(4) 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.
(t5) 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 pres sure (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.
(i8) 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 draw ing 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, point ing 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.
(z9) 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 cer tainly 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.
(2o) 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.