10. To manipulate the feather with accuracy and at the proper instant.
11. To govern the height of the blade during the recovery.
12. To use the legs and feet correctly and at the right moments of recovery.
13. To keep the button of the oar home to the thowl.
14. To regulate the proportionate speeds of recovery of arms and of body, relatively to each other.
15. To return the feathered oar to the square position at the right time and in the correct manner.
16. To raise the hands at the right moment, and so to lower the blade into the water at the correct instant.
17. To recommence the action of the new stroke at the right instant.
These several details present an apparently formidable list of detailed studies to be followed in order to execute a series of strokes and recoveries in the most approved fashion. In performance the operation is far more homogeneous than would appear from the above disjointed analysis of the several movements to be performed. The division of movements is made for the purpose of observation and appreciation of possibly several faults, which may occur in any one of the movements detailed. As a fact, the correct rendering of one movement—of one detail of the stroke—facilitates correctness in succeeding or contemporaneous details; while, on the other hand, a faulty rendering of one movement tends to hamper the action of the body in other details, and to make it more liable to do its work incorrectly in some or all of them. Experience shows that one fault, in one distinct detail, is constantly the primary cause of a concatenation of other faults. To set the machine in incorrect motion in one branch of it tends to put the whole, or the greater part of it, more or less out of gear, and to cripple its action from beginning to end of the chapter.
Taking these various details seriatim.