Hi all :),

Currently, I'm coxing a women's freshman 8 . I'm a quite experienced coxswain, with over 4 years of experience right now. This boat has been through a lot of shit over the winter. I wasn't supposed to cox them at all, they had another coxswain who was told to quit because of some issues right before our 2k season. That is where I came in. At first: no problems whatsoever, they were complete underdogs performing incredibly well all of sudden. They literally went from hanging somewhere at the bottom to almost consistently finishing top 3. And then it fell apart again, when we encountered some rough weather on a raceday. Since then, there hasn't been any spirit. These girls aren't really thát enthousiastic, and it was hard before to light a fire under them, but now, I just can't seem to get them motivated for ánything. They just sort of decided that they indeed do not belong in top 3, that they indeed can't row for shit and I gave them ways to deal with these kind of negative thoughts, but they just don't want to deal with it. They don't want to go to sleep early, they don't want to eat healthy, they just don't want anything it seems.

So: does anyone have any nice tips or tricks to light a fire under a crew like this? I'd love to turn it around for them, although I feel part of the problem is that they just don't take their own responsibilities. We have our next race coming up this weekend, and 3 weeks after that our final race of this season, so I'm willing to try almost anything at this moment! Thanks :)