Rowing, Coaching, and the Science of Learning

Story and Photos by Amy Wilton

Were you the kid who sat in the last row of class with your head on your desk while the history teacher droned on about the Great Emu War in Australia in 1932? I was. Not because I was lazy or uninterested in learning—just uninterested in learning that way.

I’m sure there were some kids who took in every word. They probably wrote fascinating term papers about how the Australian government deployed soldiers to combat a large population of emus that was damaging farmland. On the other hand, if Mr. Berube, my very kind and monotone teacher, had given me an assignment to create a 3D model of the soldiers and emus in battle, I would have been all over that. Glue, cardboard, questionable historical accuracy—sign me up!

What in the world do emus have to do with rowing? Nothing, but how we process new information is very relevant.

There are many variables that affect how much a rower gets out of a practice: psychological state, coach-athlete relationship, learning environment, motivation, intentionality, to name a few. Two rowers can do the exact same workout, and the outcomes can be very different.  Learning a sport is not just mechanical; it is also psychological, relational, and emotional. And rowing, for all its numbers and metrics, lives squarely in that messy human space.

Rethinking “Learning Styles”

In scientific communities, the consensus is that “learning styles” don’t exist. Despite many studies, no conclusive evidence has been found to support the idea. In fact, most studies contradict it. A widely cited 2008 review of research testing the “meshing hypothesis”—people learn better when instruction matches their preferred style—yielded no credible proof.

That surprised me, someone who has taught rowing, art, photography, swimming, and preschool. In every case, I’ve noticed people assimilating information in a multitude of ways. Some needed to hear it, some needed to see it, and some needed to do it wrong about 20 times first.

Maybe what I thought was a preference for a learning style was something else. Maybe people were employing learning styles appropriate for the task. Let’s talk about those styles and how they relate to rowing.

The Pathways to Learning

Auditory

This is how most rowing is coached. You, rower, are in the boat, eyes forward, while the coach is in the launch, giving suggestions through the megaphone. You listen and try your best to implement the change the coach has recommended.  Sometimes it clicks immediately. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Visual

Often coaches will video their rowers because words sometimes aren’t enough. There are many reasons video is effective. We rowers might feel we’re implementing the change the coach asked for. It’s only when we see images of ourselves that we realize that the huge adjustment in hand height we thought we made was actually very small.

Ego is another reason video is helpful. Sometimes we can’t believe we’re making those mistakes. The videos, by showing proof, enable us to see what the coach has been describing for weeks. It turns abstract language into something concrete, and occasionally uncomfortable.

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic learners have to feel the change to make it work for them; words go in one ear and out the other. The coach can tell them a hundred times not to feather with the outside hand, but until they put the oar in their hands on land and hold their outside wrist flat while feathering with the inside hand, the message won’t land. Drills are another way this type of learner thrives—lots of repetition so the body absorbs the feel of the stroke. For these athletes, learning lives in muscle memory, not sentences. These are the folks who’d want to make the 3D model of emus in Australia.

Some people need to see the idea, some need to hear it, and some need to feel it. Drills are an effective way to imprint proper rowing technique neurologically; the repetition allows a rower’s body to absorb the correct sequencing. All learning is some combination of these three elements, and the savvy coach is one who knows how their rowers learn best.

Coaching Experience and Instinct

Experienced coaches don’t think about the learning styles of their rowers; they just coach. It’s like driving a car. After a while, you don’t need to think about signaling because your hands just do it.

Phil Carney, Wesleyan University’s men’s coach, has been at his job for over 35 years. When asked about how he deals with the different learning styles of his rowers, he said, “I just deal with guys as they present to me with no real individual plan.”

What strikes me about that answer isn’t its simplicity but its honesty. After a while, coaching becomes instinctual. Any good teacher, whether teaching rowing or fourth grade, naturally assesses how the student learns and makes adjustments. Good coaches aren’t running learning-style flow charts in their heads. They’re watching, listening, adjusting, and responding in real time.

The most important thing I’ve learned from great coaches is that athletes will give back only as much as their coaches give them. When coaches are deeply invested, athletes tend to rise to meet the effort. I’ve had coaches who didn’t seem to care; neither the athletes nor the team was a priority, it seemed. Unsurprisingly, the coach’s lack of investment was reflected in the performance of the athletes. Rowers are perceptive; they know when a coach is all in or just running a practice.

Learning, especially in a sport as technical and demanding as rowing, requires vulnerability. Coaches must be willing to explain the same thing in multiple ways, to admit when something isn’t working, and to meet athletes where they are. Rowers, for their part, must be willing to listen, to fail publicly, and to trust that the coach’s criticism is meant to build up, not tear down.

The rowers who improve the most aren’t always the most talented. Rather, they’re the ones willing to be receptive long enough to absorb the lessons.

The only way to get to “just knowing” is through time and experience. Rookie coaches tend to correct rowers using the same words over and over again, all the while hoping for a different result. Because of inexperience, they aren’t acquainted with how other coaches deliver the same information.

Sara Gronewold, director of the Craftsbury Sculling Center in Vermont, was on the U.S. national team in the 1990s. Team culture back then was never to ask for help. The attitude:

“There’s something wrong with you if you can’t figure this out.”

One day when Gronewold was rowing a pair, an assistant coach corrected her by repeating the same admonishment. Because Gronewold couldn’t understand what the coach wanted, she wasn’t making the change.

After practice, she asked the coach to describe the change she wanted in a different way. Suddenly it clicked.

“As coaches, we have the words we think make perfect sense for what we’re trying to convey,” Gronewold said, “but if those words aren’t working, it’s your responsibility to find new words that will work. That’s what teaching is.

“Part of this is a growth mindset,” Gronewold continued. “You are always trying to see how much better you can do. The coach’s job is to facilitate that process. If you want the best outcome, you have to be dedicated to communicating and teaching the members of your team effectively.”

The national team is unique because there are so many talented people waiting to step up. But when coaching a high-school, college, or club team, where coaches must work with what they have, thinking about teaching and learning styles is essential.

Early Coaching Lessons

My first job after I graduated from college was to coach the novice women’s crew at my university. I had no coaching experience besides teaching kids how to swim. What did I do? I repeated everything my varsity coach had said to me.

It took years of observing and assimilating the teaching styles of other coaches before I felt effective. My first head coaching job was at Megunticook Rowing, a club program in Camden, Maine. At first, I worked as an assistant to Ry Hills, recently retired Bowdoin College coach. After six months, she announced,  “OK, I’m moving on. Now you’re the head coach.”

Good thing I was paying attention those first few months and learned a lot from Hills. For example: to serve your rowers well, you need to get to know them personally; and to keep your athletes motivated, use humor and fun, especially with novices.

“Getting to know the rowers outside of practice builds trust between coach and athlete,” Hills said. “It shows you’re interested in them as people, not just as a seat in the boat. It also helps you see what might work best for them.”

Adaptability on the Water

Another important trait for coaches is adaptability. Say you send your boats out to warm up at the beginning of practice and you notice someone struggling.

“Sometimes coaches have to bend the practice to deal with what is happening on the water,” Hills said. “If your plan isn’t working, stop the boat and create an analogy. Because kids learn differently, sometimes you need a different approach. Telling a rower to pretend they’re rowing uphill to get them to stop rushing the slide really works.”

At Craftsbury, there are many expert coaches, all of whom teach in different ways. I’ve been coaching there for 25 years and at every single camp I learn a new way of encouraging rowers to keep pressure on the foot stretcher throughout the stroke or to tap down and away at the release.

So much of coaching is delivery. Unflappable is the word that describes the best coaches I’ve watched. When a big issue comes up, they remain calm and steady and deal with it step by step. These are the coaches to whom rowers respond best. Coaches who raise their voice and yell may scare rowers into submission, but those teams suffer high turnover. Athletes leave because they lose respect.

Severina Drunchilova, a yoga teacher at Portland Power Yoga in Maine, says, “A person won’t learn until they’ve opened themselves to the process.”

Rowers need to feel they can trust their coaches before they put themselves in the vulnerable position of learning. Performance is the space between the delivery of information and the reception of it. Athletes will perform when they’re open to  learning, and they’re open to learning when they trust the coach.

Learning Requires Vulnerability

In the summer, I’ve coached with Gronewold at Craftsbury, a great place to be immersed in your favorite sport. You eat, sleep, row, talk about rowing, watch rowing videos, eat some more, go to bed, and repeat. The relaxed summer-camp atmosphere enables rowers to dig into parts of the stroke that need work.  Each week, there are about 35 campers and six coaches. During some on-water sessions, all the coaches circulate among the rowers on the lake. In others, each coach tends to four to six scullers, and we work on one part of the stroke.

One summer, during the open row, I came upon a rower in his 60s who was dragging his blades on the water. I suggested he hold his hands lower on the recovery. No go. I rephrased it. No go. I asked him to stop and showed him how to tap down at the release, elbows out, and keep his hands closer to the gunwale. Still no change.

Finally I asked him what he did for a living. “I’m a brain surgeon,” he said.

Ah, I get it. In his everyday life, this man was not allowed to try something new and risk making a mistake. I reminded him that out there on the water he is not performing surgery, no lives are at stake, and risk-taking is encouraged.

After he relaxed and opened up to the process of learning, he made the change. To learn something new, you must put yourself in the vulnerable place of making mistakes. As my yoga teacher says, you can’t learn until you let your guard down.

Another key element of successful learning is to be an active listener. Better yet, a reflective listener. When the coach gives you a suggestion—“tap your hands down at the release”— repeat it to yourself—“tap my hands down at the release.” When you stop rowing, confirm: “What I hear you saying is if I tap my hands down more at the release, I’ll be better able to keep my oars off the water. Is that correct?” That clarification can save a lot of time.

Shared Responsibility

My best coaches followed the ideas I mentioned earlier. In high school, Mr. Geci, my non-monotone English teacher and cross-country coach in Litchfield, Conn., somehow managed to bring a ragtag group of small-town kids together and teach us to be a team. He had an inside scoop on all of us because he also knew us from the classroom. We knew that he cared. We knew that if there was something difficult in our lives outside of the team, he would listen. Mr. Geci taught us about community and taking care of each other, even though we were from different grades and parts of town.

My high-school rowing coaches, Melissa and Jamie Robinson, then fresh Trinity College grads, taught me how to work hard, tolerate the burn, and that persistence pays off. They also taught us that if they timed us unloading the trailer after a regatta we would get it done twice as fast.

Paul Wilkins, current assistant coach at UCLA’s club program, was my coach at George Washington University. From Wilkins, I learned how to push further physically than ever before and to focus. Thanks to the team culture he created, we all believed in ourselves and each other.

I am naming my coaches because I believe it’s important to thank the people who’ve had a positive impact on your life. Part of why I became a coach is that they were such terrific mentors, about sports and life. I wanted to be able to pass on the feeling of self-worth I gained from being part of a team—a team that felt seen by the coach and honored and respected by the other athletes.

So drop your old coach a line and say thanks. At its best, learning in rowing is a shared responsibility—coaches offering clarity, care, and adaptability, and rowers meeting that effort with trust, curiosity, and the courage to try.

Amy Wilton is a professional photographer who lives in Maine and coaches at Portland Community Rowing Association.