You’ve been waiting patiently for the catch, and we’re finally there. (Remember, on the recovery, at steady state, it should feel like it takes a long time to get to the catch). Let’s start with a metaphor: To help themselves imagine how to drop the blades in, some scullers like to think of there being a slot for each blade behind them, into which they will slip their blades as they row, without scraping the sides of the slots. I’ve heard more than one coach use this image, and I think it’s a good one.
But here’s the thing about the catch: Ideally, your blades want to go into the water perfectly vertically. This means that you can’t be pulling on the handles. That would create a lot of frontsplash, and would signify that you wasted some of your slide on a half air stroke. Dropping your blades in vertically means that you can’t push the blades into the water with stiff arms, either. That would create a lot of backsplash, checking your boat down violently and probably making you tip.
So far, this probably makes sense to you, which is good. But then you think about it a little more, and you realize, “Wait. It’s fine to think of these blade slots being there to receive your blades, but the damned things are moving past you. How in the name of all that is holy do you put your blades into them without using a little of your slide?”
That is the secret of the catch, and it all starts with grip. A relaxed grip will help your arms and shoulders be relaxed. It is with these relaxed muscles of the shoulders and the hands that you will absorb the movement of the handles toward you as the blades bury themselves.
Think of your biceps and triceps being taut, not tight; and in balance with each other. You can feel what this is like, if you can’t imagine it, by pointing to something outside your window. Most people don’t lock out their elbows when they point (unless they are gesticulating wildly, which isn’t what I am talking about). When you point, you’re using just the minimum of energy with your arm muscles to extend your forearm. That’s what you’ll do before the catch, too. Some people even take the catch with their elbows slightly bent – this is all right, as long as they stay bent. It can even help you lock in with your lats better. But if your arms were to straighten out when you tried to apply pressure to the blade, it would mean you were missing the connection and just using your legs to push your arms straight.
Your shoulder muscles should be taut but not tight at the catch as well. They should act to stabilize the joint but not to “grab” right as you apply pressure. I used to do this grabbing, possibly because I have very flexible shoulders, and my college coach (Mayrene Earle) used to hound me to have relaxed shoulders. I think I took this too literally, because I would let my shoulders relax so much that I almost felt like my shoulders were coming out of joint. Soon after, I started to have rotator cuff pain. Luckily, I finally figured out that there is a happy medium when it comes to shoulder relaxation.
So: fully square blades enter the water as your seat stops. If you’re rolling your wheels “uphill” and making sure your blades are squared before that last rotation of the wheels, you’ll be in the perfect position to place the blades in the water as your seat alights in the stern. My friend Kate calls this “catching with your butt” – the idea that you don’t wait until your seat has stopped to place the blades, but begin to place them slightly before the wheels have stopped. In fact, you might want to think of your wheels stopping because your blades have entered the water.
Now comes the magic, which requires a small digression.
If you sit relaxed in the boat on a flat day and place a squared blade in the water, the oar will be neutrally buoyant in the oarlock. That is, the blade will float in the water and the loom of the oar won’t touch the sides of the oarlock, because you won’t be pulling or pushing on the handles, and the water will be supporting the blade. You will be able to feel this buoyancy by wiggling the oars in the oarlocks – they will rattle back and forth because they won’t be pressed up against one of the sides of the oarlock. Try it sometime when you’re stopped, after your drink of water. And as long as your boat is stopped, try something else. Drop one blade into the water, letting completely go of the handle. The blade will fall into the water and then fall over onto its side, feathering itself.
You can make clever use of these phenomena at the catch. BUT: They both require a very relaxed grip and upper body. Coming up to the catch slowly will also greatly aid your ability to use these cues.
Here’s how it goes: Your blades are square, your upper body is motionless, and you’re just starting the last rotation of the wheels into the stern. You slightly raise the handles to place the blades in their imaginary slots. Since your boat is moving, it’s a good thing that you’re rolling up so slowly, because this means you can stop your seat the second you feel the blades touch the water.
Your arms are hinging from the shoulders so that the blades go in without your trunk moving. You drop the blades in the water relatively quickly, just by letting them fall, and allowing your grip to loosen up just a little in the process. As the water catches the bottom edges of the blades, it enhances the blades’ natural tendency to feather themselves, and you will feel the blades wobble a little as they go in. Your fingers are just firm enough on the handles to stabilize them so that the blades won’t feather, but will stay square.
A split second later, you’ll feel the water pressing against the back of the blades and pushing the handles gently into your hands. Let this happen. You can lower your shoulders and pull them in toward yourself slightly with your lats to absorb the movement. Once you feel the oars “bump” just a little as you lock on, you can start your drive.
The key here, and the hardest part, is having the patience to wait for that signal. It’s also frankly difficult to time that micropause with your seat for just the amount of time it takes your blades to get covered. At first, you’ll feel like you have to pause so long that you check the boat down. This is okay, because the the drill sequence I will lay out in the next post will help you practice this skill, gradually moving toward normal timing.
I’ll finish with an anecdote involving John Riley, famous among American Eastern Seaboard rowers and scullers for his, uh, curmudgeonly personality. He was my coach in the late 90s. We went out for a 1:1 session one morning in early April, when he taught me to do just what I’ve outlined above. It took me a while to get what he was talking about, and I’m sure I only got about 30% of the idea. After working with me for most of the hour, the last 30 minutes of which was just him riding alongside my boat calling out “Yes!” or “No!” as I did or did not take the catch correctly, he told me to pull over. When I’d come to a stop, he drove his launch over to me and said, “I feel good about you as an athlete because you’re coachable. I mean, you’re not Michael Jordan coachable, but you’re coachable.”
Wow! What praise! I think I rowed back home above the water that morning.
John was going to be away for the better part of a month, so I used the time to work on the catch. I was going to be perfect when he got back. I would succeed because I was hardworking, perceptive, and intelligent. So I knew I would be able to master this new skill.
I saw John on the water a few weeks later while I was going upstream and he downstream. He liked to give all of his scullers mini lessons as they went by him, no matter who he was officially working with, so even though he was leading a session for the scullers of the boat club he was working at, he shouted over to me.
“Hey!” he yelled.
“You think you’re doing it?"
"‘Cause you’re not!”
It took me the entire season to master the catch. I hope that you will be able to do it faster, but don’t beat up on yourself if you can’t. Just keep at it.
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