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.
"Sir,—We feel we are intruding, but we deprecate your blame,
We may plead our youth and innocence as giving us a claim;
We should blindly grope unaided in our efforts to do right,
So we look to you with confidence to make our darkness light.
"We are Freshmen—rowing Freshmen; we have joined our college club,
And are getting quite accustomed to our daily dose of tub;
We have all of us bought uniforms, white, brown, or blue, or red,
We talk rowing shop the livelong day, and dream of it in bed.
"We sit upon our lexicons as 'Happy as a King'
(We refer you to the picture), and we practise how to swing;
We go every day to chapel, we are never, never late,
And we exercise our backs when there, and always keep them straight.
"We shoot our hands away—on land—as quick as any ball:
Balls always shoot, they tell us, when rebounding from a wall.
We decline the noun 'a bucket,' and should deem it—well, a bore,
If we 'met,' when mainly occupied in oarsmanship, our oar.
"But still there are a few things that our verdant little band,
Though we use our best endeavours, cannot fully understand.
So forgive us if we ask you, sir—we're dull, perhaps, but keen—
To explain these solemn mysteries and tell us what they mean.
"For instance, we have heard a coach say, "Five, you're very rank;
Mind those eyes of yours, they're straying, always straying, on the bank.'
We are not prone to wonder, but we looked with some surprise
At the owner of those strangely circumambulating eyes.