R. C. Lehmann

If the tiro who aspires to be an oarsman has ever seen a really good eight-oared crew in motion on the water, he will probably have been impressed not so much by the power and the pace of it as by the remarkable ease with which the whole complicated series of movements that go to make up a stroke is performed. The eight blades grip the water at the same moment with a perfect precision, making a deep white swirl as they sweep through; the bodies swing back with a free and springy motion; the slides move steadily; and almost before one has realized that a stroke has been begun, the hands have come squarely home to the chest and have been shot out again to the full extent of the arms, the blades leaving the water without a splash. Then with a balanced swing the bodies move forward again, the oar-blades all in a level line on either side, and, presto! another stroke has been started. Nothing in these movements is violent or jerky; there are no contortions—at least the tiro can see none, though the coach may be shouting instructions as to backs and shoulders and elbows—and the boat glides on her way without a pause or check.

What sort of spectacle, on the other hand, is afforded by a thoroughly bad eight? The men composing it have chests and backs together with the usual complement of limbs that make up a human being; they are provided with oars; their ship is built of cedar and fitted with slides and outriggers—in short, as they sit at ease in their boat, they resemble in all outward details the crew we have just been considering. But watch them when they begin to row. Where now are the balance, the rhythm, the level flash of blades on the feather, the crisp beginning, the dashing and almost contemptuous freedom of bodies and hands in motion, the even and unsplashing progress of the ship herself? All these have vanished, and in their place we see a boat rolling like an Atlantic liner, oars dribbling feebly along the water or soaring wildly above it, each striking for the beginning at the sweet will of the man who wields it, without regard to anybody else; eight bodies, cramped and contorted almost out of the semblance of humanity, shuffling, tumbling, and screwing, while on eight faces a look of agony bears witness to such tortures as few except Englishmen can continue to suffer without mutiny or complaint. It is not a noble or an inspiring sight; but it may be seen at Oxford or at Cambridge, on tidal waters, and even at Henley Regatta.

What, then, is the main cause of the difference between these two crews? It lies in good "style"—style which is present in the one crew and absent from the other. And this style in the rowing sense merely sums up the result, whether to individuals or to a crew, of long and patient teaching founded upon principles the correctness of which has been established ever since rowing became not merely an exercise, but a science in keelless racing ships. And here one comment may be added. It is the habit of every generation of rowing men to imagine that they have invented rowing all over again, and have at last, by their own intelligence and energy, established its principles on a firm foundation. Within my own experience, five at least of these generations believed that for the first time the virtues of leg-work had been revealed to them, four thought they had made out a patent in the matter of body-swing, and six were convinced that they had discovered length of stroke and firmness of beginning. In the eyes of these young gentlemen, the veterans whom they occasionally condescended to invite to their practice were harmless and well-meaning enthusiasts, who might have made a figure in their day, but who were, of course, utterly unable to appreciate the niceties of rowing as developed by their brilliant and skilful successors.[1] Amiable presumption of youth and innocence! The fact is, of course, that the main principles of good rowing are the same now as they have always been, on long slides or on short slides, or even on fixed seats. And, personally, I have always found that the hints I gathered from such men as Dr. Warre, Mr. W. B. Woodgate, Mr. J. C. Tinne, or Sir John Edwards-Moss, whose active rowing days were over before sliding seats came into use, were invaluable to me in the coaching of crews.

[1] I shall never forget the tone of kindly patronage in which the stroke of my college crew once observed to his coach, a man about fifteen years older than himself: "Ah, I suppose, now, they all used to row in top-hats in your day!"

How is a novice to be taught so that he may some day take his seat with credit in a good crew? I answer that there is no royal road; he must pass through a long period of practice, often so dull that all his patience will be required to carry him through it. His progress will be so slow, that he will sometimes feel he is making no headway at all; but it will be sure none the less, and some day, if he has in him the makings of an oar, he will realize, to his delight, that his joints move freely, that his muscles are supple, that his limbs obey his brain immediately—that, in short, the various movements he has been striving so hard to acquire have become easy and natural to him, and that he can go through them without the painful exercise of deliberate thought at every moment of their recurrence.

Every oarsman must begin on fixed seats. This statement is to an English public school or University oar a mere platitude; but in America, and even in some of our English clubs outside the Universities, its force and necessity have been lost sight of. Here and there may be found a born oar, whose limbs and body do not require an arduous discipline; but in the case of ordinary average men like the immense majority of us, it is impossible, I believe, to acquire correct body movement without a stage, more or less prolonged, of practice in fixed-seat rowing. For it is on fixed seats alone that a man can learn that free and solid swing which is essential to good oarsmanship on slides.

I will, therefore, ask my novice reader to imagine that he is seated on one of the thwarts of a fixed-seat tub-pair, while I deceive myself into the belief that I am coaching him from its stern. My first duty will be to see that all his implements are sound and true and correct, since it is probable that faults are often due as much to the use of weak or defective materials as to any other cause. I must satisfy myself that his oar is stiff and of a proper length; that when pressed against the thole in a natural position it can grip the water firmly and come through it squarely;[2] that the stretcher is properly set, and that the straps pass tightly over the root of the toes. I must also see that he is properly dressed, and not constricted about the waist by impeding buttons. A belt is never permissible. Now for instruction.

[2] The breadth of beam of an ordinary in-rigged fixed-seat gig for the use of novices may be stated at 3 ft. 10 in. A line drawn horizontally across the boat, at right angles from the rowing thole, would be from 11½ in. to 12 in. distant from the aft, or sitting edge of the thwart. Oars should measure 12 ft. over all, with an in-board length of 3 ft. 5 in. to 3 ft. 5½ in. Breadth of blades 5½ in. to 5¾, not more.

(1) Sit erect on the aft edge of your seat, exactly opposite the point at which your heels touch the stretcher. The feet must be placed firm and flat upon the stretcher, the heels touching one another, and forming an angle of about forty-five degrees. The knees must be bent to about one-third of their scope, and set a shoulder's breadth apart. Shoulders must be well set back, the chest open, and the stomach well set out.(2) Now swing your body slowly forward as far as you are able from the hips, without bending the back, being careful to let your head swing with your body. Repeat this movement several times without holding the oar.

(Note.—The ideal swing is that which takes the whole unbending body full forward till it is down between the knees. This, to a novice, is impossible, and the coach must therefore be content to see the first efforts at swing very short. It is better that this should be so than that a man should prematurely attain length by bending his back, doubling in his stomach, and over-reaching with his shoulders, faults that, once acquired, it is extremely difficult to eradicate.)

The swing must be slow and balanced, for "the time occupied in coming forward should be the body's rest, when the easy, measured swing, erect head, braced shoulders, and open chest, enable heart and lungs to work freely and easily, in preparation for a defined beginning of the next stroke."[3]

(3) Take hold of your oar, the fingers passing round it, thumbs underneath, and the hands one hand's-breadth apart. The grip on the oar should be a finger-grip, not the vice-like hold that cramps all the muscles of the arm. It is important, too, to remember that, while the arms are presumably of the same length, the outside hand (i.e. the hand at the end of the oar) has, during stroke and swing forward, to pass through a larger arc than the inside hand. The inside wrist should, therefore, be slightly arched even at the beginning of the stroke, thus shortening the inside arm, but without impairing its use during the stroke. This arch, too, will give the inside hand a greater leverage and ease for performing the work of feathering, which devolves mainly upon it.

(4) Draw your oar-handle slowly in till the roots of the thumbs touch the chest, the elbows passing close to the sides, and the body maintaining the erect position described above in instruction (1), but slightly inclined beyond the perpendicular. I assume that the blade of the oar is covered in the water in the position it would have at the finish of a stroke.

(5) Drop your hands; in fact, not merely the hands, but the forearms and hands together. This movement will take the oar clean and square out of the water.

(6) Turn your wrists, more particularly the inside wrist, with a quick sharp turn. This movement will feather the oar.

(7) Without attempting to move your body, shoot your hands sharply out to the full extent of your arms, taking care to keep the blade of the oar well clear of the water. Repeat these last three movements several times, at first separately, then in combination.

(Note.—These three movements are sometimes spoken of incorrectly as the finish of the stroke. Properly speaking, however, the finish, as distinguished from the beginning, is that part of the stroke which is rowed through the water from the moment the arms begin to bend until the hands come in to the chest. The movements I have described are in reality part of the recovery, i.e. they are the movements necessary to enable the oarsman's body to recover itself after the strain of one stroke, and to prepare for the next. Smartly performed, as they ought to be, they have all the appearance of one quick motion. As to the dropping of the hands, the novice must practise this so as to get his oar square and clean out of the water. It is, however, necessary to guard against exaggerating it into the pump-handle or coffee-grinding style, which merely wastes energy and time. Later on, when an oarsman is rowing in a light racing ship, a very slight pressure will enable him to release his oar, the movement and elasticity of the boat helping him.)

(8) You have now taken the blade out of the water, feathered it, and have shot your hands away, the blade still on the feather, to a point beyond the knees. In so doing you will have released your body, which you must now swing forward slowly and at a perfectly even pace, in a solid column from the hips, as described in instruction 2.

(9) Obviously, if you keep your arms stiff in the shoulder-sockets, you will eventually, as your body swings down, force your hands against the stretcher, or into the bottom of the boat, with the blade of the oar soaring to the level of your head. To avoid this windmill performance let your hands, especially the inside hand, rest lightly on the oar-handle, and as the body swings down let the hands gradually rise, i.e. let the angle that the arms make with the body increase. You will thus, by the time you have finished your swing, have brought the blade close to the water, in readiness to grip the beginning without the loss of a fraction of a second.

(10) During the foregoing manoeuvre keep your arms absolutely straight from shoulder to wrist. Many oarsmen, knowing that they have to get hold of the beginning, cramp their arm-muscles and bend their elbows as they swing forward, the strain giving them a fictitious feeling of strength. But this is a pure delusion, and can only result in waste, both of energy and of time.

(11) As you swing, use the inside arm and hand to shove against the oar. You will thus keep the button of the oar pressed up against the rowlock, a position it ought never even for a moment to lose; you will help to steady your swing, and you will go far towards keeping both shoulders square. Most novices and many veterans over-reach badly with the outside shoulder.

(12) While you are carrying out the last four instructions, your feet, save for a slight pressure against the straps during the very first part of the recovery (see instruction 23), must remain firmly planted, heel and toe, against your stretcher. During your swing you should have a distinct sense of balancing with the ball of your foot against the stretcher. This resistance of the feet on the stretcher helps to prevent you from tumbling forward in a helpless, huddled mass as you reach the limit of your forward swing.

(13) As to taking the oar off the feather. Good oars vary considerably on this point. Some carry the blade back feathered the whole way, and only turn it square just in time to get the beginning of the stroke. Others turn it off the feather about half-way through, just before the hands come over the stretcher. For a novice, I certainly recommend the latter method. Turn your wrists up and square your blade very soon after the hands have cleared the knees. It will thus be easier for you to keep your button pressed against the rowlock; your hands can balance the oar better, and you will not run the risk, to which the former method renders you liable, of skying or cocking your blade just when it ought to be nearest the water, so as to catch the beginning. A good and experienced waterman, however, ought certainly to be able to keep his oar on the feather against a high wind until the last available moment. The movement of returning the blade to the square position ought to be firm and clean.

(14) As the body swings, your hands ought to be at the same time stretching and reaching out as if constantly striving to touch something which is as constantly evading them.

(15) When you are full forward, the blade of your oar should not be quite at a right angle to the water, but the top of it ought to be very slightly inclined over, i.e. towards the stern of the boat. A blade thus held will grip the water cleaner, firmer, and with far less back-splash than a blade held absolutely at right angles. Besides, you will obviate the danger of "slicing" into the water and rowing too deep. At the same time, I am bound to admit that I know only a few oars who adopt this plan. One of them, however, is the present President of the Oxford University Boat Club, Mr. C. K. Philips, as good a waterman as ever sat in a boat. I am quite firmly convinced that the plan is a sound one, and I believe if it were more generally followed, we should see far less of that uncomfortable and unsightly habit of back-splashing, which is too often seen even in good crews.

(16) I have now brought you forward to the full extent of your swing and reach. Your back is (or ought to be) straight, your shoulders are firm and braced, your chest and stomach still open, though your body is down somewhere between your open knees. Your hands have been gradually rising, and your oar-blade is, therefore, close to the water. Now raise your hands a little more, not so as to splash the blade helplessly to the bottom of the river, but with a quick movement as though they were passing round a cylinder. When they get to the top of the cylinder the blade will be covered in the water. At the same moment, and without the loss of a fraction of a second, swing the body and shoulders back as though they were released from a spring, the arms remaining perfectly straight, and the feet helping by a sharp and vigorous pressure (from the ball of the foot, and the toes especially) against the stretcher. The result of these rapid combined movements will be that the blade, as it immerses itself in the water, will strike it with an irresistible force (a sort of crunch, as when you grind your heel into gravel), created by the whole weight-power of the body applied through the straight lines of the arms, and aided by all the strength of which the legs are capable. This, technically speaking, is the beginning of the stroke. The outside hand should have a good grip of the oar.

(17) Swing back, as I said, with arms straight. The novice must, especially if he has muscular arms, root in his head the idea that the arms are during a great part of the stroke connecting rods, and that it is futile to endeavour to use them independently of the body-weight, which is the real driving power.

(18) Just before the body attains the limit of its back-swing, which should be at a point a little beyond the perpendicular, begin to bend your arms for the finish of the stroke, and bring the hands square home until the roots of the thumbs touch the chest about three inches below the separation of the ribs. Here you must be careful not to raise or depress the hands. They should sweep in to the chest in an even plane, the outside hand drawing the handle firmly home without lugging or jerking. As the hands come in, the body finishes its swing, the elbows pass close to the sides, pointing downwards, and the shoulders are rowed back and kept down. The chest must be open, but not unduly inflated at the expense of the stomach, the head erect, and the whole body carrying itself easily, gracefully, and without unnecessary stiffness.

(19) Do not meet your oar, i.e. keep your body back until the hands have come in. If you pull yourself forward to meet your oar, you will certainly shorten the stroke, tire yourself prematurely, and will probably fail to get the oar clean out of the water or to clear your knees on the recovery.

(20) Do not try to force down your legs and flatten the knees as if you were rowing on a sliding seat. The mere movement of the body on the back swing and the kick off the stretcher will cause a certain alteration in the bend of the knees, but this tendency should not be consciously increased. Remember that fixed-seat rowing is not now an end in itself. It is a stage towards skilled rowing on sliding seats, and its chief object is to give the novice practice in certain essential elements of the stroke, and particularly in body-swing, which could not be so easily taught, if at all, if he were to begin at once on sliding seats. Swing is still, as it always has been, all important in good rowing, and if a novice attempts to slide (for that is what it comes to) on fixed seats he will begin to shuffle and lose swing entirely.

(21) Do not let your body settle down or fall away from your oar at the finish. Sit erect on your bones, and do not sink back on to your tail. The bones are the pivot on which you should swing.

(22) The blade of the oar, having been fully covered at the very beginning of the stroke, must remain fully covered up to the moment that the hands are dropped. If the oarsman, when he bends his arms during the stroke, begins to depress his hands, he will row light, i.e. the blade will be partially uncovered, and will naturally lose power. On the other hand, if he raises his hands unduly, he will cover more than the blade, and will find great difficulty in extracting it from the water properly. The outside hand should control the balance of the oar, and keep it at its proper level.(23) As to the use of the stretcher-straps. Many coaches imagine that when they have said, "Do not pull yourself forward by your toes against the straps," they have exhausted all that is to be said on the matter. I venture, with all deference, to differ from them. I agree that in the earlier stages of instruction it is very useful to make men occasionally row in tub-pairs without any straps, so as to force them to develop and strengthen the muscles of stomach and legs, which ought to do the main work of the recovery. But later on, when a man is rowing in an eight, and is striving, according to the instructions of his coach, to swing his body well and freely back, he can no more recover properly without a slight toe-pressure against the straps—the heels, however, remaining firm—than he could make bricks without straw. The straps, in fact, are a most valuable aid to the recovery. Take them away from a crew and you will see one of two things: either the men will never swing nearly even to the upright position, and will recover with toil and trouble, or, if they swing back properly, they will all fall over backwards with their feet in the air. This slight strap-pressure just helps them over the difficult part of the recovery; as the body swings forward the feet immediately resume their balance against the stretcher. Indeed, if these movements are properly performed, you get a very pretty play of the toes and the ball of the foot against the stretcher, you counteract the tendency of the body to tumble forward, and you materially help the beginning from that part of the foot in which the spring resides. Totally to forbid men to use their straps seems to me a piece of pedantry. On this point I may fortify myself with the opinion of Mr. W. B. Woodgate, as given in his "Badminton Book on Boating." I am glad, too, to find that Mr. S. Le Blanc Smith, of the London Rowing Club, a most finished and beautiful oarsman, whose record of victories at Henley is a sufficient testimony to his knowledge and skill, agrees with me. In an article published during a recent rowing controversy, he remarks, "I think Mr. —— will find that all men, consciously or unconsciously, use the foot-strap more or less, to aid them in the first inch or two of recovery. If he doubts this, let him remove the strap and watch results, be the oarsman who he may." I need only add that this pressure should never be greater than will just suffice to help the body-recovery. If exaggerated, its result on slides will be to spoil swing by pulling the slide forward in advance of the body.

I have now, I think, taken you through all the complicated movements of the stroke, and there for the present I must leave you to carry out as best you can instructions which I have endeavoured to make as clear on paper as the difficulties of the subject permit. But I may be allowed to add a warning. Book-reading may be a help; but rowing, like any other exercise, can only be properly learnt by constant and patient practice in boats under the eyes of competent instructors. Do not be discouraged because your improvement is slow, and because you are continually being rated for the same faults. With a slight amount of intelligence and a large amount of perseverance and good temper, these faults will gradually disappear, and as your limbs and muscles accustom themselves to the work, you will be moulded into the form of a skilled oarsman. Even the dread being who may be coaching you—winner of the Grand Challenge Cup or stroke-oar of his University though he be—had his crude and shapeless beginnings. He has passed through the mill, and now is great and glorious. But if you imagine that even he is faultless, just watch him as he rows, and listen to the remarks that a fearless and uncompromising coach permits himself to address to him. And to show you that others have suffered and misunderstood and have been misunderstood like yourself, I will wind up this chapter with "The Wail of the Tubbed," the lyrical complaint of some Cambridge rowing Freshmen.

P.S. by Two Cynics.