[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 pass 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 assumed 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.