Try this - from a dead stop drive with nothing but your legs.  Hang onto the oars without a death grip on the handles.  Just curl the ends of your fingers over the handles and let that be the only connection between your legs and the oars.  No forearms, no biceps, just your arms extended as if you were hanging on to the oars like a pull up bar.  Relax your forearms and your wrists and just let your hooked fingers transmit the drive of your legs to the oars.

It takes a bit of focus to come to realization of the concept.  The best exercise I’ve found is to repeat the exercise from a dead stop.  It will reinforce the negative aspects of introducing your arms too early in the drive, and give you a better feel of how little is actually required of your hands to “hang” on to the oars during the drive.  If you find yourself getting out of control when driving from a dead stop it is almost a guarantee you are either trying to drive with your arms too early, death gripping the oars, or a combination of the two.  Just relax and enjoy the ride.

Try it and see what you think.

In the November 2006 piece Quick Catches by Tom Bohrer there’s a nice visualization you can use to perfect your technique of coming into the body with the oars from mid-drive to completion.  Most of us have the tendency to draw our elbows in to the body when completing the drive.  Bohrer suggests envisioning that you’re pulling your arms across a table.  If done properly this keeps your forearms parallel to the water, elbows away from the body, and perhaps most important - keeps your shoulders low and relaxed.

Give it a shot next time you’re on the water.

Let’s row! 

Until one is totally comfortable in the boat and can row a straight corse in a light crosswind, don’t row if the wind speed is 10 mph or higher.

As most of you are aware, the winds on our lake are unpredictable and can beome gusty in a moment.  If you do get caught out in conditions you’re are struggling with, here are a few thoughts that will help you get back to the dock:

1) Try to row dead into the wind or dead with it.  It is the corsswind that is hard to handle and puts water in your boat.

2)  Into the wind, shorten your stroke and maintain momentum.  It requires far more energy to accelerate the boat if the wind and chop stop it on each stroke.  Although it is conter-intuitive, relaxing when rowin rough water is imperative.  The boat will stay right side up if YOU let it.

3)  If you find yourself surfing white caps north up the lake from the shelter of Garland Road, be sure you get into our cove.  If you get north of the point east of our House, you may have to walk home (did y’all know that point is Roxanne Point?).

4)  Sometimes you may have to row a course that isn’t the most direct route home.  Rowing along the shore all the way around may be safer way to get home than cutting straight across the lake.

5)  Use common sense!  If in doubt, don’t leave the dock.

The transition from the finish to being ready for the catch should be a smooth one, not rushed.  Nothing is served by hurrying the transition out of the bow and into the catch position - quite the opposite.   You want to get your weight out of the bow as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of a smooth run of the boat.  At the finish you should feather your oars and smoothly transition your weight out of the bow - led by the hands, but let the boat run underneath you.  You should be able to bring yourself out of the bow without depending too heavily on the straps on your feet - if you do then you’re probably throwing your back too far into the bow.  A whole ‘nother issue we’ll address in the next tip. 

If you’re curious as to your rowing technique and its effect on the boat try this tip - trail a 4 or 5 foot piece of string behind you next time you row.  Pull out the rubber stopper in the stern and insert enough string inside to hold it in place.  PUT THE STOPPER BACK IN!  Start your row and watch the string - if you start seeing an “S” pattern forming at either end of your drive/finish you are checking the boat.  Strive to keep the string flowing straight behind the boat.  Checking is inevitable on either end of the drive cycle - just strive to mitigate the disruption of the run of the boat.

Let’s row!

Over the coming months we are going to try and develop a series aimed at providing thoughts, ideas, visual and physical references, and drills to better your rowing technique.  Some of these will be personal observations, but we will try and also include quotes from books on the subject, and guidance from our more senior members with teaching experience such as Sam Leake, Ginger Twichell, John Mullen, and Dave Hirsch.  I am sure there are going to be differences of opinion in some of the things we will post here, but we will endeavor to keep the tips in a generic format and provide them with the beginner primarily in mind. And should these differences come up, we can always use them as a springboard for further discussions on the matter at hand.

The first in this series is aimed at assisting you in gaining an appreciation of the importance of the legs in the drive. The books are full of descriptions on maladies affecting the rower not properly using their legs: shooting the tail, breaking the arms, throwing the shoulders, etc.

I received the following tip from Dave Hirsch during an early morning row - set the catch with the initiation of the leg drive, not with the arms or shoulders.  As you are recovering (coming out of the bow) the goal to keep in mind is to work your way into the catch position as you’re coming back up the slide. In other words you don’t want to get into the catch position at the very last minute. As you’re coming up the slide, your arms should be extended as you slowly bend forward from the hips (not the waist). Thus by the time you’ve fully compressed your legs into the stern all you have to do is drop the oars and drive with the legs. You can see the effect of doing this improperly by watching the waves coming off of the stern. You want to minimize dipping or checking of the boat by providing a smooth transition of your weight from the bow to the stern.  Too much abrupt fore and aft shifting of your weight checks the boat and slows you down. Watch that wake!

If you’ve managed this successfully all that is required upon reaching full compression of your body is to let the oars drop to the water and begin the push with your legs. Your arms stay extended and your body should by and large remain centered over the seat.  Only as you are reaching the extent of your leg drive should the arms and shoulders be brought to bear to complete the stroke. The back and arms at the early stage of the drive should only be providing the connection between your legs and the oars.

Try this:  from a dead stop slowly work your way into the catch position. The moment the oars hit the water initiate a strong leg drive like you would at the start of a race. Do not continue through to a full finish - just see what you can do with your legs alone. (When doing this exercise, you can simply release at mid-slide.  Drop your hands to pop the blades out of the water and feather them. Either that or just feather them at the end of the leg drive and let them glide on the water’s surface.)  When you are out actually rowing, particularly if you are a beginner, it is perhaps more important to get both oars in the water cleanly, feeling some reisistance on the blades, then accelerating through the stroke.  If you need a little shoulder lean to make a clean catch then so be it.  As you become more comfortable with your oar handling skills, then you can start focusing more on the skill provided above

If your lower body is not connected properly to the oars you will have a less than successful run.  If the boat doesn’t go anywhere you’re likely “shooting the slide.” This is essentially you pushing the seat toward the bow but the oars have hardly moved - your legs weren’t connected to the oars.  You lose a lot of power this way.  If the boat runs askew, or worse yet you’ve “caught a crab” (the oar dives on you and pulls the boat rapidly over to that side - i.e. the blade is at less than the optimum drive angle), then you’re very likely trying to influence the run of the boat by using either your arms or shoulders too early in the drive.

Try the drill several times until you begin to feel the connection your upper body should be providing at the onset of the drive.  A smooth, powerful, and straight run will occur when you start making this connection correctly.

Another good indication that you’re not using your legs to their full potential is your arms, particularly your forearms, are excessively fatigued early on in your row. They’re being used too early in the drive.

Good luck, and let’s row!