Make or Break Your Selection

The racing season is fast approaching. After what has felt like an absolute age, you’ll be back on the water and going full tilt with your biggest rivals in no time.

However, before all of that, there is the simple task of selection, a ritual endemic to every club and school. Coaches are looking to identify their fastest athletes to mould into a collective unit, sharp and unyielding.

Let’s examine how one of our case studies went about his selection.

Patrick was a brilliant athlete; he’d been one of the best since starting rowing at school. Now, he was a strong competitor for the 1st VIII. 

Up to this stage, Patrick felt he had performed well under pressure – he had no issues when it came to cramming for an exam or lining up on the start line at his local regattas. As such, he didn’t see a reason to change his process – he’d been winning for years. After all, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

He realised as he progressed that he was beginning to compete against people like himself.

His peers were harder to beat, highly polished and exceptionally consistent. This was a vastly different scenario from what he had encountered at J14, 15 and 16 levels. It felt like there was so much more on the line now with this round of selection.

He’d done well over the season, even with lockdown, but was getting increasingly stressed about testing. He noticed he was focusing more on what his teammates were doing in training and seeing how they were getting stronger. It made him feel anxious about having to go against them again even though he’d beaten them in the past. Inevitably, as the day of seat-racing edged ever closer, the anxiety and stress also rose. All of his attention was on the people he was competing against.

He was thinking, 

“What if I don’t beat them?”

“I don’t know if I can deliver?

“What if I’ve done all this training and I lose out?”

He was feeding the wrong wolf. 

His performance in training began to falter – it looked like he was deselecting himself, even though he was turning up and trying his best. 

He was distracted, frustrated and anxious. We caught up, and he explained his situation; after becoming aware of what was slowly pulling him apart, we were able to reset his focus and process on something conducive to the outcome. He began to get better and was shifting his focus in the right direction, and he began to look forward to the selection, as it was an opportunity for him to test his new process. It worked. 

Here are a few of the simple tools we used. Following a format similar to this will equip you for selection. 

Focus

• On yourself and your crew.

• Be clear with the intent and ensure you have simple collective focuses.

• Break the day down into small pieces and focus on the task at hand. 

• Only expose yourself to what you need to know.

Assertiveness

This is a little different for everyone – ask yourself: “How would someone being selected for the top boat behave and operate?”

So in the lead-up to and during selection, treat yourself in this way. It will keep things straightforward in what can be a noisy environment. 

Communication 

-Simple, clear internal dialogue 

-Focussed, robust inter-oarsman discussion 

If it’s too quiet, set the tone, pat your crewmate on the back, give them and yourself the reassurance. 

These are all tools you can use to feed performance. It’s normal for your thoughts to jump around. When it does, ensure you feed the right wolf. One will consume you, and the other will go and carve the path for you. You have what you need.

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