SCIENTIFIC OARSMANSHIP.
If a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, whether it be undertaken in sport or as a means of livelihood.
The first principles of oarsmanship may be explained to a beginner in a few minutes, and he might roughly put them into force, in a casual and faulty manner, on the first day of his education.
In all pastimes and professions there is, as even a child knows, a very wide difference between the knowing how a thing is done and the rendering of the operation in the most approved and scientific manner.
In all operations which entail the use of implements there are three essentials to the attainment of real merit in the operation. These are, firstly, physical capacity; secondly, good tools to work with; thirdly, practice and painstaking on the part of the student.
For the purposes of the current chapter we shall postulate the two former, and confine the theme to details of such study and practice of oarsmanship as are requisite in order to attain scientific use of oars or sculls.
When commencing to learn an operation which entails a new and unwonted exercise, distinct volition is necessary on the part of the brain, in order to dictate to the various muscles the parts which they are to play in the operation.
The oftener that a muscular movement is repeated the less intense becomes the mental volition which is required to dictate that movement; until at last the movement becomes almost mechanical, and can be reproduced without a strain of the will (so long as the muscular power is not exhausted).
One object of studied practice at any given muscular movement is to accustom the muscles to this particular function, until they become capable of carrying it out without requiring specific and laborious instructions from the headquarters of the brain on the occasion of each such motion. Another object and result of exercise of one or more sets of muscles is to develop their powers. The anatomical reasons why muscles increase in vigour and activity under exercise need not be here discussed; the fact may be accepted that they do so.
Hence, by practice of any kind of muscular movement, the student increases both the vigour and the independence of action of the muscles concerned.