The Rowing Podcast
The Rowing Podcast
Mike Spracklen - "Ten Thousand Hours"
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Ten Thousand Hours
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By: Mike Spracklen
To be master of your vocation, be it artistic or physical or a combination of both
The more time you give your endeavor, the stronger will be its growth
Whatever may be your ambition in life, be it art on canvas or playing French horn
Or a physical activity like rowing with more than 10,000 hours
True skill is born
Keep sculling movements simple and practice every day,
It’s the best advice an old coach can give, let nothing stand in your way
But
Repetition can be boring , repeating the same movement over and over again,
will challenge your concentration, good sculling technique will be hard to retain
And the quality of training will deteriorate, if the body is permitted to avoid the load
The value gained from staying focused, will be well worth the 10,000 hours
You rowed
To be master of your vocation, be it artistic or physical, or a combination of both, the more time you give your endeavour, the stronger it will be its growth. Whatever may be your ambition in life, be it art on canvas or playing French hall, or a physical activity like rowing, with more than ten thousand hours, true skill is born. Keep sculling movements simple and practice every day. It's the best advice an old coach can give. Let nothing stand in your way. But repetition can be boring. Repeating the same movement over and over again will challenge your concentration. Good sculling technique will be hard to retain. And the quality of training will deteriorate if the body is permitted to avoid the load. The value gained from staying focused will be well worth the ten thousand hours you rode.
SPEAKER_00Mike, it's great to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate you taking the time. Um how are you? How how are things?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I'm well, thank you. Considering the the age we are all approaching rapidly. Um yes, I'm fine.
SPEAKER_00Do you still uh do you still ever get out in a boat at all? Or is it is it more uh other sports and what are you doing these days to keep fit?
SPEAKER_01No, I I do have an ergometer at home and I do use it every day. I usually do eight, 8K or maybe 10K. But um I do it religiously every day. I don't have the ocean in a boat, and my I have like arthritis in my joints, and getting in and out of the boat wouldn't be easy. I would roll in and out, and the amount of time that it takes to get down, get out on the boat, it's better for me to just exercise at home. I I do row for exercise because it exercises all your limbs through full range, it exercises your heart and lungs, and it's a good all-round exercise. Um it's boring on the ergometer, but I feel that it's well worth doing. It's it's more efficient at home on the ergometer than getting in a boat. I I also you know I wouldn't be reliable with other people, it would mean rowing with somebody. I couldn't row in a small boat, I wouldn't want to row in a like a pear. Uh to row in a big boat means that I other people are dependent on me, and I can't guarantee that. As I say, my wife is not well. I we rushed off the hospital from time to time, and so what I do is fine.
SPEAKER_00Well, Mike, again, I'm really happy to have you on. Obviously, your reputation your reputation in Row I precede you. So uh but the thing is, you know, as somebody who's definitely admired your your coaching and a lot of your crews, uh, I've always heard a lot about your your crews and your and your athletes and the and the boats that you've coached, obviously, because that's something you were were incredibly committed to. Um but I've really not heard that much about you and your story. So I'm glad that we have you on to finally get a chance to hear a little bit more about your background and how you got into rowing. To start things off, where are you from originally? Where's your hometown?
SPEAKER_01Marlowe is my hometown. I was born here and I've lived here all my life apart from the time I spent in Canada and for a short time in USA.
SPEAKER_00What about uh what about your family growing up? You know, what is your what does your father do? What does your mother do? Did you have any siblings?
SPEAKER_01Uh well my father ran a small works building company. Um, my mother never had a job. In those days, uh the women and wives uh didn't normally go out to work. Uh I have two children, I have two sons. They're doing well. My eldest son is in computer, he has his own company now. Uh he's doing very well with it. Uh, he wrote as a boy, he rode up until the time he finished university. Uh my youngest son, Adrian, uh, is actually in USA. He coaches at Mercyhurst in Erie, Pennsylvania. And he went there from school. He went for his education there, liked it, and stayed, never came home, and now has a roam job there. He now coaches the rowing there.
SPEAKER_00Do you and Adrian ever have coaching conversations? You know, get on the phone and do you guys ever go back and forth on, you know, hey, hey dad, I've got a crew, and you know, what do you think about this? And I've been trying these different things. Do you have you ever had those those kind of chats?
SPEAKER_01Well, we do talk to him regularly. We normally speak to him once a week, particularly since my wife was ill. And so, yes, we do have conversations. He doesn't very often ask me about rowing, occasionally, but not very often. Although he did join me when I went to Russia, he did join me and coached the women for or the team while I was in Russia. So I was with him for quite a few months. And so, yes, we have a very good relationship.
SPEAKER_00What was your first exposure to rowing?
SPEAKER_01Well, my father was the the driving force, or he suggested I try. When I was 14, 15 years old, I was very tall for my age. Not very tall by modern standards, but I've I was 5'10, which in those days, six feet, was a big person. And so he said, Why not try rowing? Well, I did and went down and loved it and never looked back. And so it has been my life ever since.
SPEAKER_00What was your first uh boat? Were you in a single, were you in a team boat with some people? What was the what was the first time in the water like?
SPEAKER_01Well, of course, in those days when you started rowing, it was very much uh a summer sport. People didn't row in the winter because it it was a choice between rowing or cricket and rugby. Rowing was born out of the English school system, and you either played rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer, but not everybody can hit a ball with a bat, and so they introduced rowing as an alternative. So it's very much so it's very much a summer sport. And so all the clubs in the country and in the world, and I believe in USA too, closed down during the winter. So when I started rowing, uh, technique, because you were only rowing for like three months of a year through the summer, technique played a priority. Uh rowing's a technical sport, as you know, it doesn't matter how fit, how strong, how big you are, if you can't row, you're of no value. And so rowing naturally took a priority. So in those days, technique and the way you did it was the first, was very an important part of your development. And so when I started, I rode on a boat that was fixed to the bank, so it was perfectly safe. And from that I went into a much bigger, wider boat, and then into a a four, a cockplinker four, which is a big heavy boat and very stable for novices. I was in that for a few months. I loved it. I wanted to do more, so I looked for other ways of going out, but you know, you're confined to the other members in your crew. And so if they didn't want to go out, you couldn't go out. So I started sculling and found it very fascinating. In fact, my first outing in a boat, I fell in, and it was a big, heavy, white boat, but it fascinated me, and I wanted to do more. So I asked uh an old guy at the club who was sculling at the club. Uh, he wasn't a coach, or when he was a coach but not a recognized coach, he said, This is what you have to do, you have to keep your blades off the water, this is the way to put your blade in, this is the way to take it out, and you've got to practice. He said, and practice every day and keep a record of the mileage you do. And then when I come back in three months' time after the winter, tell me how many miles you did. So that's what I said about doing. And so I would go out at that time, because the club closed down because it was the end of the summer and the places were locked up. But we had keys, and so I would go down and row on my own every day, all through the winter, and uh thoroughly enjoy what I was doing. Whatever the wind, the flood water, nowadays you're not allowed out if the stream is faster than a few knots. But in those days there were no restrictions. I went out exactly when I wanted to. And so that's how I started.
SPEAKER_00What was the thing that hooked you? You know, when I asked that question, was it was it the you know, the feeling in the boat, was it the speed? You know, a lot of people have something or a couple of elements that really just resonated well with them. What was it about rowing that was attractive to you?
SPEAKER_01Well, it was the feeling. It was the feeling of the boat and the way it moved beneath you. Of course, initially we didn't go very fast, so it couldn't have been speed, and we're in heavy slow boats anyway. Yes, it was the it was just being on the water. The human being, many of us have attractions to water that we like being in water or around water and being on the water with one of them.
SPEAKER_00So, what about your first race?
SPEAKER_01Well, my first race was um in a Cox Clinker Four, it was this novice four, and uh we didn't do very well. Uh the boat for some reason we we didn't do very well. So when I started sculling, I then sculled through the winter. Um by now I'd got a racing shell, and I went for my first race, which I won surprisingly, and people were surprised to see me winning the race, and so that was very exciting. Uh, that in fact was in in London. We raced on the tideway in in Putney, which is where they have the boat race, and there was very rough water, and people were fearful and said, no, no, you won't be able to handle it. You upriver people can't handle this rough water. Well, they didn't know it. And no, seriously, because this the tideway uh in London, in Putney, flows at a very high rate, it's very fast, and a little bit of wind, and it gets very rough. And so, yes, they were justified in their considerate in in their concern for me, but they didn't know that I'd rode through the winter through all wind and waves and conditions and handled the conditions much, much better than they did, and so won the race convincingly, yes, which was, as I say, a surprise. But it was motivating, it it made me then want to do more. I found that um being on your own for so long and then coming down to the club and other people and then watching them and joining in, of course they hadn't trained through the winter because they had been doing other things, and so I was able to stay alongside them so that when they were in other boats, eights and fours and that, I was able to race them and beat them because I'd trained through the winter and I was much fitter. And that gave me the motivation, you know, that the harder, the more work I did, the stronger I became. It was not just that, it was when you work hard at something, uh, you also develop technically as well. So when you change your technique, uh you change the movement, a movement that has grooved in, it takes a long time to change that movement. But if you do it under load, if you do it consistently, then it means concentration, it means working hard on what you're doing for long periods of time. And so that's the way I developed.
SPEAKER_00You spent a lot of time in the single. I mean, did you have a did you have a proper coach? Obviously, that there was the gentleman at the beginning who kind of gave you a few pointers, but do you consider yourself largely self-taught, or did you have a few coaches along the way in your early years that kind of molded the way that you approached the sport?
SPEAKER_01Well, see, rowing in in in England or in Britain or in most of the world, it was very amateur. We were everyone was an amateur. There were no professionals, no professional rogues, no professional coaches. And so people that coached would come down and to put something back into the sport. And so they would only spend one or two days a week. So they were, whilst they gave you hints and help, they were not regarded as proper coaches. It wasn't until uh we get up to a national team level that you then coach regularly. And so, as an athlete myself, didn't really have a coach, somebody who I could say was my coach. The person that helped me most, as I explained, was an old man, his name was Mr. Johnson, was an old guy. But since after then there were no coaches, it's what you read, it's what you copied, it's what you heard from other people.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel that your own rowing, your own approach to rowing in the sense of training, the mechanics of how you're moving the boat, do you feel like your own experience shaped pretty significantly how you coached the stroke? Or do you feel like that that evolved even further beyond your own rowing career?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, the way I coached was very much based on the what I did and what I learned myself. Of course, you add to it as you go along. Your knowledge grows and grows and grows all the time you're growing. You're you're still learning even when you get to 70 years old. But it was nevertheless the basis of what I learned stayed with me throughout. In fact, I think that what I learned myself was of more value because I had more confidence in it. I'd experienced it, I knew what I was doing, and so it gave me confidence, yes.
SPEAKER_00You alluded to the idea of heart, well, not really alluded to, but you pointed to the concept of the harder that you work, obviously the faster that you go. And in fact, the more effort that you're putting in during the during your time in the boat, the more impactful your sense of your improvement is going to be. You know, if you're if you're putting hard strokes in the water and you make a technical change, you're going to really notice. Um, so it seems that something that underpins all of your, I guess, rolling philosophy is always a good amount of effort, particularly mileage. I know this is something you've you know you've been attributed to with your own rowing program, your own training programs, but also I would imagine in your own rowing career. Can you talk a little bit about that? You you mentioned this in our previous talks about um not to not to steal your thunder, but that really famous phrase of Miles makes champions. You know, how did that shape your early rowing?
SPEAKER_01Well, Miley's makes champions was uh the voice of Steve Fairbair, who at the time I started was, you know, a famous name of the past. And we did learn to row the Fairbank way at my club. There were coaches there who also rode the Orthodox way, the Orthodox Way being the way that they were taught in public schools like Eton and Bradley and places where you had good posture, you looked after your body, and you were careful the way you applied yourself. Whereas Steve Fairbairn was more my champions, work hard and don't worry about technique as much or in the same way. And so those two things had a big influence. When an athlete, when you row without coaching, you develop faults and habits and ways of doing things which are very difficult to change later. And this is what I've learned as a coach, that once you have acquired a movement, it's very difficult to change that movement. So if you the more times you do that movement, the more ingrained it becomes, the more habitual it becomes, and so the harder it is to change it. And so if you want to change it, there are the only way you can do it is to by repeating that movement the correct way more times than you did to achieve it, to acquire it in the first place. What I found is that if you did it gradually, and when you were tired, then that change came quicker. So if you push yourself physically, but quietly, just over long distances, then your changes would adapt much quicker than they would if you didn't. And so working and training and technique that grew together, it became part of the same process. Now, of course, not every movement is going to help you to go faster. You would only change a movement that would blend in with the crew so that the crew, particularly the oar, was moving in the same way as teammates.
SPEAKER_00Who is Daly Thompson? And who is Daly Thompson to you?
SPEAKER_01Well, Daly Thompson was a Decafflan. He won two Olympic gold medals. He was considered uh you know an icon in his day. Of course he was British, and British didn't win many Olympic medals in those days, so he was a very special person. But he had this famous saying that he trained on Christmas Day, because Jürgen Henson, his bigger rival from Germany, didn't, and it gave him an advantage. And I I use that in in my coaching when people uh when athletes don't turn up. For example, I'm once a week we would hold a meeting, and that meeting would be to answer questions, to talk about Rowan and about the future. Incidentally, just aside to track a minute, you see a lot of gossip and a lot of things get said in dressing rooms and misconstrued and carried wrongly, and people get the wrong idea. And so to counteract that, once a week we would we would have a meeting without fail, and the meeting would be to iron out any queries, any problems, any difficulties, any controversies there are. Anyway, at this meeting, I would say Danny Thompson was regarded as the finest decathlon in history. He said he trained on Christmas Day. Would you train on Christmas Day? Who in this room would train on Christmas Day? And of course, several people would put their hand up, you see. Then I would say, well, okay, so why didn't you train yesterday? Or why did you miss Sunday morning? Or why did you not come last Thursday? And of course, the message got home.
SPEAKER_00I think I'd heard that, but I never knew who it was. Um it's interesting to have that uh attributed to the right person now. You even talked about this with um Malcolm Gladwell and kind of referencing his book as well, correct?
SPEAKER_01Right. Yes. Uh he um he wrote The Outliers, and in it it spoke about 10,000 hours. Can't remember the exact story, but it did register with me quite strongly in that I think he said something like uh in the musician at the University of Music, the the musicians that did 5,000 hours became good musicians. The ones that did 7,000 hours got into good orchestras and wrote symphonies and played symphonies, the ones who did 10,000 hours became your concert performance. And that made a lot of sense to me. I understood what he was saying, and it was useful. It's useful to have these anecdotes to tell to athletes. It's good to come at them with different from different angles, with different philosophies, different stories, different ideas, because not everyone thinks the same. And if you you come up with something, it means nothing, but something else does. So the more you bring in, the more people you're covering.
SPEAKER_00I think the the only um amendment that I've heard about that particular quote recently is 10,000 quality hours. You know, don't misconstrue that for simply 10,000 numb, mindless hours. They have to be committed hours.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. It has to be. Um, in his book, he does say in that quotation that it there have to be quality hours, yes. Not just any hours, but quality hours. You have to be practicing and focused and concentrating on the correct movement.
SPEAKER_00So from there, with your own rowing career, you know, where did where did things go from there? I mean, in terms of the single skull and moving to the national team, you know, what were the what were the next few phases?
SPEAKER_01As as a club oarsman, I I became a leading person in the club, directing captain. And so I would participate in all sorts of events and things, not just scullying. I did in Hord and Fair, just at a club level. And then in 1974, Fisa announced that lightweight rowing would be included in the World Championships. And this side of rowing was not part of Great Britain. Lightweight rowing was not even considered. We haven't even heard about it, other than And snippets of information. And so the fact that we're now going to have it in the world championships meant that rowing in Britain had to take notice. And so, as a lightweight myself, now realizing I'm not going to be the giant that my parents thought I was going to be, I finished up being, in fact, undersized for a lightweight by modern standards. I they started lightweight rowing. And so I then decided I would row in a pair, and I trained through the winter in a pair to trial for the lightweight team. That was in 74. At the end of the winter, there were announcements made as to what rowing would be. So I spent all the winter training. I coached this young boy to row with me. I'm now in my 30s. A young boy to row with me, and now we're not going to get a row. So I looked around to find an eight to form an eight. I was I'm quite well known now under Riyatta Circuit and found people to form an eight, which I did. I didn't row myself, I can never pick myself, I can never put myself first. And so I helped form this eight. And because rowing, quite lightweight rowing was not recognized in Britain because it was almost frowned upon, almost, you know, a down class. And the upper upper echelons didn't want to know about lightweight rowing, and so no one would take it on. But because I had formed this eight, they asked me to become lightweight coach. So I became lightweight coach and we took an eight and we came third in the World Championships in 1975. That time we I would go down to London and train. I had got we had no equipment, we had no boats, no oars or anything. So to coach them, I had to go down in my sculling boat. So I got them all sculling, which is where I learned most about working together as a team. And so I took my sculling boat down and we all rowed together. And I coached them from my sculling boat. We did win a medal, and uh, but at the same time, there was a sculling group that weren't doing very well, they were doing pretty badly, and they asked if they could row a quad alongside the eight, which I did, and then started coaching the quad because their coaches weren't interested. And the next year I became sculling coach, and I went to Montreal Olympics as sculling coach, and then I coached the double. My first medal was with uh Bailey and Hart, who came who won silver in Montreal. And that's the start of my own career, my coaching career.
SPEAKER_00The fact that your cruise did well and probably would have been a good motivation for you, but was there a plan to get into coaching for you? Was the you know, what was the um what was the attraction to it?
SPEAKER_01No, I didn't want to do it. I I I wasn't keen on coaching at all. Uh I was a rower, um, but I realized I'm getting past my rowing days, and so uh I would ask to do it. Uh I tried to keep rowing as well, but found that it took up too much of my time. If I wanted to do it properly, um I couldn't row as well, and so I gradually phased myself out. And so uh it wasn't something that I set about doing and not something I wanted to do. Uh, in those days, so when you finished sport, you then coached on the odd night or occasionally once or twice a week, just to put something back in to keep it alive, which is the way I was introduced in the first place.
SPEAKER_00What was it about the experience, about the profession that that kept you with it for so long?
SPEAKER_01Good question. But I can I can say that the things that I learned, I found that when I was coaching other people, little things they didn't know, and they things they hadn't learned, and this was motivating to to know that I was helpful, that I was able to help them. Um this motivated me, and of course, if they asked my help, I've never been able to refuse, and so I carried on doing it because I was asked to do it, because I felt wanted. Uh, but I got to know people, I got to like people, I got the the it's a wonderful sport. The people that you meet in it throughout the world are very similar, you know, and uh it is a great environment in which, you know, in which to find a life. Well, I think you might find it interesting that at that time uh the top athletes went into a suite program. We had a professional coach now, his name was Bob Janisek, he was brought in from Czechoslovakia. The top athletes wanted to row for him, and so he would pick his crew, and the others were then you know discarded and left. So as a sculling coach, they would come and try sculling. And I found that if you wanted to be at the best, if you wanted to be at the top, then you had to develop your own athletes. You couldn't rely on athletes being cast off from other crews. So I put it to the Rowing Association that I took on board eight young boys and they train. I live by the river, they can train from my house, I will train them every day, and then in a few years' time we'll have a strong sculling team. But of course, that started in 1979, and one of those young boys was Stephen Redgrave, he's a local boy, and he came down and wrote with me, and clearly from the beginning he had enormous talent, and so he wrote from my house for like six or seven years, training to bring on those young boys. And so for a few years, I had a very young quad. They were on the verge of a final, um, and then it was broken up when British Rowing was not doing well. Uh they broke up the sculling and they drove up the quad and I lost it. Uh Stephen just sick with me, and we did then. I was then called in to roast to coach a sweep program, a rowing program, sweep program, in which he rode, and of course they won in Los Angeles, which changed the whole concept of what I had to offer.
SPEAKER_00How old was he? My gosh, I mean 17.
SPEAKER_0117.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he would have been a really young guy.
SPEAKER_01We went to he we went to the World Championships in a double, and uh he was in a double, and they came second. They should have won really, but um things happened, as they do. Got it.
SPEAKER_00Mike, if your closest friends could only describe you with three words, and by that I mean three distinct adjectives, which words do you hope that they would use for you?
SPEAKER_01Uh now I can't remember what I put on your form now, but uh well no, I mean I I want people to believe that I'm honest, so particularly in the narrowing sense. Um you see, I've always been afraid to be untruthful before being found out. So whether it's because I have high integrity or not, but I would I would hate to be proven wrong or to be found that I have done something which was for which I would be guilty. So I I want to be honest anyway, but there are times when we we want to say the untruths to avoid unpleasant or embarrassing situations. And I try not to do that, and it does get me into trouble sometimes. But I would like to be thought of as somebody who is honest. Of course, as a coach, you're always accused of being unfair and cheating and selecting only your friends. In fact, the the worst throughout your life you get criticism, good points and bad points. And the worst point is for somebody to say that I cheated, that I was unfair, uh, that I favoured my friends. Uh certainly also look on it though that if they're saying I win with my friends and we still win, I can't be that good as a coach. So yes, I like to be considered to be, I like to be thought of as somebody who is has high integrity. Um I like to be a pleasant person, I don't like to be noisy and and boastful and pushy, and I don't want to be thought of as or I would hate to be thought of as somebody who is brash and loud and not pleasant to be with. So yes, I want to be a pleasant person. What was the other thing? Um sophisticated, I don't really want to be thought of as somebody who um does not look after, who doesn't have a higher standard of living. I I wouldn't wear shoddy clothes, for example, I wouldn't have tattoos, I wouldn't have um dirty jeans, not in public. And if I go somewhere I put on a shirt and tie and have a neat dress, and that that's the way, that's what I mean by be composed.
SPEAKER_00What drives you and motivates you?
SPEAKER_01Well, being wanted, I suppose, it's driven me. Um I can't say that it's uh a good thing. Uh in fact, I regard it as a weakness, but I have great difficulty in saying no. I have a great difficulty in refusing people, I have great difficulty in yes, in saying no. And so that in a way drives me. I've but I've never regretted making or doing whatever I'm asked to do. I've never said this is something I wish I hadn't done. And so that drives me.
SPEAKER_00On the flip side, what turns you off?
SPEAKER_01As a coach, I I I don't really want to be with somebody who don't want to be with me. So when I was coaching, athletes had the choice of whether they were working with me or or not. They could have their own coach. And that that was something that I was quite strict strict about. And there were athletes that said no, they want somebody else, and I was pleased that they went because we don't I don't want to be with people that don't really want me to be with them. I mean Canada were turned against me, and so I left Canada um a few more weeks and I would have been a Canadian citizen. I'd actually applied for Canadian citizenship, but I was not wanted by Canadian rowing, and so I left.
SPEAKER_00Have you ever thought of pursuing that citizenship just um just because, or is that long since gone?
SPEAKER_01No, I was very fond of Canada and uh certainly of be a would be a Canadian citizen now. Uh reached an age where my wife is very ill, and there's no way that I I could go back, at least while she's still with us. She would not want to go back. She couldn't travel, she'd be a burden on Canada, and so we're better off with her staying here. But it's certainly I love Canada, yes. I love Victor Victoria and British Columbia, and there are some wonderful people. I enjoyed USA too. There are lovely people in USA.
SPEAKER_00Who is someone that you admire in rowing? And why?
SPEAKER_01Well, Larry Tracy is my closest and my uh my closest friend, but I've admired him for many years. He built himself up from nothing from and to become really a quality person, and he invested, he put so much back in, certainly more into rowing, a lot into rowing, but he doesn't expect anything back for it. He doesn't even expect recognition for it, and I admire him immensely for the way he conducts his life.
SPEAKER_00Can you for those who may not know him as well, can you tell us a little bit about Larry Tracy?
SPEAKER_01Uh Larry, well, I can tell you about what he's done. He started his own business, it grew, he spent a lot of time doing it. He rode, he he tried to. I met him when he tried to row in the lightweight eight that I formed. I didn't pick him, but that didn't stop him from not liking me. And some people that you don't choose then hate you. They think you're awful, you cheat, but not at all from him, no, not at all from him. So from the beginning he he came across with the right message. He's he developed his company from being a very low-level, an ordinary working class family to, you know, a very wealthy person and put an awful lot back into the sport of rowing. He sponsored the British Women, for instance, for two years to try to get the British women to win their first Olympic medal and failed. And it's when he came to me and said, Would I do it? And so that is the reason I came back to Great Britain in 1977 to coach the British women because he had asked me to, because he had put so much in and wanted to see some result of his efforts. I have great admiration for him. And of course, Stephen Redgrave has always been, from an athlete point of view, a great person. Uh he's never changed. He's gone from being uh an ordinary novice to the world's best oarsman, and it's never changed him as a person. And that I admire and respect. And of course, Silky Nauman is a similar kind of person. She was determined to be to the top. She fought hard through great difficulties, particularly the accident. She fought off critics from other because of what she did. Um when I was in USA, she came and lived with me in USA and trained. Uh, Canadians didn't like that. And she stuck to her guns. She's been a friend, and so I I have great admiration for her too.
SPEAKER_00What is your favorite boat class?
SPEAKER_01Of course, I like the eight because you have eight people, and there is uh a mixture of interest all the way because each person is developing, and so it magnifies uh what you're trying to achieve. Coaching a small boat, uh there's a limit to what you can do. You can't keep saying the same thing over and over again, or it's less interesting. But when you have to blend people together, then that's most attractive. But you know, I learned things in my development, I learned things as I went along, which help enormously, help enormously, and I feel that I have that advantage over both other classes, that I can help a crew better than in in the eight than I can in other boats. Personally, my favorite boat is a single skull. Uh, for me personally, to do. I love the single skull coating point of view, uh certainly the eight. Um the reason that I've gone for an eight, people uh have accused me of going for an eight because it's regarded the most prestigious boat, which of course it is, but that's not the reason at all. The reason that we went I went for the boat that I felt we could win. And the boat we could win was in the eight each time an eight. When an eight wasn't going to win or win a medal, then I would go for a smaller boat, as we did, as I have done on several occasions.
SPEAKER_00Prior to a large, you know, an important performance, a race, whatever it is, do you have a pre-performance way, a way to prepare right before that performance, like a pre-race mantra of some type, to get yourself focused and ready?
SPEAKER_01Uh no, I don't have uh a routine that I follow. Um it's uh it's a time when your focus is on your crew, it's a time when you're making sure that everything that they are doing before they get onto the water, what in the hour in the hour before or the time before. And I don't have time really for me to think about what I'm doing, what I feel like, where I should be. The time when I could have a mantra is when they're on the water and they're going towards they're warming up. Uh, that's a time when I prefer to then move away and sit on my own. I don't really want people coming around, patting me on the back, saying good luck and hope it goes well. It's I prefer to keep away. But that not a mantra, it's more of just relaxing and wait and see what happens.
SPEAKER_00What about uh do you have a favorite race course or a regatta?
SPEAKER_01Well, Lucerne is regarded the the fairest course. I believe it to be the fairest course. It doesn't suffer very often from bad weather. And because of that, I prefer Lucerne. Um but it's also a nice environment, nice people. I'm used to going there, I'm familiar with it, and so that is also an attraction in that I feel comfortable when I'm there. Favourite regatta, of course, in Henley, because it's where all my friends go, it's where I only see them once a week, I sit once a year, I see them at Henley. Sometimes I don't see them at all, but every day there will be somebody who's different, I haven't seen for a long time. It's it's a wonderful institution. There's no regatta in it like the world, in the world like it. Um so yes, I'm very fond of Henley, and Henley Henley is by far my favourite regatta to attend, at least as a spectator.
SPEAKER_00What profession other than your own would you like to have attempted?
SPEAKER_01Um, I'd love to have been a doctor. I don't think I would be clever enough or intelligent enough, but I would certainly have the passion and the persistence to do it. And yes, I would like to have been a doctor. Um my background, my early background, I I didn't have an opportunity to go down those lines because I feel I'm helping people, I feel wanted, I feel that I have to be wanted, and so what better profession to help people than being a doctor?
SPEAKER_00What profession would you not like to do?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I don't like I would hate to be a lawyer, a person that is trying to find fault, to attack you, to f to trip you up, to make you do things, to say things that you don't want to say. I I would hate to have to be involved in that profession. Where you're trying to get on top of people to keep other people down for the sake of yourself, and sometimes do it knowing that it's not the right thing to be doing. And that does happen, and so it's something I prefer to keep away from.
SPEAKER_00One of my coaches at university was Chris Kerber, who was uh I rode lightweight at Cornell, and he was my coach for my junior and senior years, and uh I actually coached with him um when I got back into coaching um for two years after that. And he used to have a saying about you, which was that a quote that you said something to the degree of everything that you need to know about the sport of rowing, you could put on a three by five card. What would those things be?
SPEAKER_01See, when I started sculling, uh I I would go and ask people about sculling, as as I explained to you earlier. The coaches that were although they were more boatmen, uh Phelps and people like that, and Arlet of Hendy, they were the boatmen for Leander and the boatmen for London Rowing Club and Thames Rowing Club. But they must know about the sport because they whilst they're not professional coaches, they are professional watermen, they are paid to look after the boathouse. So I would go to them and ask them. And they would get a little fed up with me and keep asking questions. And most of them would say, All you need to know about rowing is you can write on the back of a postage stamp. Don't complicate it, don't make it difficult, keep it simple. And then one of them said to me one day, all you need to know, you only need to know six things, but he wouldn't tell me what they were. So I really don't know what they are, but I've looked for them every day. I've looked for them to this day, what those think things would be, and I can't really answer the question. I did write a poem, and uh it's a long poem, and it does explain, um, and I gave six points. It would take me a long time to I can't remember it off by heart anyway.
SPEAKER_00To close things up, if you could give one piece of advice to each of the following people, what would you say to a rower, to a coxswain, and to a coach?
SPEAKER_01Well, you see, whatever activity, whatever goal you have in life, the more time you spend doing it, the better you'll be at it, providing you, of course, you do it properly. And mileage-based champions is a classic example in the rowing world that the more miles you row correctly, the better you'll be. And that applies to coaching too. The more time you spend coaching, thinking about it, helping people, and getting feedback from them, then the more you'll learn about it. And you can only do it by the volume of what you spend time of the time you spend doing it. To be master of your vocation, be it artistic or physical, or a combination of both, the more time you give your endeavour, the stronger will be its growth. Whatever may be your ambition in life, be it art on canvas or playing French hall, or a physical activity like rowing, with more than ten thousand hours, true skill is born. Keep sculling movements simple and practice every day. It's the best advice an old coach can give. Let nothing stand in your way. But repetition can be boring. Repeating the same movement over and over again will challenge your concentration. Good sculling technique will be hard to retain, and the quality of training will deteriorate if the body is permitted to avoid the load. The value gained from staying focused will be well worth the ten thousand hours you rode.