As a competitor, Maureen coxed, rowed and sculled for Scottland, her country. As a coach, she has consistently produced medal winners at the Scottish and British Championships, Women's Henley, National Schools Regattas, National Veteran Championships, and FISA Masters. Tips from the Coach:
1. Work on Stretching and general fitness. If you are not fit or flexible, it will take me much longer to improve your fun in rowing.
2. Boat work - please check your adjustment in the boat.

1. for tentative scullers, sit in the boat with your legs down flat. Make sure that the scull handles finish against your body with your thumbs 6 inches apart - so that you can not physically pass the scull handle behind you. The sculls balance the boat and if they finish against your body, a really bad stroke will NOT throw you in the water. for more intrepid scullers, you start with the same adjustment but you move the footplate to the stern gradually as you get more competent at tapping the scull handles down at THE END OF THE STROKE. for high flyers, your handles should finish 3 inches from your body when you are at the finish position with your shoulders behind your hips. If you go too far with the handles finishing too close to the stern, you will find your shoulders don't get behind the hips and you will be too upright - missing the last part of the power of the stroke. sweep... Novice rowers, sit at the end of the stroke and check that your seat does not slam into the backstops but just gets there. Adjust the foot stretcher correspondingly.
2. More advanced rowers, all the oars need to be parallel at the finish and catch angles so start with the above then check that your oar can stay parallel with everyone else on your side and that at the finish, the end of your oar sits flush against your body.

3. Square blade rowing/sculling Drill - You have excellent water so lightly holding the sculls/oars, see how many square blade strokes you can take in succession. This exercise is designed to improve a variety of things - the tap down at the end of the stroke, the effective clean finish, the clean extraction of the blade, timing and balance to name but a few. If you aren't very good at this exercise, start by doing just one square blade stroke in amongst your rowing/sculling then try two, etc.