The Art of Making Mistakes

It’s inevitable: Maybe you hit a buoy, have a brush with a bridge, or you call the sprint far too early. Throughout your coxing career, you’ll make mistakes, big and small.

I spoke to Matilda Horn, assistant coach with the Cambridge University women, former Great Britain senior-team and Olympic coxswain and worlds silver medalist, and co-founder of The Winning Cox, about making—and recovering from—mistakes. 

In our conversation, I confessed to Matilda that I forgot my CoxBox for my first away race. Her reply?

“I forgot my CoxBox going to the final of the world championships.”

From your first day shoving off the dock to an Olympic final, coxswains of all levels will make mistakes. What differentiates the best coxswains is how you respond and recover.

So, something bad has happened. What next?

First, if it’s been a collision or a safety issue, get yourself and your crew into a good spot.

“Go into pilot mode and get yourself out of the situation really, really well,” Horn said. “You can give yourself permission to have a minute. If it’s in a race scenario, you might need to just get through it. Then you can give yourself a minute and go: ‘Right, so I’ve messed up, and that’s OK. What have I learned from it?’”

It’s easier said than done, but it’s important to be accountable. There’s nothing wrong with a quick apology and admitting that you have made an error.

“I think the biggest thing is owning your mistakes,” Horn said. “Because you’re scared or you’re worried about what people might think, the temptation is to hide. As a cox you’re supposed to have this bravado, so the temptation is to say this wasn’t my fault, or this wasn’t me, or whatever reason you can come up with to save face.”

Owning up to the mistake honestly and without groveling helps you earn credibility with your rowers and your coach. As a coxswain, you want to show that you can handle responsibility without getting defensive or making excuses.

That being said, your rowers need ownership but they still need a strong leader. Don’t let the mistake shake you to the core. Too many times, I’ve seen a coxswain make a serious error in practice and then spend the rest of the practice in stunned silence. Make sure that you rebound.

“You’re not owning the mistake to the point that it crushes you or changes who you are,” Horn said. “You don’t want it to be the thing that people can turn around and use against you. So you have to react in a way that goes: I know I made a mistake, and this is how I’m going to respond. So that’s the bit where you earn respect and people say, fair enough, and give you the time to recover from that mistake.”

Once you’re off the water and away from a team environment, you can give yourself a little more time. If you need to get more emotional or do some processing, out of the boat and after the session is a good time. Call someone unrelated to the situation, explain, and have a good cry if you need to.

“Be really mad about it, be really sad about it, and then go to your safe space and let all the emotions out,” Horn said. (And if you’ve really damaged something, she added, “that’s what insurance is for.”)

After you’ve done a bit of emotional recovery, you’re going to need to get back on the water and do it again.

“It’s OK to be sad or scared about something,” Horn said. “But it’s like if you fall off your bike, the best way to get over it is to get back on it. It sounds cliché, but then you can go: OK, how am I going to be able to do this again? What do I need to feel safe again?”

If you need a bit of extra support from your coach or teammates—more help with steering, another practice at backing into the stakeboat, more communication from a stroke or bow seat about what’s happening around them—don’t hesitate to ask for help. The point, Horn said, is that you (or you and your coach) can come up with a solution that helps you feel safer on the water. Then you can begin building up your confidence.

Mistakes happen to us all as long as we are in boats.

“Say you’re sorry, but also make sure [your rowers] know that you’re in control of what you take away from that mistake; they don’t get to determine that for you. They don’t get to own your mistake, but you do,” Horn said.

Be responsible, articulate what you’ve learned, and make a plan to avoid that error in the future. And when something happens, don’t let it shake you to your core. Hop back in the stern and show your rowers just how responsible and resilient you can be. 

Hannah Woodruff is an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for the Radcliffe heavyweight team. She began rowing at Phillips Exeter Academy, was a coxswain at Wellesley College, and has coached college, high-school, and club crews for over 10 years.

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