Rowing Part 7

Finally, a captain of a crew must remember, if with these great examples before his eyes he feels inclined, as he runs over his list of available oars, to despair of getting together a good crew, that wonderful results have been achieved by college captains who had to draw their men from a comparatively narrow field, and were often forced by the exigencies of the case to fill places in their boats with men who were far removed from ideal perfection.

CHAPTER VI.

COMBINED OARSMANSHIP IN EIGHTS (_continued_).

From the hints given in the preceding chapter it will have been gathered that good oarsmen are of all sizes and weights. But it must not be forgotten that no small part of the motive-power of a crew comes from heavy men. By weight I do not, of course, mean that which results from mere adipose deposit; but weight, as it is usually found amongst young men, that depends on the size of the frame and the limbs, and on their due covering of muscle and sinew. I cannot, therefore, too strongly advise a captain or a coach to spare no labour and no patience in endeavouring to teach big men how to row. There will be disappointments.

Every one who has experience of rowing must remember at least one ma.s.sive and magnificent giant who failed to learn, in spite of infinite pains on his own part and on the part of those who had to teach him.

Out of a boat he may have looked the very model of what a heavy-weight oarsman should be--erect, strong, well-proportioned, supple, and active.

But put him in a boat, and at once he suffered a river change. His muscles turned into pulp, his chest became hollow, his arms and legs were mere nerveless attachments, and his whole body a.s.sumed the shapelessness of a sack of potatoes. In the end, after many days, the hopeless effort had to be sadly abandoned, and the would-be oarsman returned to the rough untutored struggles of the football field, or the intoxicating delights of lawn-tennis and golf. But, on the other hand, there are innumerable instances to prove that a big man who has never touched an oar before he came to Oxford or Cambridge, or joined one of the Metropolitan clubs, may, by care and perseverance, be turned into the pride and mainstay of his crew. Therefore, I say, persist with big and heavy men, in spite of occasional discouragements; for there is more advantage to a crew in one rough thirteen-stoner who really works and swings than in two light-weights polished _ad unguem_.

In the shapes of oarsmen, again, every kind of variety may be found, not merely in minor details, but in the whole physical characteristics of their bodies. Bob Coombes, the professional champion of 1846, 1847, and 1851, has recorded his opinion that the best physical type of oarsman is the man who is, amongst other things, deep-chested and straight and full in the flanks; who, in other words, has no waist to speak of. To this type Mr. S. D. Muttlebury and Mr. Guy Nickalls conform, and there can be no doubt that it is the best. But I have known oarsmen who varied from it in every detail, and yet did magnificent work in a crew. I have already mentioned Mr. C. W. Kent, and I may add another example in Mr.

H. Willis, of the Leander Club, a very finished and valuable oar, who has given his proofs not only in an Eight, but also as No. 3 of the winning Stewards' Four at Henley Regatta this year. Mr. Willis is tall and loose-jointed. He is not furnished with any great quant.i.ty of muscle, and his modesty will not resent my adding that, though he has a well-framed chest, he also possesses a very distinct waist. I might multiply such instances; but they may all be summed up in the statement that a really good oarsman is never of a bad shape--for rowing. The ultimate test is to be found not in the examination of his muscle or the measurement of his frame, but in the careful and patient observation of his work while he is actually engaged in rowing. A mere weed, of course, cannot row to advantage; but I have seen more than one instance of so-called weeds who eventually developed under the influence of the exercise into solid and capable oars. And, as a rule, there is more promise in the comparative weakling than in the gymnast whose tight binding of muscles impedes the freedom and alertness of his limbs.

We may now consider how the practice of an ordinary eight-oared crew should be conducted. There is a certain amount of difference of opinion as to how long a crew should remain in their tub--that is, in their clinker-built boat--before taking to the racing-ship. Most college captains, I think, keep their men in the heavy boat too long. Four or five days are, I think, an amply sufficient period. Experienced oars are none the better for rowing in a heavy boat, and novices who have much to learn in watermanship, and want a long period for the learning, can be taught the requisite lessons only in a light ship. The difficulties of sitting such a ship are, as a rule, much exaggerated; and the young oar who watches the scratch crews rowing against a University crew, or sees a Leander Eight setting out for the first time, is apt to be surprised when he notes how eight men, who have never rowed together before, can move along with uniformity and steadiness. There are, no doubt, difficulties of balance and quickness in light ship rowing; but the sooner these are faced the better for all concerned. I am a.s.suming, of course, that the novice has been already drilled in the manner described in previous chapters.

As to the total length of the period of practice from the start to the day of the race, that must, and does, vary according to circ.u.mstances. A University crew practising for a long race will be at work generally from about the middle of January until towards the end of March, some ten weeks in all. Cambridge college crews have six weeks, Oxford college crews only about four, for the college races. A London, Thames, or Kingston crew can command at least seven weeks for the practice of its Henley crew. On the other hand, no winning Leander crew that I have known has ever practised for more than three weeks as a combination; though individual members of it, who had not been at work since the previous year, may have been taking rowing exercise on their own account for some little time before the eight got to work. As a typical example, I may take the remarkable Leander crew of 1896. Five members of this crew--Mr. Guy Nickalls, Mr. J. A. Ford, Mr. C. W. N. Graham, Mr. T. H.

E. Stretch, and Mr. H. Willis--had had no rowing exercise for a year; one, Mr. W. F. C. Holland, had not worked, except for a casual regatta in Portugal, since the final of the Grand Challenge Cup in 1893; the other two, Mr. H. Gold and Mr. R. Carr, had been in regular practice at Oxford or at Putney since the previous October. Two weeks before practice in the Eight began, Messrs. Holland, Ford, Stretch, and Graham began work in a Four, with Mr. Graham, the eventual bow of the Eight, at stroke. Mr. Willis had half this period of preliminary practice in a pair. Mr. Nickalls had for some weeks been working at Putney in a Four and a pair. Just three clear weeks before the first day of Henley Regatta the Eight was launched; but it was not until three days after this that Mr. Nickalls was able to come into the boat, and the crew for the first time rowed in its final order, the advent of Mr. Nickalls resulting in four changes in its arrangement. And yet this crew defeated Yale University, who had been practising for months, and other crews, composed of good material, that had been together for six or seven weeks. I have in my mind, too, another crew, a combination of three Oxonians, two Cantabs, two Etonians, and one Radleian, who, on one week's practice, managed to beat over a one-mile course the Eights of the London and Thames clubs, in spite of their ten or eleven weeks of practice.

I do not wish to have it inferred from the foregoing facts that in my opinion those crews are likely to turn out best which practise together for a very short time. Still, the qualities of skill, keenness of enthusiasm, strength, condition, and racing ability, are factors in success even more important than length of practice. It ought, of course, to be true that if you could get two crews equally matched as regards these qualities that which had had the longer period of practice should win because of its greater uniformity. Moreover, in most cases extra length of practice _up to a certain point_ ought to imply superiority of condition. Beyond that point a crew, though it maintains its outward uniformity and style, will fall off in pace, because overwork will have dulled the edge of its energies, and robbed it of the brisk animation that marks the rowing of men trained to the very needle-point of perfect condition. And on the whole, taking condition and the risks of staleness into account, I should prefer to take my chances for an ordinary race with a crew that had practised from four to five weeks, rather than with one that had been at it for ten or eleven.

I leave out of account the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, both because of the length of the course over which it is rowed, and on account of the frequent changes to which the authorities generally find themselves compelled to resort. And even for this race, if a president could at the outset be absolutely certain as to the general composition of the crew, he would find, I think, that a period of seven weeks at the outside would be fully sufficient for him and his men. The whole matter amounts to this, that a captain or a coach must consider carefully all the circ.u.mstances of his case--the skill, the condition, the experience and the strength of his men, and the distance over which they have to race, and must decide on the period of practice accordingly. I cannot on paper lay down any fixed general rule for his guidance, but can only bring before him a few detached considerations which may be useful to him as food for reflection. For my own part, I may add that I have never found the least difficulty, even after a year's rest from rowing, in getting into very good racing condition on three or four weeks of work.

HOW TO ARRANGE THE DAILY WORK OF AN EIGHT.

Let the real hard work be done in the earlier stages of practice. You thus accustom your men to one another, and you grind them into a uniformity which makes all their subsequent work easier. This plan has been very successfully followed by Oxford crews. Before they get to Putney they will have rowed over the long course of four miles some ten times. As a result, the men are hard and row well together; and during their stay at Putney it is found possible to ease them in their work, so as to bring them fresh and vigorous to the post on the day of the race. Supposing you have five weeks for practice, you ought, I think, during the first fortnight to row your crew over the racing course at least four times. During the next ten days one full course will be sufficient. The work of the last ten days must vary according to the condition of the men, but two half courses and one full course at a racing stroke will probably be found sufficient. Save for the rare case of an exceptionally long row, a practice of about an hour and a half every day is enough. At Henley all crews practise twice a day, but I do not think they spend more than two hours, if so much, on the water every day.

RATE OF STROKE.

The practice rate for paddling ought not in the early stages to be less than twenty-eight to the minute, which you may raise two points when rowing hard. Later on, when your men are doing their rowing work at thirty-six or more, and when they are, or ought to be, well together, you may drop the rate of paddling to twenty-six or twenty-five, in order to give them periods of rest, and to instil into them that steadiness of swing which they are apt to neglect when engaged in the effort of working up the stroke to racing pace. For a course of a mile to a mile and a half, a crew should be able to start at forty, continue at thirty-eight, and, if necessary, finish at forty in the race. Even for the Putney to Mortlake course a crew ought to be able to command forty at a pinch. As a rule, however, over a four-mile course a crew will go quite fast enough if it starts for not more than a minute at thirty-seven to thirty-eight, and continues, in the absence of a head-wind at an average of thirty-five.[9] At Henley most crews will start off at forty-one to forty-two for the first minute, and continue at thirty-nine. Anything higher than this is dangerous, though on a course of two-thirds of a mile I have known a Four to row forty-six in the first minute with advantage.

[9] Against a head-wind the rate of stroke must be slower. A coach's instructions would be, "Swing down and reach out well, and swing hard back against the wind." A following wind makes a crew very unsteady, unless they remember that, since the pace of the boat is increased by the wind, they must catch the beginning sharper, to prevent the boat running away from them, and take their oars out even quicker and cleaner than before, in order to prevent the boat catching them up, as it were.

Above all, they must keep the swing slow when they have a following wind.

These instructions are intended to apply to light racing ships. For the clinker-built fixed-seat boats that are used at Oxford and Cambridge for the Torpids and Lent races, a racing rate of thirty-seven ought to be high enough, seeing that the crews are mainly composed of young oars.

The second division crews of the Cambridge "May" races row with slides, but in heavy, clinker-built boats. The advantages of this arrangement are not obvious. Still, these crews ought to be able to race at thirty-six to thirty-seven. As a rule, however, when I have seen them practising a minute's spurt, nearly all of them seem to have imagined that thirty-two strokes were amply sufficient for racing purposes.

PADDLING.

Paddling should be to rowing what an easy trot is to racing speed on the cinder-path. A crew when paddling is not intended to exert itself unduly, but to move at a comfortable pace which excludes any sense of fatigue, and enables the men to give their best attention to perfecting themselves in style, and to harmonizing their individual movements with those of the rest. In paddling men do not slash at the beginning so hard, nor do they grind the rest of the stroke through with the same power as when rowing. Less violent energy is put into the work, and the stroke consequently does not come through so fast. The rate of paddling must therefore be slower than that of rowing, since each stroke takes a longer time for its completion. As a rule, too, the blade is in paddling not quite so deeply covered, and cannot make the same rushing swirl under water. During the earlier stages of practice paddling is merely easier rowing; it is not so sharply distinguished from hard rowing as it becomes later on. At the outset it is necessary to make your crew both paddle and row with a full swing, in order to get length ineradicably fixed in their style. But later on a coach may tell his men, when he asks them to paddle, not only to use the easier movements prescribed above, but also to rest themselves additionally by using a somewhat shortened swing. Then, when they are to row, he must call on them to swing forward and reach out longer; to swing back harder and longer, with a more vigorous beginning; and to put more force into their leg-drive. A very useful plan, especially for the purpose of getting a crew finally together, is to make them do long stretches of paddling varied here and there by about a dozen or twenty strokes of rowing, care being taken, however, not to allow the paddling to get dead and dull, and a special point being made of getting the rowing not only hard, but very long.

Paddling is a difficult art to learn, and only the very best crews paddle really well with balance, rhythm, and ease. Many a time I have seen a good crew and an inferior one paddling along the course together, and almost invariably the good crew, which had mastered the trick of paddling at a slow stroke and with perfect ease, was distanced. Yet a moment afterwards, when they ranged up alongside, and started together for a two minutes' burst of rowing, the good crew would leave its opponents as though they were standing still.

HOW TO WORK THE STROKE UP TO RACING PACE.

There comes a time in the history of every crew when, having been plodding along comfortably at thirty-four, they suddenly realize that the race is barely a week off, that if they are to have any chance of success they must raise the stroke, and that they don't know how on earth it is to be done, seeing that they have usually felt pretty well cleaned out after rowing even a half course at their present rate.

However, they generally do manage _tant bien que mal_ to get it done, and find in the end that thirty-eight is not really much more difficult for men in good training than thirty-four.

The best plan, I think, is to devote the greater part of an afternoon's practice to short rows of half a minute and a minute at, say, thirty-seven, and to wind up with three minutes of this. On that day there will probably be at first a terrible amount of rushing and splashing. On the following day you will find that things have settled down, and you will be able to row for five minutes at the faster rate.

On the third day practise short pieces again at thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty; and on the fourth day row your full course at as fast a rate as you can command. A coach should impress upon his crew that a fast stroke is to be secured not by rushing forward with the bodies, but by rattling away the hands quicker and by increasing the force employed in forcing the oar through the water. The pace of the bodies on the forward swing, though, of course, it does increase, should feel as if it were slower. _Relatively to the rate of stroke used_, it is, in fact, slower at a fast than at a slow stroke. The best stroke-oars have been men who fully realized this, and who, either in breaking from a paddle into a row, or in spurting during a hard piece of rowing, gave their crew a delightful sense of steadiness and balance, which enabled them to put their utmost energies into every stroke.

PRACTICE IN STARTING.

During the week preceding the race a coach should devote a great part of his attention to the task of getting his crew quick off the mark. If a crew starts in a brisk and lively manner, and gets pace on its boat immediately, it is far more likely to continue well, so long as its strength and condition last, than a crew that ponderously drags its boat off, with the notion that it can put pace on later. At the end of half a minute the lively crew would be well ahead--no small moral advantage where two crews are evenly matched. The best position for the first stroke is a little more than half forward with the body and three parts forward with the slide. The mind, as well as the muscles, must be intent on the effort. At the word "Go" at once cover the blade deeply, spring the body on to the work, use the arms vigorously on this occasion only, and, above all, drive, drive, drive with the legs, wrenching the stroke fully home with outside hand.[10] Then make a special point of rattling hands out like lightning, and get hold of the second stroke when the hands are over the stretcher. Again a lightning rattle, followed by a longer swing. The fourth stroke should be a full one. During the first two strokes the crew should watch stroke's blade, and take their time from that.

[10] The simplest and easiest plan is to have the back of the blades flat on the water while you are waiting for the word. In rowing _with_ a strong tide it may sometimes be advisable to have the top of the blades turned over towards the stern and to square blades at the "Are you ready?" But this requires a lot of practice, and even then generally causes unsteadiness.

THE NECESSITY OF BEING EXHAUSTED.

I hold it to be absolutely necessary that during practice men should learn thoroughly to row themselves out. If they do not, they need never expect to become properly fit for the hard strain involved in a race. If men will only consent to put their best and hardest work into a practice course, so that they may feel at the end of it that they have neither wind nor strength left, I will guarantee that all the subsequent work will become infinitely easier for them, and the race itself will be a pleasure instead of a pain. I hate to see a crew finish a practice row, no matter how short it may be, in perfectly fresh trim. That is a sign that they must have shirked their work. Yet I have often read in newspaper reports of the practice of crews some statement like the following:--"The boat travelled well all through, and the time accomplished was fast; but when it was over most of the men were much distressed"--as if this were a reproach instead of a compliment. Such "distress" is one of the necessary stages through which crews must pa.s.s on their way to good physical condition and perfect racing power. If a crew never tires itself in practice, it will never row fast in a race.

HOW TO JUDGE A MAN'S WORK IN A BOAT.

This can only be done properly by watching both the movements of the body and the action of the blade in the water. It may be a.s.sumed that if the blade strikes the water fairly at the full reach, is covered at once, produces a deep boiling swirl _under_ the water, and remains covered to the end of the stroke, the oarsman who wields it must be working, in spite of many possible faults of form. Again, if the body moves well, and with a vigorous briskness through the stroke, it may be found that the swirl of the blade through the water does not show properly, because the blade is put in too deep. This, of course, is a fault, for the oarsman is giving himself too much work, and the effect on the propulsion of the boat is smaller; but, at any rate, there is honesty of intention. On the other hand, a man may make a great show of form with his body, and a great splash in the water, by merely covering half his blade through the stroke, or by missing his beginning and rowing light at the finish; or he may seem to be swinging his body on to his work, and yet by some subtly contrived disconnection between body and arms and legs, produce no effect on the water. For all this a coach must be on the look out. If he has once done hard rowing himself, and watched it in others, he will never mistake the sham article (the "sugarer") for the genuine, though possibly clumsy, worker.

THE VALUE OF TUB-PAIR PRACTICE.

Practice in the tub-pair is one of the greatest possible aids towards the consolidation of an eight-oared crew. A coach or captain should never omit during the early stages of work to take out his men two by two in a tub. Sitting at ease in the stern, he can lecture them to his heart's content, and can devote himself with far better effect than when his crew are in the Eight to eradicating individual faults and drilling the men into one uniform style. During the latter part of training, however, the tub-pair is, with rare exceptions, an unnecessary burden.

The crew then require all their energies for the work of the Eight, in which they ought to be learning the last important lessons of watermanship and uniformity every day. To drag them into tub-pairs at such a time can only weary them.

CHAPTER VII.

OF AILMENTS--OF TRAINING AND DIET--OF STALENESS--OF DISCIPLINE--OF COACHING.

AILMENTS.

I may preface what I have to say about ailments by stating, as emphatically as it can be stated, that every man who proposes to take part in a race ought, before he begins practice, to be thoroughly overhauled by a medical man. I do not believe that any man whose heart and lungs and general const.i.tution are sound can be injured by rowing.

On the contrary, I have seen scores and scores of instances in which sound but imperfectly developed youngsters were formed and solidified and made into robust men by the exercise. But if a doctor reports of an apparently powerful man that his heart is weak and his circulation defective, or that the state of his lungs is unsatisfactory, no power on earth would induce me to include him in my crew. Race-rowing is one of the severest strains to which a man can submit himself, and only a perfectly sound man can go through it without taking harm.

Coaches are sometimes ridiculed for the excessive care they take of their men; and there are not wanting those who draw the inference that rowing men are peculiarly liable to illness, and suffer, when attacked by it, more than others. Nothing can be further from the truth. If we are anxious, it is because we know that for the special strain involved in racing a man must be in specially good condition, and we desire, above all things, to avoid anything that may keep him back in his training and his work. Moreover, even a slight illness may entail temporary retirement from the crew, and thus necessitate changes in its order which will prevent the men from getting together.

In rowing hard a man should keep a good colour. If you see him turning green and yellow, you may be sure that something is wrong with him, and you must pack him off to the doctor at once. It may turn out that his digestion is in fault, and that a careful attention to diet is all that is necessary to cure him. I have seen only two men actually faint during a race. One of them was a distinguished Oxford Blue, who collapsed during a heat of the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley; the other was a college oar rowing in the Cambridge Fours. With regard to him, we discovered afterwards that he had overtaxed his strength by working in the Cambridge engineering workshop for about six hours every day. Both these cases took place a good many years ago, and in neither has any permanent injury resulted. I have, of course, seen hundreds of men absolutely rowed out at the end of a race; but, with hardly an exception, they were perfectly fit a few minutes afterwards and, possibly, in the course of a few hours they might be seen rowing in another severe race with unimpaired strength and vitality.

With regard to ailments generally, I cannot do better than quote Mr.