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The purpose of this study was to understand how a single pair of expert individual rowers experienced their crew functioning in natural conditions when asked to practice a joint movement for the first time. To fulfill this objective, we conducted a field study of interpersonal coordination that combined phenomenological and mechanical data from a coxless pair activity, to analyze the dynamics of the (inter)subjective experience compared with the dynamics of the team coordination. Using an enactivist approach to social couplings, these heterogeneous data were combined to explore the salience (and accuracy) of individuals’ shared experiences of their joint action. First, we determined how each rower experienced the continuous crew functioning states (e.g., feelings of the boat’s glide). Second, the phenomenological data helped us to build several categories of oar strokes (i.e., cycles), experienced by the rowers as either detrimentally or effectively performed strokes. Third, the mechanical signatures that correlated with each phenomenological category were tracked at various level of organization (i.e., individual-, interpersonal-, and boat-levels). The results indicated that (a) the two rowers did not pay attention to their joint action during most of the cycles, (b) some cycles were simultaneously lived as a salient, meaningful experience of either a detrimental (n = 15 cycles) or an effective (n = 18 cycles) joint action, and (c) the mechanical signatures diverged across the delineated phenomenological categories, suggesting that the way in which the cycles were experienced emerged from the variance in some mechanical parameters (i.e., differences in peak force level and mean force). Notably, the mechanical measures that helped to explain differences within the phenomenological categories were found at the interpersonal level of analysis, thus suggesting an intentional inter-personal mode of regulation of their joint action. This result is further challenged and discussed in light of extra-personal regulation processes that might concurrently explain why participants did not make an extensive salient experience of their joint action. We conclude that attempts to combine phenomenological and mechanical data should be pursued to continue the research on how individuals regulate the effectiveness of their joint actions’ dynamics.

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This case study examined how two rowers adapted their rowing patterns following crew training as a newly formed coxless pair. The two participants were expert (double-oar) single scull-boat rowers. Performing as a crew in the coxless-pair’s sweep-boat, where each rower operates a single oar, on-the-water data were collected before and after a 6-week intensive team-training program. Rowing patterns were characterized by the horizontal oar angle, oar angular velocity and linear oar-water velocity profiles during the catch (minimal oar angle) to finish (maximal oar angle) half-cycles of the propulsive water phase. After crew training, rowers demonstrated a tighter synchronization and a closer correspondence in oar angle at the moment of catch, together with a closer matching of the evolution over time of their subsequent oar movements. Most likely due to the inherent asymmetries involved in sweep-boat rowing, the stroke rower also developed a somewhat longer-duration larger-amplitude oar movement than the bow rower. Remarkably, both rowers revealed changes in the inter-cycle variability of their individual patterns of rowing. While the initially more variable stroke rower improved the consistency of his rowing pattern over practice, the initially highly consistent bow rower on the contrary relaxed his tendency to always perform in the same way. We discuss how the crew performance changed over training and to what extent it was associated with changes in individual behaviors. Along the way we demonstrate that the often-used measure of average continuous relative phase does not adequately capture the particularities of the coordination pattern observed. Overall, the results obtained at the individual level of analysis suggest that team benefits were obtained through distinct adaptations of the rowers’ individual rowing patterns.