Practice 3.17 from Sam Taylor on Vimeo.
Practice today was an easy row. Some of the women went out in pairs, and I took an eight with some of our most experienced rowers as well as a few who learned to row with the novice this fall. The goal was bladework, specifically the easy carry of the blade on the recovery and the smooth squaring prior to the hands hooking up to the catch.
In the video above you can see the 'before' shot; 2 & 4 are both a little late to square and as a result the catch is not as far to the bow as it could be and a little late. My favorite drill to work the concept is pause at the gunwhale; with the hands anchored to the gunwhale the only place to go on release of the pause is up. The 2nd half of the clip is the 'after', as we work into a pause sequence. 3 was having many of the same issues earlier in the row but did a nice job making changes and has progressed towards 'more correct', as did the others.
Good water today and no fisherman. I thought we had excellent focus today and got a lot of good technique work done while allowing for recovery prior to tomorrow's test.
