1. Remember and endeavour to apply all the lessons you have learnt on fixed seats. Slides add another element to the stroke. They do not alter the elements you have previously been taught.
2. Beginning.—Get hold of this just as you would on a fixed seat, with a sharp spring of the whole body, which thus begins its swing-back without the loss of a fraction of time.
(a) The natural tendency of a tiro will be to drive his slide away before his shoulders have begun to move. This must at all costs be avoided. In order to secure the effectual combination of body-swing and leg-work, it is essential that the swing should start first.
(b) It is equally reprehensible to swing the body full back before starting the slide; you thus cut the stroke into two distinct parts, one composed of mere body-swing, the other of mere leg-work. Therefore:
(2) When the body-swing backwards has started, but only the smallest fractional part of a second afterwards—so quickly, indeed, as to appear to the eye of a spectator almost a simultaneous movement—let the slide begin to travel back, the swing meanwhile continuing.
(a) Remember what was said in fixed-seat instructions as to the use of the toes and the ball of the foot at the beginning of the stroke. On slides this is even more important.
(3) Body and slide are now moving back in unison, the feet pressing with firm and steady pressure against the stretcher, and the arms perfectly straight. As the slide moves, the leg-power applied must on no account diminish. If anything it ought to increase, for the body is beginning to lose its impetus, and the main part of the resistance is transferred to the legs, the blade all the time moving at an even pace through the water.
(4) The body must swing a little further back than on a fixed seat.
(5) Body-swing and slide-back should end at the same moment.