My kids are doing great on our drill work by pairs. Smooth and relaxed rowing, everything going along swimmingly. The jump to rowing all four (in a 4+, not an 8+) throws any and all technical progress out the window. Tap downs at the finish are replaced with that seemingly impossible arms away higher than they came in; swing becomes a defensive hunkering down in the bottom of the boat; a good catch gets rowed in 1/4 slide; oh, and everyone seems to lose it mentally.
We can certainly go by 6s in an 8, but we race fours (third practice yesterday and are finish a month from this weekend), so muscle memory isn't really a possibility.
The simplest question is: shortcuts to consistency going from pairs to all four?
BALANCE!
Moderator: bendtheoar
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JT and Ben
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Re: BALANCE!
I empathize with you big time. Sometimes when I'm coaching novices in 4+s it helps to do a pause drill when I transition from pairs rowing to all four. The pause let's kids collect themselves a bit mentally so their rowing isn't as frantic, it helps with timing, and it can help with the set as well. I usually coach high school girls who sometimes are and sometimes aren't very fit at the beginning of the season on a river that can be really windy--if you're concerned about not having enough speed to keep the boat going straight or about the load getting too heavy with all those pauses then try having them pause every other or every third stroke--that's a good transition to continuous rowing also. Lastly in terms of pause drills I like to have kids pause at half slide. It simulates the balance that you want to feel on the recovery the best, plus it makes it easier to use small adjustments with your knees and hips as well as hand levels to set the boat. I find that when kids in a not set boat pause at arms away or the finish they tend to lean with their torsos in order to try to find some set which is not a habit that you want to develop.
Sorry if this is super obvious, it's the best advice I've got, good luck!
Sorry if this is super obvious, it's the best advice I've got, good luck!
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KiwiCanuck
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Re: BALANCE!
Hmm... Balance is a dynamic thing in racing shells. Forces on both sides of the boat have to balance out. You know this intuitively.
How to make it happen?
I like to use pause drills as one respondent has mentioned. However, I like to have the first pause RIGHT at the RELEASE. As soon as the blades are feathered, with the legs down, handle at the body, blades (in theory) off the water. The object is to send the boat away level and raise the blades off the water the same amount, the same time, the same speed in all four (in this case) seats. IMO pausing at the release helps identify who's taking their blades out, and who's relying on the downward handle movement of other crew members to take their blades out. I prefer to do this every third stroke, with stroke 1 "moderate", stroke 2 "firm" and stroke three "full". (This drill from Rudern, the old East German book on rowing.)
It takes about 20 pauses with slow recoveries for them to start sending the boat away level in the non-pause strokes, in my experience.
Another favourite drill I like is to have them row 2 at a time with ONLY the index finger of the outside hand - and square blades. Partly because the inside hand isn't there to feather/square. Partly so they learn the path that the handle wants to take if the only force on the handle during the drive is horizontal. Partly so they learn how little work it takes to keep the blade off the water. Partly so they learn to NOT dip the blade back toward the water mid-recovery, as many people (myself included) do in a feathered recovery. If they progress from one finger (after they've figgered out how to row level, time the releases together, and recover level without waving the blade up and down) to two fingers, to the entire outside hand, to both hands, to alternating one stroke square and one stroke feathered (ensuring that during the feathered strokes the blade shafts stay just as high off the water as the squared strokes, during the recovery), it should help them learn to work together.
During all of this, I NEVER use the expression "tap down". Research (look up Parr and Button, 2009, for example) has shown that if people pay attention to your hands during (in that study the catch) any movement learning, the learning experience is slower than if they pay attention to the "end point" - in our case the movement of the blade. I use "take the blade off the water" and "take the blade out of the water" - I've found (and I agree with the Parr and Button research, and the work cited in their references) that if people pay attention to the blade, their brain will tell their hands to do the right thing - whatever that is. They also need to pay attention to working WITH their team mates.
When you do the 2-at-a-time rowing (including the one-finger progression) you can mix it up - after you've alternated between bow pair and stern pair, you can have bow and stroke row together - you can have 2 and 3 row together, and you can cycle through the boat. This gives everyone (if they're paying attention) the opportunity to feel how their movements affect the way the boat moves.
that's the "short" version...
How to make it happen?
I like to use pause drills as one respondent has mentioned. However, I like to have the first pause RIGHT at the RELEASE. As soon as the blades are feathered, with the legs down, handle at the body, blades (in theory) off the water. The object is to send the boat away level and raise the blades off the water the same amount, the same time, the same speed in all four (in this case) seats. IMO pausing at the release helps identify who's taking their blades out, and who's relying on the downward handle movement of other crew members to take their blades out. I prefer to do this every third stroke, with stroke 1 "moderate", stroke 2 "firm" and stroke three "full". (This drill from Rudern, the old East German book on rowing.)
It takes about 20 pauses with slow recoveries for them to start sending the boat away level in the non-pause strokes, in my experience.
Another favourite drill I like is to have them row 2 at a time with ONLY the index finger of the outside hand - and square blades. Partly because the inside hand isn't there to feather/square. Partly so they learn the path that the handle wants to take if the only force on the handle during the drive is horizontal. Partly so they learn how little work it takes to keep the blade off the water. Partly so they learn to NOT dip the blade back toward the water mid-recovery, as many people (myself included) do in a feathered recovery. If they progress from one finger (after they've figgered out how to row level, time the releases together, and recover level without waving the blade up and down) to two fingers, to the entire outside hand, to both hands, to alternating one stroke square and one stroke feathered (ensuring that during the feathered strokes the blade shafts stay just as high off the water as the squared strokes, during the recovery), it should help them learn to work together.
During all of this, I NEVER use the expression "tap down". Research (look up Parr and Button, 2009, for example) has shown that if people pay attention to your hands during (in that study the catch) any movement learning, the learning experience is slower than if they pay attention to the "end point" - in our case the movement of the blade. I use "take the blade off the water" and "take the blade out of the water" - I've found (and I agree with the Parr and Button research, and the work cited in their references) that if people pay attention to the blade, their brain will tell their hands to do the right thing - whatever that is. They also need to pay attention to working WITH their team mates.
When you do the 2-at-a-time rowing (including the one-finger progression) you can mix it up - after you've alternated between bow pair and stern pair, you can have bow and stroke row together - you can have 2 and 3 row together, and you can cycle through the boat. This gives everyone (if they're paying attention) the opportunity to feel how their movements affect the way the boat moves.
that's the "short" version...