely agree. It is a super stressful time when we're up there at the start line of a sprint race trying to get our points.  And over time,  I have added to my own repertoire of techniques for executing this maneuver, which helps. It does help to have more in your tool belt, but it's still stressful, if I'm being honest. 

ANNE: Well, let's explore a little bit more about what those techniques might be because while you've added to your repertoire, I personally have actually abandoned at least one technique that was taught to me early in my career. So what do you say we go right into that high stakes, high pressure environment where we have  already executed at least one of the complex tasks there, which is to get our boats positioned either attached to a stake boat or - if we're at a floating start into our lanes - as best as we possibly can.

Audio clip – “Lane four, get your point. Lane four, get your point. Get your point. Everybody get their point.  Get your point. Get your point Lane three, get your point.” 

ANNE: The phrase that we've heard – “Get your point” - now is a very rowing--specific term, isn't it?  And  we should clarify for those who are just new to the sport what that might mean and why it's important. And in this particular case, who's saying it? I mean - whose voice is that in these audio clips? 

BREANA: Usually you're going to be hearing this from the starter - that's a race official who is positioned behind (typically) all of the boats that are about to go off the start. So they're very well positioned to see whether all of the competitors have their points.  And what that really means is that we are getting oriented in our lanes. We are centered with our bow pointing directly through the middle of our lane. That is the ideal.  And that is what that starting official is perceiving from their vantage point. So when they say, “Get your point” to a crew or to all of the crews, there's something they don't like about the way that the boats are oriented because they know,  as we also know as coxswains, that where our bows are pointed is where our boat is going to go. So the officials are looking at that and predicting the trajectories of the boats because they're motivated to create a fair and safe start for us. A lot of us have probably been in that situation as coxswains where two boats collide right off the start and nobody likes that. We might have to restart - there might be equipment damage, injuries…. that's not an ideal situation. So the officials are saying, “Get your point” for that reason. And we as coxswains also care because we are aiming to have the straightest possible course so that we can take our boat down that sprint race course over the shortest possible distance.  

ANNE: The coxswains and the race officials ultimately have the same goal in mind. So it pays for us to all work together. They are not doing that to harass us. They are doing their best to help the crews, again, have the best race possible. Under what circumstances (then) do we hear, “Get your point.  Get your point”? While it's true that in some racing scenarios that is not heard a lot, in my experience, we most often hear these words from the officials when weather is bad … when there's a lot of wind and it's blowing your boats around and we're having trouble keeping our boats in the lane that we're going to be racing in.  So you will hear this repeatedly, over and over, as the officials are waiting for us - or attempting to guide us into  getting  our bow ball pointed towards the middle of the lane towards the finish line. 

BREANA: So to reiterate, ’getting your point’ is ultimately just about adjusting the trajectory of your bow, which is indicative of the direction that your boat is going to travel when you start rowing.

ANNE: And it's our job as coxswains to accomplish this, whether or not the officials are instructing us to do this. We definitely need to take the responsibility of ‘getting our point’, but we will hear it from the officials also. 

BREANA: And how do we do this? How do we accomplish this important coxing task? We have to think about the fact that our normal rowing techniques - if we want to change the trajectory of our boat -  are not going to work here. If I just have a rower on one side take a full stroke, that's going to propel the boat forward and either move me forward out of position in my lane if it's a floating start, or if I'm attached to a stake boat, it might pull my stern out of the hands of the stake boat holder. So a technique that many people advocate and adopt to deal with this situation of adjusting just where the bow is pointed is called ‘sculling it around’ - where one rower passes their oar to another rower. So let's imagine I'm in an eight - I have a traditionally port-rigged, stroke side rigged boat - and the wind is pushing me to my starboard side. So I'm tilted now too far to starboard and I need to center back out in my lane. In that case, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna direct bow seat - who has a starboard oar - to pass their oar up to two seat who is still holding their own oar. So for a moment, they're holding two oars. They're gonna reach back with their left hand and grab the outside of bow seat’s handle with an overhand grip. And then they are just gonna take arms-only strokes. It's an awkward position - they're gonna keep that blade on the square and tap it around with short and quick arms-only strokes. And the advantage of this technique is that the blade is so much closer to the hull than it would be if bow seat was manipulating their own oar. So even though it's kind of this awkward position - two seat has turned around - they are sculling it around and that accomplishes our goal of moving just the bow without pulling the boat forward or backward, as another maneuver might do. 

ANNE: It's a little bit complicated, isn't it? 

BREANA: It is. And it can get more complicated than that. So if the conditions are so windy that just one seat doing that is not enough, you might have to recruit more than one person. I've been in conditions where it is so incredibly windy that not only is two seat reaching back and sculling bow seat’s oar, but four seat is reaching back and sculling three seat’s oar. And I've even seen it be so windy that six seat is reaching back and sculling five seat’s oar. So we have three oars on one side tapping it around. Obviously the conditions are quite bad at that point. But my best advice for that circumstance is that those rowers need to be doing quick, short strokes - just like if one person were doing it - and they have to be doing it together and they have to be doing it constantly. If one person loses faith and starts looking around and stops rowing and says, “Oh no, it's not working, what are we gonna do?”, that's when you're gonna get blown right back to where you were from the wind. So when I'm in these situations, I'm putting on a calm but firm tone and I'm reassuring the rowers that they need to continue to do this together. Sometimes I'll even use my voice to sort of indicate what I want. I'll say, “We're all gonna chop, chop, chop, chop”. And I personally - when the conditions are very bad and the rowers are getting nervous and I'm nervous, too - I reassure them as soon as I see it working. They're hauling and I'm telling them, “It's working … it's working. Keep going … keep going. I'll tell you when to stop. Keep going together … it's working, we're moving.” And I'm reassuring myself quietly but also them that it is having an effect and eventually you will get that bow straightened out. But sometimes it takes a lot of bodies involved in that process.

ANNE: What you're describing is part of that intensity that I was talking about earlier when I was talking about the start and what we need to do as coxswains. So that is quite a complex maneuver there, Breana, but I like the way that you described it. And now that you've described that particular way of ‘getting your point’ by passing an oar and one person sculling the bow of the boat one direction or the other, I'll share now that that's the technique that I was trained in, but I have abandoned. I find that it is too difficult and too risky at the start of a race to be passing oars back and forth. Often there's a super quick start in these very windy conditions because the minute the aligner or the starter sees that the boats are - for the most part - aiming in the right direction and have as good a point as they possibly can, they want to get those boats going. So you might ask me,  “Anne, If you don't pass oars, what in the world do you do?”  And this is what I now have adopted as my go-to way of getting and maintaining my point when the weather conditions dictate that I need to do that. And also just sometimes when we're not backed in exactly straight, I may have to just do this once., But if it's windy, I'm going to be doing this particular maneuver repeatedly, as Breana points out, until things are squared away appropriately. And that is - in the scenario where the bow is (again) being pushed by the wind or whatever to starboard side and I need to move it more to port to get centered in the lane - I will have two seat back and bow seat row. It's just arms only and it's very short, direct strokes, but they are doing it together. So again, the net effect is that we are not moving the boat forward at all. This is just merely moving the bow of the boat to the left with two rowers working in opposition to one another. And in this case, my verbal commands go something like this - and this is my vocabulary… other people may have different vocabulary - but I'll say, “Bow will row, two will back. Two strokes. Ready, go”. And they'll take those two strokes. And then I will see if that has corrected. If it hasn't, I'll say, “Two more”.  Or “One more”. I will tell them how many strokes. If  for some reason they overcorrect and now we're imagining that the bow ball has shifted too far to port side, all I need to say to them - because we've practiced this - is the word “reverse”. And they know then that bow seat is going to back and two will row. And that will hopefully bring the bow ball exactly where we need it to be. Sometimes I use the word ‘chipping’, so I'll say “Chip”. You could say ‘tap’. Other coxswains like Breana might say ‘chop’. There are a bunch of words, but these are short, super short, firm strokes to counter whatever's going on. Sounds easy, but it's not.  And the key thing is that they have to be sure that they extract the blades when they finish their maneuver all the way so that when they go to take that next stroke, they don't undo what they just did. If they're backing, for instance, and then they leave their blade in the water to go back to that backing position, they're undoing it. That's an exercise in futility and frustration. And this is equally important as the time to the actual start of the race gets closer and closer. So we have to practice making the maneuver, extracting the blade entirely, and then going right up to the three-quarter slide catch position, which is where our standard start sequence is.

BREANA:  I love that as an alternative strategy, Anne. It has a lot of advantages over some more traditional approaches and it's part of my repertoire as well.  A modification on that that I have used in low wind conditions is to have rowers at opposite ends of the boat rowing and backing. I used this this season in a four where  I got locked onto the stake boat at a pretty bad angle. Again, very low wind, which is why I felt comfortable deploying this strategy. So all I had in this case was my bow seat lightly rowing arms only and my stroke seat at the opposite end of the boat lightly backing arms only. And the two of them just lightly,’ gently maneuvering together got us oriented in our lane from that pretty bad angle that we had initially locked on at, but also kept our stern in the hands of our stake boat holder. So that's another option. If the wind is really, really bad, I have also employed another person on the opposite side backing to help me with that. So I've had situations where two seat is sculling bow seat’s oar, four seat is sculling three seat’s oar and stroke seat is backing - all to shift me from the starboard side to the port side in that example. 

ANNE: You've had way too much experience, Breana, with big winds at the start area. 

BREANA: It has certainly forced me to expand my repertoire of possible strategies. 

ANNE: How about if we quickly talk about times when there isn't a huge wind, but we just might need a small correction? What would you recommend in that case then, Breana? 

BREANA: Yeah, I think of this as just like a tiny little maintenance tap, if you will, which can be just one person. You're going to pick bow seat, two seat - whoever you need towards the bow of the boat - to take one tiny little tap, arms only. We want that blade traversing just a couple inches in the water. Again, nothing big. We're not trying to ratchet the boat out of the hands of a stake-boat holder or out of alignment in a floating start. So have that rower come all the way up to the catch, get that blade behind them as far as they can - that's their own blade. To  really seal it, you can even have them reach out with inside arm only and just take a light, little stroke … one or two … whatever is needed to slightly adjust that bow. I've also used this as a last minute strategy if I don't have time for someone to pass an oar around or orchestrate a whole pair rowing and backing. Maybe I know that it's going to be a second before the start begins because the starter has already started polling the crews, but they're going to need to say six, seven, eight names. So I've got a minute, but not long enough for anything fancy. I might quickly ask someone to take one of these little maintenance taps to just get us better oriented in the lane. So there's a couple of situations where you might use that.

ANNE: I really enjoy that phrase - maintenance tap - think that's a keeper for me. Thanks for sharing.  And I also will occasionally employ this - in particular, as you point out, when the start is just about to be called, because you do not want any major motions going on. You want all the rowers to be as close to the starting position as possible. So I will potentially have all the rowers sitting at, again, the three-quarter slide, which is where their first stroke takes place and have one person keep that position, but just gently, gently tap their oar. Again, the emphasis being generally light, quick,  and only two or three inches long. I mean, these are super finesse moves at that time of the starting sequence. At least now we've described several methods for ‘getting our point’. 

BREANA: And this suite of options leads into a discussion about how to choose between those different ways of manipulating our point. And our choice of which strategy really depends on a variety of things.  One is whether you have practiced these techniques. If you haven't practiced anything, you're not going to have any success showing up at the start and then saying, “Three, scull two”, and waiting to see what happens.  If the rowers don't know what that language means or how to execute that, that's absolutely not going to work, especially when as another consideration, there's going to be a very quick start. So if we're anticipating a quick start, if our rowers don't have the skills, we're gonna lean towards that everybody holding their own oar - one person rowing, one person backing, chipping along (as Anne termed it) to get that bow to its point. 

ANNE: And Breana, your point is there isn't a huge advantage from a mechanical standpoint … one over the other. It depends on what you've practiced and what the rowers are capable of doing because many people still pass an oar. I have witnessed that and they do a fine job. But again, this is where a coxswain skill level, the crew skill level all comes into play. You've got to know what you're ready to do and to execute and what can be done quickly under pressure because that's the scenario we're talking about right here. Another factor that goes into which  strategy we choose can be the conditions.  Generally, we've been speaking about wind.  Is it a steady wind blowing from one direction? Is it coming from one side and then the other? Is there dead calm and then all of sudden you'll get this big gust of wind?  These things are really important to take into account and can dictate which method that you select. And again, Breana's just already described where she has to add in rowers. If it's a steady, heavy wind from one side, then yes, she's going to take more than one rower to get that correction. 

BREANA: Another thing that will factor into your decision is how long you anticipate that you have before the start is called. Your goal is to get your crew ready to go when “Attention. Go” is said. So if you're looking around and you notice, oh, one of the other competitors in another lane is 50 meters down in the lane off the stake boat, it's going to be a while. I've got time for someone to pass up an oar … do a longer version of a correction versus the most extreme situation that the starter has already started calling the names of the crews.  So take a look at that piece of information. I had a race where I was sitting on the start line for such a long time while everyone else got attached and aligned … and this was in a four … that I ended up having to alternate between strategies because I was just concerned about tiring my rowers out before we even actually took a single real stroke of the race. Because I was in a four, I had fewer options of what I could do. So, the whole time I have stroke seat just lightly backing arms only to contribute to getting me moved towards the port side in this case. And then what I did was I alternated between bow seat reaching out with their inside arm only and tapping their own oar and when they got tired, they would pass it up to two seat who would turn around and tap with that same bow oar.  And  I just kept switching back and forth between those two individuals. I could never stop because the wind was constantly blowing. And if I did stop, I would no longer be pointed properly in my lane, but I just was concerned about those rowers having super tired arms as they started. So that was the approach I took to swap back and forth. 

ANNE: As I said earlier, and I'm sticking to it, there is so much complexity that goes into this time of a sprint race. This start line area - it can be very, as I had said, intense. And what you're talking about is part of that intensity … is being situationally aware of what the other boats in your race are doing and where they  are in getting prepared to start. You know … what the officials are saying, what the weather conditions, or in some cases - let's keep in mind - that it also could be a current that's part of the environmental factor that you need to keep in mind. So, situational awareness of all these things, including your crew, who by the way, are probably quite anxious and excited and hyped up and ready to go and subtlety is not necessarily in their mind. So this is a combination of technical work, coaching,  reassuring, directing, keeping focus within the crew, all the while (by the way), making sure that when they call “Go” and the flag goes down, that your bow ball - at that precise moment - is best situated to go straight down the course towards the finish line.  And I cannot think of even one race where we just sat super easy until they started polling crews and went up to the catch. Even if there are no windy conditions or other factors … wakes that might be moving our boats around, just a rower shifting in their seat … can change the trajectory of the boat.  People reaching down, getting their last drink of water, somebody blinking. I mean, we know how sensitive the boats are. All of these things affect our boats and we need to  be cognizant of all of that and not pull ourselves off the stake boat or lose our alignment with the other boats. So, wow, it's something else, isn't it?  And so I'm glad that we've talked about options and also how we might choose one option or use multiple options for ‘getting our point’ during any one particular start. The one thing for sure, though, is that both you and I are in 100 % agreement that prior practice of this will not only help us feel more comfortable - the rowers know what to do - but also it's going to position our crew when they call “Go” to be in the best position that we possibly can be. 

BREANA: You were describing, Anne, how the goal we all have is to have our bow ball optimally positioned right at the moment that “Go” is called by the starting official.  And sometimes that requires some work on our part to predict (again) when that word “Go” is going to be said. So if it is really windy, maybe as the official is starting the start procedure, I'm actually still pointed into the wind a little bit because I know that in the final moment when everybody's squared … at the start … I have no final opportunity for anyone to take any maintenance strokes. That wind is going to push my bow right into the perfect position and I'm trying to time it so that that works that way. Other times, maybe I'm purposely not pointed exactly centered down my lane because I know from my practice starts on the way up, that my lineup is not perfectly balanced off the start. Maybe every single practice start I did, we were pulling hard to the port side - which means that maybe I'm intentionally going to point my bow to the starboard side a little bit before we get started so that I end up pulling to the center of my lane.  And we have an entire episode back in Episode 24 - we talked about preparing on the way up to the start of a sprint race. So for more on those practice starts and how to gauge them, check that Episode out. But that's a situation where my bow is intentionally not going to be centered in the lane. 

ANNE: Those are really important points, Breana. And I guess I said ‘points’ while we're talking about ‘getting your point’.  Those are really important observations and decisions that need to be made, Breana, based on (again) the ultimate goal, which is to have our crews have the best race they possibly can. It's our job to position them for that. And if it means that your bow ball is not exactly pointed from a starter's point of view, it looks like it's angled a bit, and you know that that's where it needs to be so that those first two strokes correct and get us straight, that's our job to do that and go ahead and do that. And I think that certainly for myself and I want to sort of remind myself and then also reassure other coxswains - that having all of our bow balls sort of all aligned … pretty in a row … aiming right for the middle of our lane is --- that's a dream. That's an aspiration. I have rarely seen that be the case. Our objective is the best possible and it's a lot of judgment calls that are being made and just do the best that we can. Share with us in Discord. Certainly if you have seen that ideal state, I can't wait to hear about it. But my reality has been much more that everybody's a little bit askew … we're generally aiming in the right direction … and then, you know, do our best to be in the best position possible when the flag drops and the starter says, “Go”. And before we transition into talking about where else we might hear the words, ‘Get your point’, I think we really do need to comment on the practice of raising your hand to indicate that you're not quite ready … that your point is not exactly where you need it to be at the start of a race. 

BREANA: This might be something that your coach has told you that you should do, or maybe you see other coxswains doing it, or you've heard that you should do it - even though in the United States we have officially done away with that practice in our rules of rowing. I think the most important thing to understand is that your mileage may vary with that strategy. So just be prepared, as we've been emphasizing, for your boat to go when “Attention. Go” is said. Get your bow in the best possible position.  And don't count on you having your hand raised  as something that's going to stop the official from calling the start. 

ANNE: Yes, indeed. I've seen both scenarios play out. It may hold. It may not. But we just want to mention that as something that you may be instructed to do. And whether it's going to be effective or not varies from race to race, even though officially in the United States,  it is not part of our rules. And let's be real. It happens a lot of the time that the race is started when the boats are not a hundred percent in alignment and have their points straight down the race course. So, you may be called to start when you don't have the best point possible. And in that case, you've got to steer out of it. We all understand and accept that that is the reality and you just may have to do a little more steering if you don't have your point. Don't feel bad. It's really hard to have a perfect point at the start of every single race. Not really hard. It's impossible practically. Is that right, Breana?

BREANA: Oh yeah, there's hardly a start out there I haven't had to do some manner of steering. I mean, it's a beautiful ideal to think about us just shooting off the line perfectly straight. But as you say, Anne, that is hardly a reality for most of us most of the time. 

ANNE: But we're here to discuss how to best situate yourself no matter what the conditions. Now, I think you have, Breana, one additional important circumstance that you wanted to talk about, though. 

BREANA: Yes, so this is a really extreme situation that has only happened once in my entire coxing career, but I did have to dig deep into the rules of rowing to implement this. What happened was I was in the outermost lane and as the start was being called, a huge gust of wind picked up my bow and turned me almost totally sideways and now I'm pointing  at this humongous orange buoy - one of those big, inflatable buoys that you could probably have 10 people hugging around it, holding hands and they might still not even reach the whole circumference of that thing. And I knew if we started in that moment, we would go directly into that buoy. But the starter was still going. They must not have seen me or whatever was going on. And it became clear to me that they were just going to call the start.  And I told my crew, “Do not go. Do not start when they say ‘go’.” And we didn't. Even though the ‘go’ call did happen … the other boats go off the line … I'm still pointed directly at this horrible buoy.  And they ended up calling everyone back. You know – it was clear I was not in a safe situation to start. They called everybody back, we got realigned, and the next round was perfectly fine. So it was a little harrowing because again, I'd always heard in coaches’ and coxswains’ meetings, “Don't leave the start if you think it's unsafe - you can't protest later if you leave the start” - that kind of thing.  And that is (again), the one time in my entire career that I did actually have to implement that rule because of how extreme and dangerous that situation was going to be.

ANNE: What an impressive display of good judgment on your part. And that takes a lot of courage, actually a lot of self-control and courage, and particularly saying to your rowers, “Do not row. Do not row”. But it was the right decision to make at that time. And that is often in the race packet - that rule.  I do want to also  advise the rest of us though, that not rowing does not pertain to situations where you're just unhappy with where your point is. We're talking about a real safety hazard here - as Breana was describing - where she was going to crash into a buoy if she took some strokes. So don't use the strategy of not leaving the start line if you're just unhappy with where your point is. That will not go well for you. And resetting the stage now: we have heard the polling, we have heard the ‘attention’, the flag has dropped, the word ‘go’ has been said, and we are on our way. But there's a time that you might also hear, “Get your point” after the race has started. So why don't we just chat about that for one moment? 

BREANA: Yeah, I've most frequently observed this when something has started to go wrong right off the start. And so it's often been the starter themselves - kind of in a panic just saying,  “Everybody, get your points”. You know, there is a more formal way that referees might suggest to us that they don't like the trajectory that our boat is going in, which is really what they mean. When they say this during a race,  after we've already all left the start line, they're saying, ‘I don't like the way that some of you are traveling. I don't like the trajectory that your boat is going in. Fix your point so that your boats don't collide’, et cetera. But it comes out in that quick language of “Get your point”. 

ANNE: And usually there's a flag that they are waving in the direction that they want you to go. But our point here …  what we're trying to say is that you may also hear an official yelling, Get your point” as you're going down the race because they want you to adjust your course. Well, I think it's time to move from sprint racing to what the meaning of ‘Get your point’ is in other situations.  So let's talk first about one of my favorites - head racing. 

BREANA: One of my favorites, too. The idea of ‘getting our point’ in a head race is totally different from what we've been discussing so far, which was when the boat was stationary. In the case of head racing, that's not an issue at the start because we are doing a rolling start through a chute. We have episodes on head racing as well. But where we might hear that language of ‘getting your point’ is as we are consuming information in preparation for a race. So before we're even out there, we're going to hear this (potentially) when we are watching videos put out by other coxswains or by regatta organizers. We’re reading the race packet. Maybe we're listening to podcasts to prepare for a particular event. And that's when we might hear various on land or on water landmarks as suggestions of locations to point at at various parts of the race. All head races are gonna have some amount of turns in them. So of course, this is not a point that we're maintaining forever, but at certain positions, maybe you hear ‘As you're coming out of this turn, point at this white building on shore until you're at the apex of the next turn’ and such and such. So that's when we're likely to hear that language. It's not going to be something that an official says to you in a head racing context. 

ANNE: That's well said, Breana. You know, it's a great point … if you forgive me for that.  How about if we now move on to practice scenarios? Now, this is a place that more of us are likely to hear the words, “Get your point. Adjust your point.” … things like that, right, Breana? 

BREANA: Yes. And we're most likely to hear this from our coaches and they're indicating the same thing to us as sprint race officials, which is - adjust something about the trajectory of your boat.  Usually I'm hearing this when I'm in a practice with multiple boats and we're stopped  and we're about to pick back up again, and the coach wants all of us to be able to smoothly move forward from that point without running into each other or without separating really far from each other, too - for keeping the practice as efficient as possible. The coach generally wants us within the same range so that they can coach all of the boats. And that's what they're meaning when they say that. 

ANNE: Exactly. And in this scenario, it's not crucial that your stern stays in one spot. So, I will usually take a different approach to this. I might have one of my bow pair take a few strokes or have a couple of rowers on one side take a few strokes. But most often, because I really want to optimize the crew's time with the coach  and maximize efficiency, I will have the rowers at the opposite ends of the boat working oppositionally to one another. So if I want to point more towards starboard, I will have two seat row and seven seat back. And in just a stroke or two, the entire boat will pivot and we'll be ready to go. We're talking about some times when we might commonly hear the words “Get your point” or “Find your point” in practice. And speaking of practice, we really want to emphasize that you devote specific practice time to practicing these maneuvers that we described, especially about sprint racing starts. We may have to ask our coach for that opportunity to practice. Most coaches send their crews through drill after drill of practicing your starting sequence over and over again (you know) - the first 5, first 10, multiple 1Ks, 2Ks, whatever that may be. That is common practice. A lot less commonly will a coach include in that an opportunity for the crews to execute on changing our point direction. So please, if your coach does not include that,  ask them for that time. At a recent practice, I personally was in that position of needing to ask the coach if we could just have a couple of minutes to practice ‘getting our point’ and include that in every start or almost every starting sequence that we did. That's because I needed to practice the vocabulary and the physical maneuvers with the crew and they found it incredibly beneficial. And I say ‘the crew’ because I would have them sitting at (again) … three-quarter slide is where our first stroke starts. I then have to have them feel what it feels like to have bow pair chipping it around, for instance. So doing that a number of times and then quickly going from that sculling around to “Attention. Go.” really gave them confidence on race day. They understood what the calls were going to be as well as what the boat feels like and how quickly they need to be set and ready to go. 

BREANA: That's so useful, Anne. I'm glad you were able to advocate for that. I had to do that myself at a pre-sprint race practice that I happened to be running alone without a coach.  And I had the entire boat practice the technique of sculling it around. So I started with bow seat passing their oar to two seat, then two seat passing their oar to three seat. And even though it's super unlikely that stroke seat would need to be doing that or something, I had them practice up the entire length of the boat because I also - in this circumstance - wasn't sure what the final lineup would be so I didn't want to only equip the people who were in the bow that day to do that. So I had everyone doing it. And part way through they kind of got into the groove and they were just moving along. Everybody would try until I told them to stop and switch. And it even got to the point that after stroke seat had their turn with seven seat’s oar,  someone else in the boat yelled out, “And now it's your turn, Breana”.  So stroke seat handed their oar up to me and I awkwardly took some strokes with it.  And I was just joking with them saying, “Guys, if we get to this point in the race that I'm doing this, they should cancel the regatta. It's bad.”  So It was kind of fun. It felt special to be included and we made it just a fun moment. And then I was confident that every single person, no matter where the coach would put us in our final lineup, would be prepared for that if they needed to be.

ANNE: I'm just delighted by the vision of that. You know, if I had been near your boat and watching you all pass that oar up and then eventually you holding that oar, Breana, I think I would have burst out laughing. I might have applauded because that's very, very fun. And as we've been talking about ‘getting your point’ and ‘sculling it around’, it just makes me appreciate how many rowing-specific terms there are that coxswains are going to hear.  Quickly you assimilate them, but when you first encounter them, you might wonder, what do they mean? So Breana and I hope that we have fleshed out a lot more about not just what ‘getting your point’ can mean in different scenarios, but also who says it - where you might hear those words. Why would you do that? And most importantly, how to execute those maneuvers specifically in a sprint race setting where it's most often important to have a precise point at the start of the race. 

BREANA: And we can't emphasize enough as a final point for this episode, the value of practice. Really, you are going to be in such a strong position if you take the time to practice these maneuvers with your crews. As we opened by saying, it can be a really stressful time, especially when you're up there at the start of a sprint race, and especially when conditions are bad. So practice, practice, practice can really help make that stressful situation run more smoothly. 

ANNE: Breana, I just find so much value in talking about specific techniques that we can use that benefit our crews. 

And I'm really glad that we devoted an entire episode to this topic because that's what CoxPod is about - providing guidance and helping people think more deeply about what some people take for granted as a part of our knowledge base. I mean, this is something that we need to learn and discuss, right? 

BREANA: That absolutely is our mission. It's the point of CoxPod, if you will. So we are excited to bring you more content soon. And until next time,  I'm Breana.

ANNE: And I'm Anne, signing off for now.