so that they can take their time from you 'rooollllllllllllllllll your hands' and praise them, when you feel the changes. Now try an exercise.  You'll know by now which things you said made for the biggest changes so you can go two ways here.  Either really emphasise the thing that made the boat go fastest ( 'Wow, did you notice how much time you had on the way forward when we held our legs down for longer.  This exercise will help you do that better." ) or take something that didn't go so well (maybe they've never been taught how to hold the handle and so the death grip they're using is making it really hard to square up smoothly) and see if the exercise can help bring the crew together in either movement or understanding. Your first crew outing First time out, I'd take the first option -- it'll give you all confidence in your actions and in each other. Finish off with some rowing and introduce some racing.  Even 10 strokes will do (" we're 20 strokes out from the start, let's push out our legs to get some more time, to get our race rhythm, 10 strokes with long legs, this time, now . . .") . Social crew outings And I hope you left some time for that coffee or beer afterwards.  The social element plays a big part in Masters rowing -- you just wait to see how young they all are once they get