San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1924-04-27
NO COACH ADHERES
TO FIXED STYLE IN
TEACHING OARSMEN
Only Two Distinct Styles
in Ro,,ing, American
and English.

Copyright by The San Antonio Light.
New York, April .6.-Now that the
various crews of the various aquatic
universities are on the water, facing
the near approach Of the spring re-
gattas one hears the usual amount of
talk about this style and that style
of sweep swinging. One hears men
ton of the Courtney stroke. the Wash
ington stroke. the Jim Rice stroke
and so on until the man not versed in
sweep swinging is inclined to de-
cided opinion that rowing is far too
technical and involved to interest him
in any way.
Yet the fact is that none of our
great rowing coaches has ever nd-
hered to n fixed and rigid style of
rowing. All have had cardinal prln-
ciples to be sure but when they were
boiled down they amounted to nothing
more than policy. said policy being
to teach eight men a manner of
stroking best suited to them. No two
boat loads of men were ever alike. A
coach might have one year a crew that
would sweep the rowing courses with
high short stroke, as some of the
recent great Navy crews have done
and next year he might have a boat
load of oarsmen not at all qualified
for that sort of n stroke. These are, of
course, the two extremes, but between
themethe coach. any coach. is obliged
to work out of his problem of train
ing eight men to pull together, COM
pletely in rhythm.
When it comes to distinct styles of
rowing there are, broadly speaking,
only two. These are the English style
and the American style. Both strokes
are developed on what are believed to
be the mechanical principle that will
insure the application of a maximum
of power out of each dip of the oar.
You will see an English crew bending
forward when they catch their oars in
the water preparatory to the pull. un-
til their heads are well down toward
their knees, hook the water hard and
pulling through until their backs are
almost down in the bottom of the boat.
You will see the American crew. on
the other hand, dip their blades into
the water, their shoulders reaching not
too far forward, then pulling the oar
through With a snappy, powerful leg
drive, finishing the stroke with the
body only slightly beyond the perpen-
dicular.
Reasons for this difference in stroke
are mechanical. The seat upon which
the British oarsmcn sits slides only
twenty inches MS a rule and the shoes
in which the feet rest are some dis
tance from the scat. This makes the
oarsmen lean far over in order to
secure the proper length to his stroke.
Then. at the finish. his slide stops
several inches in front of the thole
pins in which the oar rests and so he
has to lie far back in order to get a
powerful finish.
This involves terrific punishment
upon the mid-section of the body and
only oarsmen who have rowed the
stroke from boyhood can stand the
strain. American crews have a much
lOner slgide-at Syracuse for instance
the slide has run to thirty inches ard
the average is twenty-six. The shoes
are comparatively close to the slide,
so that whereas the Englishman gets
his power from his waist and should
crs the American gets his from a ter
rifle lcy driv' AMI. Of curse fro the
shoulders.
Different American coaches. as said.
have varying methods of teaching but
none of them has anything like set
style of swinging the oars that are
rigidly applied to crews year after
year. In all American crews you will
see the pronounced leg drive and as a
general thing you will see them at
their best rowing a thirty-two stroke
with an ability to hit up to thirty-six
when pressure is applied. But there
never was time when the expert OBJ