Thank you!

I think you are reading to much into it. NOT using your shoulders is essential. (The prettiest catch has as little movement as possible and as far as possible towards the fingers.) The inbalance towards the catch in this exercise makes it feasable that one searches for balance using the weight of the arms. This exercise is about learning your body to feel the weight of the blade at the catch. That's why you have to relax your hand. It is impossible to feel the weight if you squeeze the handle. Squeezing handles makes elbows do horrible things.

Your way is the correct way. Pivoting the arm at the shoulder is essential for a quick blade entry and catch and a powerful drive off the footplate. Dipping the blades using only the forearms and bending at the elbows during this drill is about as useful as rowing legs only but lifting the body at the catch for 'better connection'. It might work for that particular aim, but overall it engrains worse technique

Hi Ronald, great feedback and I am with about withdrawal symptoms. Through this very exercise you will gradually get more stability. It is a matter of slow and continous approach and.... repetition.

Aram Training - Is it really weight on the butt , or weight on the feet? Am I getting no this wrong?

At the catch it is mostly weight on the front part of your seat

Catching by bending the elbows shortens the stroke, promotes snatching at the catch, pulls the shoulder out of alignment and reduces the effective contribution of the lats to the drive phase. Allowing the weight of the blade to push upwards on the hands and pivot the entire arm from the shoulder to place the blade keeps the upper body relaxed and results in the blade entering crisply at the furthest point forward the athlete can achieve. Unweighing the handle in this way also means the blade will naturally find is' optimal depth for the drive.

this usually moves the entire trunk. This exercise is about feeling the weight of the blade. This is just my experience.

Aram Training I’ve found the drill useful in helping to take trunk movement out of the placement. Because it’s static it allows the athlete to learn to isolate the arm movement from the trunk movement in addition to feeling the weight of the blade.

I can't see why you would do dips with straight arms but flexing from the elbow - only the forearm moving. That must encourage a leg drive with bent arms, you wouldn't deadlift with bent elbows. I coach a straight arm dip, pivoting from the shoulder joint, core engaged, weight on the feet and but, no back or hip extension. I would also have the athlete at frontstops with shins more vertical and more pelvic tilt. The rhythm of the dips can change too, so hold the spoons out of the water a little longer than they are in the water. Do it with two fingers from each hand on the handles to encourage balance in the pelvis and light grip. Take the spoons half out and back in, or from half out to fully out and back to half out, to get to feel the buoyancy of the spoons in the water.

@@davebrown3910 Agreed, the elbow flex here would inevitably lead to leg drive engaging with a bent arm. The upward movement to place the blade MUST come from the shoulder with a straight arm. Legs are much stronger than biceps!

@@benaskin1 I would progress this drill to relaxed hands (we should not use the term grip, or handle for that matter, as we should not be encourage gripping the oar and we should not be encouraging putting it in our hand. It should be relaxed and in our fingers to allow wrists to remain straight when feathering), straight fingers, two fingers and then changing the rhythm so the spoon is out of the water for longer than it is in the water. And finally to just taking the spoon half out and back in, and then from half out to fully out and back to let the athlete feel the buoyancy of the spoon in the water and feel the delicacy needed to put the blade in the water. I try not to call it the catch either. To me 'catch' does not sound delicate or controlled enough. Place and connect are the coaching terms I use. Gently place (not slowly or late) the blade in the water whilst compressing and connect with the rebound out of the front and glute drive to connect. That is difficult for a beginner, so I would coach this to someone who is quite competent, but don't leave it too long as unlearning old habits takes an age.

I never said "loosen the handgrip"