Why I DO NOT Square Early in the Single 

I have no idea. But I have started shouting "SQUARE EARLY" at my wife at random times throughout the day! Good stuff.

Everytime he says „rowing is a rowing sport“ I am thinking: what you don‘t say

Learning to single is like smashing your head against a brick wall trying to knock it down, you’ll do it eventually. Trust me as a 15 year old who started rowing and singles exclusively 5 times a week for 6 months. I’m quite good now and you will be too!

I learned to row on that stretch of river and learned the right line to cut through the bridge at the to of the straight Earlier squaring starts from the finish Left needs to lead away a little earlier and that will make it easier to keep both hands lower on the recovery then as you move on to the slide the sculls will be a little higher of the water Allowing you to square up where you want to You may want to think about squaring up to the water allowing you to spear the catch as opposed to dropping the catch in leading to better control and connection In a reverse wing boat the centre of gravity is a little higher and the drive is more horizontal this tends to lead to less tap down around the extraction Just some suggestions from a junior coach

I think it is awesome to see your progress, you will get there. My coach during school used to tell us, that you have to do at least 1000km of technique training to start mastering rowing, so no pressure

I have the same issue. Essentially, the square has become part of the catch when they need to be distinct. That muscle memory is hard to break. On calm water like that, try square blades, even if you clip the whole way you'll be fine and will build confidence. Also half slide rowing will encourage early square. And for motivation watch "Zac Purchase UT2".

This is lovely! Oarsmanship! Love this shit! So -- obviously you've probably forgotten more about this than I'll know, but... We were always taught that it came from the feet and core. A tight core and pushing downward on the footplate (as if standing) evenly has helped me a lot. "Early" is highly subjective too; honestly I square relatively late -- but I like to max my length and roll the fists outward and upward that I always create backsplash, serially avoiding "rowing it in," as in kind of missing out on that extra inch or two. It is hard though no doubt; awesome to see you clicking that distance in the shell though. You'll be better for it!

Making good progress mate. Always gonna be challenging to have a balanced single at your size and higher center of gravity. Go with the flow, it'll develop naturally. Forcing the issue only causes tension and subsequently issues in other areas.

You've already progressed impressively. Confidence is everything in a single and doing good length outings getting more and more familiar with the boat and the feel will give you that. Obsessing over early squaring will keep you tense and ultimately delay your improvement. You know that you need to get there...but get there at your own pace...not other peoples.

Your getting much better really quickly, keep improving and you'll be rocking the single in no time. But that aside, a coach of mine gave me a tip on keeping my stability about a month ago. You have to sort of see your handles as the steering wheel of a bike, you have to put pressure on the steering wheel from your shoulders, in a boat this isn't any different, you have to sort of feel that you're putting pressure on the handle's from the shoulders, this will provide a lot of stability. But still, you're doing great.

You’re looking really good for your 4th week sculling properly. I think as you say, it is all about confidence, the more you are in the boat, the better stability you will have and you will be able to square earlier. But you are making great progress week by week.

My coach always say to keep the core engaged and your feet connect to the footboard throughout the entire stroke, especially at the finish to help the balance.

Squaring in a 1x in a headwind in like slamming the brakes on a car. Don't do it any earlier than necessary.

a good exercise is when you easy oar, glide with them lifted half a blade width above the water feathered. Takes a long time to build confidence and lift the trainer wheels

Love seeing the mindful approach to your training. It definitely shows in how quickly you’ve progressed. A pleasure to see your journey into excellence. Continue on the righteous path brother.

Love the vids, I try to square early but it get uncomfortable

You 're looking better every outing, although you may not feel it! Let's be real, the taller you are the higher the center of gravity. So take your time at finding a new feel of the water by trying to mentally keep your weight off your hands for that stability, and place it more on your seat! Think of your balance and power as coming from a lower point.

A great way to work on the balance is learning to put weight on the handles. Instead of just guiding them around the oarlocks, put some pressure from your lats (straight arms off the finish becomes more important for this) and as long as the pressure is consistent you should find yourself more balanced. Edit: it looks like towards the end of the video you're doing a bit better at it too. Obviously just comes from practice but looks like you're improving very quickly! Keep up the good work.

Looking for the water is a function of not really knowing where your hands should be. A fun drill to learn that is one I call tap dancing. Start at the finish blades square in the water. Start tapping up and down slowly, ensuring your blades are well off the water. Now start moving towards the catch continuing to tap. Go as far as you feel comfortable then tap your way back to the finish. Take note of your hand positions as your go, both visually and what it feels like. Repeat until you can happily go all the way to the catch and back with balance. Next step. When you get to the catch, tap down and hold with the blades off the water for a few seconds. Then tap your way back to the finish.

You need to lead with your left hand, get it lower and follow with your right, and generally get your hands lower through the recovery. Keeping the hands together through the recovery, makes it difficult to get your blades off the water. Your hands and the oars currently come to the finish and out through the recovery at more or less the same height. Some rowers lead with the right.

is it possible that you selected the wrong mic input while recording at your desk?

Maybe a bit more horizontal pressure against the oarlocks on the recovery will provide a better feel in stability with your body. Then coming forward you should feel like you are pressing a double door open as you come into the catch. But I suck too so I might be leading you down a bad path.

Try one feather blade stroke followed by a square blade stroke alternating between eachother, that should help you perfect it 👌🏽

Try just square blade paddling and then try just steady state slow recovery with squaring once you get to your shins

Please tell that my Coach

What’s your rig? And in particular height differential between left to right? You hang better in the single than with sweep or the erg. You also have a relaxed finish. I don’t like the GB big shoulder rotation that the 4x has in particular. Like you say it’s a journey and it’s a harder journey to start after years of sweep. So the squaring is easy once you have worked out how to keep the hands low after the knees. One of my lot Pamela Weisshaupt who ended up WC used to end an outing doing stationary roll up and down off the water for ages. She would get very angry when she touched but would move back and forth between 1/4 and full compression. The tricky part of course is that you are on mirror flat water. If often said you need to practice on bad water to be good in bad water but that’s not true. You actually get better for bad water by learning in good water how to carry high. So keep being self critical with the handle heights.

No idea of the difference between squaring earlier or later. What that makes to the stroke's or drive's efficiency? I'm pritty much a late "squarer".....What I do notice....or probably it looks as so....from the angle....that you should lift your hands a bit more at the catch....so blades grip the water the instance prior to the drive......

You were definately squaring very late.

What are your heights like? Reckon you could lower them a bit?

Bruh would be sick if you sent some vid of you sculling to Aram to review so we can see what he has to say about it.

Let me drop this: I like your sculling already more than your sweep rowing. There is of course still a lot of potential to unleash, but overall it does not look as stiff and mechanic as your sweep rowing did for some reason. Whereever your journey is going in the future, I think you may benefit a lot from these sculling sessions.

doing russian twists might help with core stability. this will make it easier to keep the blades from hitting the water during the recovery which will make it easier to square earlier.

"Squaring early is a product of better rowing" Nail>head. Nothing annoys me more than coaches or coxes telling an inexperienced crew to balance the boat, it's the same thing. Balance, early square, confidence into the catch is a by-product of good rowing, not the source. Its a positive feedback loop of course, but I don't think squaring super-early is particularly valuable in a single.

You don’t square in time because you don’t know how yet. Someone telling you to square earlier isn’t going to help. This is the issue and the fix: In sweep, it’s easy to learn to row around the pin because you have that big thoracic rotation to actually move you around it. In sculling, it’s not so apparent and there are lots of things that can prevent you from doing it. You are continuing to move your hands forward along the gunnels of the boat once you’ve broken your knees rather than moving your hands outward. Then, you have so little time to get the blades prepared that you end up flip catching (that’s what we call your blade entry where the bottom of the blade clips the water). This is what I want you to try: get rid of the hesitation off of your finish. Keep the hands moving, making sure you lead with the left. Really push it out ahead of the right...not over top of the right. You can even offset that port shoulder to bow a tiny bit if you want. Now add the tiniest micro-pause at hands away and body over. Say to yourself, “gather.” Then as you allow your knees to rise and the boat to come under you, make a conscious effort to really push the handles apart (work the arc!). As you push them apart, immediately start turning the oar over as you would in sweep (pinky rolls the oar handle down and thumb lifts). Don’t wait to start this. You will see that you have to have good body balance at this point. You do not want your trunk weight on the oars (that will cause you to push the handles down into the catch and sky your blades). You can shorten your front end until you understand how it should feel. Row 3/4 slide for a while to get the feel and then lengthen. The hands must move apart right away, not further forward! I think this is going to help you a whole lot. Try it and let me know what you think.

Get your rigging checked. Try to find a more comfortable position with the work at the right height.

This is not a good camera angle for us to see how square you are when you go in. You are getting better, though.🙂

Why do you have such a good boat although you are not that good of a sculler?

0:06 "rowing is a rowing sport" Yup. Seems legit.

I was coached to stop thinking about squaring the blade "early" but more thinking about making sure the blade is fully square at the catch. Mentally I believe when folks focus on "early" they square eariler than really necessary leading to instability earlier than necessary. I try to think of squaring the blade and backing and dropping it the water as almost one continuous motion. Also for me I find using my thumbs to put some outward pressure to help press the collar against the oarlock helps stabilize the boat bit more as you come up to the catch.

it's very difficult...you're just gonna need many hours of steady state and working on it...frontstops in a fine shell single is pretty unstable...keep working at it :-)

I think the early square is something that will come when you’re more confident and balanced in the single. Its tough to see with no side on view, but I would suggest that the balance issues stem from your finishing turn. After you’ve drawn the finish, I’d suggest giving yourself a little more time around the finish and not move your right hand away until the knuckles of your right hand are under your watch strap. This will give you more room and around the back and on the initial part of the recovery. A good exercise for this is left hand away pausing (its pause rowing hands away, but only for the left hand with the right hand paused at the finish).

Looking at your vid your wrists are slightly cocked up on the catch, instead of flat. When you start to square earlier you may start to over square due to your hand position. Best to sort it out before your grooved into the habit.

In regards of improving your stability, try moving your arms out faster after the stroke. The arms should move fast until they pass about the half point of your thighs and then smoothly slow down to a smooth move to the start of the stroke. At least this is what my coach made me do to improve stability :D

Great content. Really enjoy the explanations on transitioning to a single. Completely agree on balance first. And as long as you are aware and don’t develop bad habits, you gotta do you. Peace and Power!

I watched this video hoping for affirmation that my not squaring early is optimal somehow...but alas

Yeah, agree with your comments you need better balance first. Then it will come. Maybe work on your tap down, you keep your blade quite low. (I'm dreadful in the single this is just what I keep being told)

#yamsquareearly So the square early is a popular request but it is hard to do. Here's an experiment. Go back half a stroke to see what's stopping you squaring early. If you can squeeze the pressure to the finish and extract the blades clean, square and level with a big tap down this should set the boat up nice and level for the recovery. Now fast forward half a stroke and you are coming into the catch with balance and room to spare so you can roll into the square catch up at your leisure. Might be worth a shot? It'll come with practice and we are all loving your journey. #yamsquad 's got your back 👍

Your sculling is definitely improving. No longer pausing at the finish, though you still slow down a bit there. Balance is getting there. Three suggestions: (1) Your sculling looks a bit wooden or tentative, back and forth 1,2,1,2,1,2. Experiment with ONE (the drive)-two-three (the recovery). As my coach used to say, try singing a different tune (technically, a waltz). Not actually taking twice as long on the recovery as on the drive, just making it feel somewhat that way. This will add impulse to your rowing and will help firm up your finishes, which may lead to better balance on the recovery->blades off the water->easier to square whenever you want. Think of applying constant pressure to the handles on the drive, which will accelerate them into your body (F=ma and all that). It should also relax you on the recovery. (2) You are leading in and out with your right hand, which forces you to switch your hands around at the finish and "traps" you a bit there. Once this becomes a habit, it's so hard to eliminate (I know!). Much better to keep the hands in the same positions relative to each other, one bit of fuss eliminated plus you get a better release. Think of your right hand staying closer to your body at all times. (3) If that coach is part of your household, figure out how to "borrow" a 2x and do some sessions with her at bow (or perhaps somebody else?). This would fall within the guidelines, right? So you could focus on your sculling: no need to steer and a 2x is a more stable platform than a 1x. Not every day, just scattered sessions in the 2x. Eventually you could swap seats so you could follow her form (IME, on average women are better at sculling than men are, technique-wise). Sculling in a 2x often accelerates learning to scull a 1x. As for blades-off-the-water, people fixate on it. Blades on the water is really a symptom of the set being off and trying to fix it during the recovery. The place to fix it is on the drive, when the blades are planted and you can use your hands, core, and hips (not your knees) to level the boat out. A firm release is important because it helps get the blades out without losing the set of the boat. If the boat is level just after the release, just maintain that set as you come to the catch, which is far easier than adjusting the set on the recovery. Still, you want to avoid dragging the blades to prop up one side of the boat become a habit (coach used to call it "training wheels"). If the set is off a little, it may be better to just accept that, fix it on the drive and do better on the next recovery.

Best way I found to get balance up in a single is do mileage square blade, really low rate, trying to not get any splash as you go forwards and keep the blades fully square the whole way

Coming on really well, very much better, -around 5 mins in the video, very much calmer, looking smart. Keep on looking for the catch end to be a slower handle movements; predictable, no drama, no twitches, and there will be no big issue of 'squaring earlier'. 'Predictable' can be found reaching out from backstops with clarity, like in an viii, to leave very little to do in the second half of the recovery.

Since your not scared of falling in the water, you should be daring. I know prepare early can be hard, rowing in square position is even harder, but by training step by step, I think a good exercise would be to make a stop during the stroach (3/4, 1/2, 1/4 or arms and body) and just try to go in square position. If this stroke, you can't because of the balance, no worries, try the next one ;)

For what it's worth.. your rigging height is a bit low(and you are on flat water), but that could be because you still lack confidence and want to feel the water coming forward. Your left is the worst.. you put the spoon in not fully squared so once the pressure goes on it digs.. much more than the right. This affects your finish.. so you are going round and round the hamster wheel. I.E. your finish is unbalanced so you don't feel level and safe.. so you square late(worse on the left.. I suspect you are right handed)... so you dig on the left and can't finish clean.. so you feel unsafe and square late. I'd increase the height in small increments as you get confident. Squaring earlier gives you a 'moment'... where you have done everything and only have to think about the catch.. it's a Eureka moment when you say 'yes' to yourself and gain a couple of inches of drive on the catch because you are 'locked and loaded'. Hope this helps or at least gives you some thought.

Look at a video from last week and compare to today, a boat load more good strokes today. IMHO you're doing fantastic!

It took you 5 minutes to just say you don't have the stability yet to square earlier? Every rower has been there, not being in touch with the water for a whole stroke feels weird. Don't really understand the point of giving a full lecture on this topic

Hey Cam, your doing great after only sculling 3x! Suggest you only look back though when the blades are in the water and not during recovery. I row in very rough water on San Francisco Bay in a Maas 24 open and get more stability and minimize the chance in flipping the boat. Thanks to you, I have done 500,000 meters in last 3 months while waiting to get access to club boats. Hope to meet you in the future and please keep those videos coming to us. Cheers from San Francisco!

You'll get there! Both your physiology and mindset are top notch - but they took more than 3 weeks to build, and so will this. Keep going as you are, its looking great and only getting better!

dear Cameron, squaring the blades early is not an objective by it self, but a means for a well timed and relaxed catch. I would suggest you lower the stroke rate and try the exercise of rowing with 1 oar with the feather and the other in square position throughout. once you feel comfortable with this one, do it alternatively every stroke. rowing with your feet outside the shoes will also help a lot, since you tend to linger at the finish, letting the boat lose stability as you approach the catch. good luck:-)

You need to change your position of your hands on the handle. Start the catch at zero speed. Set your grip with wrists in a straight line and keep that grip.

I think that you are progressing at a good clip. Yes, you need to have the oars square before you get to the catch, but you are learning balance on a stretch of river where you have to look more than once every ten strokes. Safety first, so don't stop looking. However, it is tough on the balance to have to look that often. I think that it not only messes up the balance for the stroke where you are looking, but it will take a couple of strokes to get the balance back again. This only leaves you with three or four strokes before you are forced to look. It is just going to take you a little longer to master this. If you get a chance to row on a wider venue where you don't have to look for tweny strokes or so, you will find it much easier to get in a number of good strokes and build a pattern. Keep it up.

Kinda looks like what you really need is stillness and relaxation around the front end. Ngl, a single at the front end is unstable as hell so fair play for getting to where you are in a few weeks. (8:16 is looking like a half decent front end, if a bit shaky in the core) Something I tried during preseason last year (in a USP on that exact stretch of water) was just sitting at frontstops with my blades squared and in, and doing nothing but focusing on being relaxed, eyes glued to my stern and almost not thinking; literally just sitting there still for a few minutes. Really helped to calm my mind/core and find that sweet spot of balance. (I then reverse feathered to get out of that position and come to backstops) Obvs finding that balance is a lot harder with the blades off, but it might help with relaxation in an unstable boat as well as having a reference point at the front end

My suggestion is speed up the finish. Until your hands have passed your knees you should be fast though the turn then relaaaxxx up the slide to the catch

Hi Cam, For what it is worth, while I do agree that you should square earlier in your recovery, I come at it from a slightly different perspective (though maybe it is a worse one... who knows). I tend to think of the preparation of the blade (ie: early square) as a result/byproduct of the release. So, my suggestion would be to first focus on the point of release for you and, in that, focus on more of a push down of the hands to create greater height of the blade from the water as you begin to move the hands away from the body. Now, the tendency for people I have coached in the past is that many of them do not want to do this and they will literally say "I will get more height when my balance improves". It is my contention though that that thinking is the reverse of what actually occurs. When people force themselves to get more height on the blades (ie: lower hands through the release) there is a period where the boat stability may get worse (due to the new lack of "training wheels") but, if the person is dedicated to the process, fairly quickly the stability of the boat becomes far better. This in turn allows the person to then prepare the blade (ie: square) in advance of the catch position. The key is that by forcing the hands lower we no longer have the same margin for error and we more quickly find the ideal position needed for our hands to allow the boat to remain well set. A common refrain I give to my athletes for the release is "tall body, low hands". So, long story short... My thought would be to get more height at the extraction (bigger push down) and work to maintain that height throughout the recovery. Just my two cents and not saying it is better than anyone else's. Love your videos!

I’m not sure if it’s just me but as session goes on your arms begin to break earlier let me know if I’m wrong

You're improving everytime I watch your videos Cam. Well Done! As you said, time will improve the quality of sculling. It's refreshing to hear such an experienced a d good rower show a desire to learn more and continually improve. Gives us novices good motivation!

Good rhythm, posture, release and relaxation. Looks like you sit inside the boat and under the handles as opposed to control it from the top. Tweak your rock-over position to be sitting on the front of your seat bones (might need less compression) and on top/front of the boat/handles. Drills: -Roll-ups to 1/4 slide (square blade) and place, then extract, roll to the catch & roll. -Pause at 1/4 slide, then square, then roll to the catch and place. Both drills will teach you to rock, be on top/front and square the blade fully and loosely. Treat the recovery as a "speed" roll-up with a hand dive towards your knees (exaggerate the clearance) and an early square by rolling the knuckles down/forward.

Great video and a lovely piece of water. Wish you were closer as I'd love to fix this for you. Basically if we understand that the boat accelerates it's fastest at 3/4 slide on the way forward which is followed by an immediate drop off in acceleration immediately prior to the catch it can help us sequence better. So, we need to match our recovery speed to the ever increasing boat speed then connect at the front ASAP so the boat doesn't stop. We use minimax GPS data to plot this acceleration curve but you may have other means. I would advocate little more recovery control with the hands and hips on the initial part of the recovery to allow focus on sitting very still as you allow the legs to feel the natural acceleration of the boat, then square place and connect around the front with more fluidity - like a chain around a flywheel or a convert belt. Try this exercise - do five rollups with the first using a slide speed equal to a rating of say 28 , then 26, 24, 20 and 16. All the time using a naturally accelerative slide, and EVERY placement sharp, light and accurate. Then a roll up and three strokes with that rhythm and placement - repeat. To ensure you are getting full compression some sequencing with blades flat on the water and remember - off the back release the hands, set the body, strong core, relaxed upper body and sit absolutely still whilst you draw the heels to the backside. Hands do seem to have a little more tension ( a bit "wristy") which will improve as relaxation grows. Hope this helps - sorry if I ramble a bit.

Confidence and it will work out. Being new to a Single Shell its good to stay in stability for rowing. But eventually it does require developing confidence to squaring up early. I think being you are very early in Sculling technique, stability over perfect technique. It will come with mileage. Then BINGO, it will be natural.

Hey Cam! You are doing great, I am sorry that people are shouting at you or it feels that way! I would suggest playing with the finish, if you care! I know everyone is a rowing coach on RU-vid, but I DO love coaching! What I mean is once you are done with the finish and as you feathered make sure you push down on the handle right there and then get the arms/ body away, obviously deliberately and with care. It may give you more time to prep for the catch....if you are already out of the water and once you get more and more comfortable being out of the water in the beginning of the recovery you'll be able to ( whispers) catch on time ;) . I think its tough to row a single, especially coming from big club boats, I think just being courageous and throwing stuff at it till you find out what works for you! keep going you are doing great!

Are there any tips for not puttin GB the blades in too deep

I've never done it in my life, only a spectator, but have you tried the "slip catch", don't square at all? Let the water do it? I was last in a boat in 1980, don't mistake me for knowing what I'm talking about...

what i think i see is that in the recovery your knees are comming up before your hands are well over your knees. this creates 2 dificulties: the boat becomes less stable due to the body weight moving, and the hands have to come up to get over the knees(hads come up--> blades go down and touch the water). the blades are low and leving no room for the early sqaring, or the blades have to come up again, creating stability. to solve this try and row with a hamstrig strech every recovery, in other words knees stay locked down as long as possible only to come up when every thing (every body part)above the hips is already ready for the catch. this skill will have less body parts flaping around creating imbalance and the need to be controlled. hope this helps, it does for me

Hey cam...square with the footplates. When your heals leave the footboards square your blades into the water by flattening your wrists up

Squaring early (especially in a single!) is not as easy as it seems, I’ve been working on it since the beginning of the season and I only manage to do so when I am completely balanced.

If you haven’t tried pause paddling then I would highly recommend it, take a few a strokes to get some speed then on every stroke pause at hands away and try to keep the boat level with the blades off the water, pause for however long you think is necessary (a few seconds). This can help gain stability and confidence with the blades off the water. The key is to sit up tall and engage your core and it keeps it stable

I don't think it's important to square early. How does that make the boat go faster? Its important that the blade enters the water swuare and quickly and the best way to do that is to square and take the catch as part of the same continuous action. I find it can help to think of hooking the blade in while you are still sliding forwards.

Why not try a pair (or is it a double) with you in the stern seat rowing and the other person keeping the boat stable with their blades on the water. Or a use a wider shell that is more stable get your stroke down then transition to the racing shell.

try to do roll ups coz they help you to improve ur catches and improve ur stability at the front end

Cam - what is your rigging set to?

So what I think you're saying is: you'll try squaring your blades early only after the handles are level? From my own experiences (my own sculling and coaching others), perhaps a change of mind could help you out. I tend to see squaring early as a tool to keep the blades off the water. Combine that with the idea of a mirror in your boat (everything the right handle does, the left should do simultaneously), squaring the blades early helps to get the handles level and off the water. Rather than seeing it as something that comes after the handles are level, use it to accomplish that instead. Love the rowing content!