If a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, whether it be undertaken in sport or as a means of livelihood.

The first principles of oarsmanship may be explained to a beginner in a few minutes, and he might roughly put them into force, in a casual and faulty manner, on the first day of his education.

In all pastimes and professions there is, as even a child knows, a very wide difference between the knowing how a thing is done and the rendering of the operation in the most approved and scientific manner.

In all operations which entail the use of implements there are three essentials to the attainment of real merit in the operation. These are, firstly, physical capacity; secondly, good tools to work with; thirdly, practice and painstaking on the part of the student.

For the purposes of the current chapter we shall postulate the two former, and confine the theme to details of such study and practice of oarsmanship as are requisite in order to attain scientific use of oars or sculls.

When commencing to learn an operation which entails a new and unwonted exercise, distinct volition is necessary on the part of the brain, in order to dictate to the various muscles the parts which they are to play in the operation.

The oftener that a muscular movement is repeated the less intense becomes the mental volition which is required to dictate that movement; until at last the movement becomes almost mechanical, and can be reproduced without a strain of the will (so long as the muscular power is not exhausted).

One object of studied practice at any given muscular movement is to accustom the muscles to this particular function, until they become capable of carrying it out without requiring specific and laborious instructions from the headquarters of the brain on the occasion of each such motion. Another object and result of exercise of one or more sets of muscles is to develop their powers. The anatomical reasons why muscles increase in vigour and activity under exercise need not be here discussed; the fact may be accepted that they do so.

Hence, by practice of any kind of muscular movement, the student increases both the vigour and the independence of action of the muscles concerned.

In any operation with implements there is some one method of performing the same which experience has proved to be the most effectual for the purpose required. There will be other methods, or variations of method, which will attain a somewhat similar but less effectual and less satisfactory result.

It requires distinct volition in the first instance to perform the operation in an inferior manner, just as it does to perform it in the most approved manner, to perform ‘clumsily’ or to perform ‘cleverly.’Naturally, if the volition to act clumsily be repeated a sufficient number of times, the muscles learn independent clumsy action with as much facility as they would have otherwise acquired independent clever and scientific action. Hence the importance of knowing which is the most approved and effectual method of setting to work, and of being informed of the result, good or bad, of each attempt, while the volition is still in active force, and before the ‘habit’ of muscular action, perfect or imperfect, is fully formed.

We all know that, whether we are dealing with morals or with muscles, it is a matter of much difficulty to overcome a bad habit, and to form a different and a better one relating to the same course of action.

When the pupil begins to learn to row the brain has many things to think of; it has several orders to distribute simultaneously to its different employÉs—the various muscles required for the work—and these employÉs are, moreover, ‘new to the business.’ They have not yet, from want of practice, developed the vigour and strength which they will require hereafter; and also they know so little of what they have to do that they require incessant instruction from brain headquarters, or else they make blunders. But in time both master and servants, brain and muscles, begin to settle down to their business. The master becomes less confused, and gives his orders with more accuracy and less oblivion of details; the servants acquire more vigour, and pick up the instructions with more facility. At last the time comes when the servants know pretty well what their master would have them do, and act spontaneously, while the master barely whispers his orders, and has leisure to attend to other matters, or at all events saves himself the exertion of having momentarily to shout his orders through a speaking-trumpet. Meantime, as said before, the servants can only obey orders; and, if their original instructions have been blunders on the part of the master, they settle down to the reproduction of these blunders.

Now it often happens that an oarsman, who is himself a good judge of rowing, and is capable of giving very good instructions to others, is guilty of many faults in his own oarsmanship. And yet it cannot be said of him that he ‘knows no better’ as regards those faults which he personally commits. On the contrary, if he were to see one of his own pupils rowing with any one of these same faults, he would promptly detect it, and would be able to explain to the pupil the why and the wherefore of the error, and of its cure. Nevertheless, he perpetrates in his own person the very fault which he discerns and corrects when he notes it in another! And the reason is this. His own oarsmanship has become mechanical, and is reproduced stroke after stroke without a distinct volition. It became faulty at the time when it was becoming mechanical, because the brain was not sufficiently conscious of the orders which it was dictating, or was not duly informed, from some external source, what orders it should issue. So the brain gave wrong orders, through carelessness or ignorance, or both, and continued to repeat them, until the muscles learnt to repeat their faulty functions spontaneously, and without the immediate cognisance of the brain.

This illustration, of which many a practical instance will be recalled by any rowing man of experience, serves to show the importance of keeping the mind attentive, as far as possible, at all times when rowing, and still more so while elementary rowing is being learnt, and also of having, if possible, a mentor to watch the endeavours of the student, and to inform him of any error of movement which he may perpetrate, before his mind and muscles become confirmed in an erroneous line of action.

The reader will therefore see from the above that it is important for any one who seeks to acquire really scientific oarsmanship, not only to pay all the mental attention that he can to the movements which he is executing, but also to secure the presence of some experienced adviser who will watch the execution of each stroke, and will point out at the time what movements have been correctly and what have been incorrectly performed.Having shown the importance of careful study and tuition in the details of scientific oarsmanship, we now enter into those details themselves, but still confine ourselves to what is known as ‘fixed’ seat rowing, taking them separately, and dealing first with the stroke itself, as distinct from the ‘recovery’ between the strokes.

While carrying out the stroke upon general principles, the oarsman, in order to produce a maximum effect with a relatively minimum expenditure of strength, has to study the following details:

1. To keep the back rigid, and to swing from the hips.

2. To maintain his shoulders braced when the oar grasps the water.

3. To use the legs and feet in the best manner and at the exact instant required.

4. To hold his oar properly.

5. To govern the depth of the blade with accuracy, including the first dip of the blade into the water to the moment when the blade quits it.

6. To row the stroke home to his chest, bending his arms neither too soon nor too late.

7. To do so with the correct muscles.

8. To drop the hands and elevate the oar from the water in the right manner and at the right moment.

Then again, when the stroke is completed and the recovery commences, the details to be further observed are:

9. To avoid ‘hang’ or delay of action either with hands or body.

10. To manipulate the feather with accuracy and at the proper instant.

11. To govern the height of the blade during the recovery.

12. To use the legs and feet correctly and at the right moments of recovery.

13. To keep the button of the oar home to the thowl.

14. To regulate the proportionate speeds of recovery of arms and of body, relatively to each other.15. To return the feathered oar to the square position at the right time and in the correct manner.

16. To raise the hands at the right moment, and so to lower the blade into the water at the correct instant.

17. To recommence the action of the new stroke at the right instant.

These several details present an apparently formidable list of detailed studies to be followed in order to execute a series of strokes and recoveries in the most approved fashion. In performance the operation is far more homogeneous than would appear from the above disjointed analysis of the several movements to be performed. The division of movements is made for the purpose of observation and appreciation of possibly several faults, which may occur in any one of the movements detailed. As a fact, the correct rendering of one movement—of one detail of the stroke—facilitates correctness in succeeding or contemporaneous details; while, on the other hand, a faulty rendering of one movement tends to hamper the action of the body in other details, and to make it more liable to do its work incorrectly in some or all of them. Experience shows that one fault, in one distinct detail, is constantly the primary cause of a concatenation of other faults. To set the machine in incorrect motion in one branch of it tends to put the whole, or the greater part of it, more or less out of gear, and to cripple its action from beginning to end of the chapter.

Taking these various details seriatim.

1. The back should be set stiff, and preserved stiff throughout the stroke. Obviously, if the back yields to the strain, the stroke is not so effectual. Besides, if the back is badly humped the expansion of the chest is impeded; and with this the action of the pectoral muscles and of the shoulders (of both of which more anon) is also fettered. Further, the lungs have less freedom of play when the back is bent and the chest cramped; and the value of free respiration requires no explanation.

We have said that the back must be stiff. If the back can be straight, from first to last, stiffness is ensured, ipso facto. If the back is bent, care must be taken that the bend does not increase or decrease during the stroke; whether straight or bent, the back should be rigid.

The conformation and development of the muscles of the back are not quite the same in all subjects. With some persons absolute straightness of back comes almost naturally; with others the attainment of straightness is not a matter of much difficulty. With others, again, a slight amount of curve in the back is more natural under the strain of the oar, even with all attention and endeavour to keep the back flat. With such as these any artificial straightening of the back, that places it in a position in which the muscles, as they are adapted to the frame, have not the fullest and freest play, detracts from rather than adds to the power of the oarsman.

But in all cases it is important that the back, whether straight or slightly arched, should be rigid, and should swing from the hips. If the swing takes place from one or more of the vertebrÆ of the spine, the force which the oarsman can by such actions produce is far less than would be the case if he kept his spine rigid and had swung to and fro from his hips.

In order to facilitate the entire body in swinging from the hips, and not from one of the vertebrÆ, the legs should be opened, and the knees induced outward, as the body swings forward. The body can then lower itself to a greater reach forward, and directly from the hips; whereas if the knees are placed together the thighs check the forward motion of the body, and compel it, if it remains rigid, to curtail its forward reach. (If the vertebrÆ bend when the swing from the hips is checked by the bent knees, the extra reach thus attained is weak, and of comparatively minor effect.)

Next (2) the shoulders have to be rigid. If they give way, and if the sockets stretch when the strain of the oar is felt, the effect of the stroke is evidently weakened. Now if the shoulders are stretched forward at the beginning of the stroke, the muscles which govern and support them have not the same power of rigidity that they possess when the shoulders are well drawn back at the outset. The oarsman gains a little in reach by extending his shoulders, but he loses in rigidity of muscle, and consequently in the force which he applies to the oar.

3. The legs and feet should combine to exercise pressure against the stretcher at the same moment, and contemporaneously with the application of the oar to the water. If they press too soon, the body is forced back while the oar is in air; if too late, the hold of the water is weak, for want of legwork to support the body.4. The oar should be held in the fingers, not in the fist; the lower joints of the fingers should be nearly straight when the oar is held. The hold which a gymnast would take of a bar of the same thickness, if he were hanging from it, is, as regards the four fingers of the hand, the same which an oarsman should take of his oar. His thumb should come underneath, not over the handle.

5 and 10. Government of the depression or elevation of the blade, respectively, during stroke and recovery, is a matter of application of joints and of muscles. This much may be borne in mind, that the freer the wrist is, the better is the oar governed; and if an oar is clutched in the fist the flexibility of the wrist is thereby much crippled.

6. The arms should begin to bend when the body has just found the perpendicular. The upper arm should swing close to the ribs, worked by the shoulders, which should be thrown well back.

7. The ‘biceps’ should not do the work; for, if it does, either the hands are elevated or the level of the blade altered—if the elbows keep close to the side; or else, if the level of the hands is preserved, then the elbows dog’s-ear outwards. In either case the action is less free and less powerful than if the stroke is rowed home by the shoulder muscles.

8. The part of the hand which should touch the chest when the oar comes home is the root of the thumb, not the knuckles of the fingers. If the knuckles touch the chest before the oar comes out of water, the blade is ‘feathered under water’—a common fault, and a very insidious one. If, on the other hand, the oar comes out clean, but the first thing which touches the chest is the knuckle, then the last part of the stroke will have been rowed in air, and not in the water.

9. Dealing now with recovery. The hands should rebound from the chest like a billiard-ball from a cushion. If the hands delay at the chest they hamper the recovery of the body—e.g. let any man try to push a weight away from him with his hands and body combined. He will find that, if he pushes with straight arms, he is better able to apply the weight of his body to the forward push than if he keeps his arms bent.

Having shot his hands away, and having straightened his arms as quickly as he reasonably can, his body should follow; but his body should not meantime have been stationary. It should, like a pendulum, begin to swing for the return so soon as the stroke is over.

If hands ‘hang,’ the body tends to hang, as above shown; and if the body hangs, valuable time is lost, which can never be regained. As an illustration: suppose a man is rowing forty strokes in a minute, and that his body hangs the tenth of a second when it is back after each stroke, then at the end of a minute’s rowing he will have sat still for four whole seconds! An oarsman who has no hang in his recovery can thus row a fast stroke with less exertion to himself than one who hangs. The latter, having wasted time between stroke and recovery, has to swing forward all the faster, when once he begins to recover, in order to perform the same number of strokes in the same time as he who does not hang. Now, although there is a greater effort required to row the blade square through the water than to recover it edgewise through the air, yet the latter has to be performed with muscles so much weaker for the task set to them that relatively they tire sooner under their lighter work than do the muscles which are in use for rowing the blade through the water. When an oarsman becomes ‘pumped,’ he feels the task of recovery even more severe than that of rowing the stroke. Hence we see the importance of economising as far as possible the labour of those muscles which are employed on the recovery, and of not adding to their toil by waste of time which entails a subsequent extra exertion in order to regain lost ground and lost time.

10. The manipulation of the blade through the water is of great importance, otherwise the blade will not keep square, and regular pressure against the water will not be attained. Now, since the angle of the blade to the water has to be a constant one, and since the plane on which the blade works also is required to be uniform, till the moment for the feather has arrived, it stands to reason that the wrists and arms, which are changing their position relatively with the body while the stroke progresses, must accommodate themselves to the progressive variations of force of body and arms, so as to maintain the uniform angle and plane of the oar. Herein much attention must be paid to maxim 4 (supra). If an oar is held in the fist instead of in the fingers, the play of the muscles of the wrist is thereby crippled, and it becomes less easy to govern the blade.

11. On a somewhat similar principle as the foregoing, the arms, on the recovery, are changing their position and angle with the body throughout the recovery; but the blade has to be kept at a normal level above the water all the time. It is a common fault for the oarsman to fail to regulate the height of the feather, and either to ‘toss’ it at some point of the recovery or else to lower it till the blade almost, if not quite, touches the water. Nothing but practice, coupled with careful observations of the correct manner of holding an oar, can attain that mechanical give-and-take play of muscles which produces an even and clean feather from first to last of recovery.

12. We are still, for the sake of argument, dealing with fixed-seat oarsmanship. Slides will be discussed subsequently.

In using the legs, on a fixed seat, for recovery, the toes should feel the strap, which should cross them on or below the knuckle-joint of the great toe. Each foot should feel and pull up the strap easily and simultaneously, so as to preserve even position of body. The legs should open well, and allow the body to trick between them as it swings forward.

13. If the body swings true, the oar will keep home to the rowlock; there should be just sufficient fraction of weight pressed against the button to keep it home; if it is suffered to leave the rowlock, the oarsman tends to screw outwards over the gunwale, and also, when he recommences the stroke, he loses power by reason of his oar not meeting with its due support until the abstracted button has slipped back against the thowl.

14. The pace of recovery should be proportionate to the speed of stroke. If recovery is too slow, the oarsman becomes late in getting into the water for the next stroke; if he is too quick, he has to wait when forward in order not to hurry the stroke.

15. Too many even high-class oars are prone to omit to keep the oar feathered for the full distance of the recovery. They have a tendency to turn it square too soon. By so doing they incur extra resistance of air and extra labour on the recovery, and they are more liable to foul a wave in rough water. The oar should be carried forwards edgewise, and only turned square just as full reach is attained. It should then be turned sharply, and not gradually.

16. The instant the body is full forward, and the oar set square, the hands should be raised sharply to the exact amount required in order to drop the blade into the water to the required depth, so as to cover it for the succeeding stroke.

17. The new stroke should be recommenced without delay, by throwing the body sharply back, with arms stiff and shoulders braced, the legs pressing firmly and evenly against the stretcher, so as to take the weight of the body off the seat, and to transfer its support to the handle of the oar and the stretcher, thus making the very most of weight and of extensor muscles in order to give force to the oar against the water.

N.B. Before closing these remarks, it should be added that, with reference to detail 12, it is assumed that the oarsman, having progressed to the scientific stage, has so far mastered the use of the loins as to be able to combine their action with that of the toe against the strap in aiding the recovery of the body. If he tries to rely solely on the motor power for recovery from the strap, and the toes against it, he will not swing forward with a stiff back, and will be in a slouched position when he attains his reach forward.

The Rev. E. Warre, D.D., published in 1875 some brief remarks upon the stroke, in a treatise upon physical exercises and recreations. They are here reproduced by leave, the writer feeling that they can hardly be surpassed for brevity and lucidity of instruction upon the details of the stroke.

The moment the oar touches the body, drop the hands smartly straight down, then turn the wrists sharply and at once shoot out the hands in a straight line to the front, inclining the body forward from the thigh-joints, and simultaneously bring up the slider, regulating the time by the swing forward of the body according to the stroke. Let the chest and stomach come well forward, the shoulders be kept back; the inside arm be straightened, the inside wrist a little raised, the oar grasped in the hands, but not pressed upon more than is necessary to maintain the blade in its proper straight line as it goes back; the head kept up, the eyes fixed on the outside shoulder of the man before you. As the body and arms come forward to their full extent, the wrists having been quickly turned, the hands must be raised sharply, and the blade of the oar brought to its full depth at once. At that moment, without the loss of a thousandth part of a second, the whole weight of the body must be thrown on to the oar and the stretcher, by the body springing back, so that the oar may catch hold of the water sharply, and be driven through it by a force unwavering and uniform. As soon as the oar has got hold of the water, and the beginning of the stroke has been effected as described, flatten the knees, and so, using the muscles of the legs, keep up the pressure of the beginning uniform through the backward motion of the body. Let the arms be rigid at the beginning of the stroke. When the body reaches the perpendicular, let the elbows be bent and dropped close past the sides to the rear—the shoulders dropping and disclosing the chest to the front; the back, if anything, curved inwards rather than outwards, but not strained in any way. The body, in fact, should assume a natural upright sitting posture, with the shoulders well thrown back. In this position the oar should come to it and the feather commence.

N.B.—It is important to remember that the body should never stop still. In its motion backwards and forwards it should imitate the pendulum of a clock. When it has ceased to go forward it has begun to go back.

There are, it will appear, from consideration of the directions, about twenty-seven distinct points, articuli as it were, of the stroke. No one should attempt to coach a crew without striving to obtain a practical insight into their nature and order of succession. Let a coxswain also remember that, in teaching men to row, his object should be to teach them to economise their strength by using properly their weight. Their weight is always in the boat along with them; their strength, if misapplied, very soon evaporates.