MARLOW.
CHAPTER IV.
COACHING.
For reasons which were set forth at the commencement of the chapter on [scientific oarsmanship], the very best oar may fail to see his own faults. For this reason, in dealing with the methods for detecting and curing faults, it seems more to the point to write as addressing the tutor rather than the pupil. The latter will improve faster under any adequate verbal instruction than by perusing pages of bookwork upon the science of oarsmanship.
A coach may often know much more than he can himself perform; he may be with his own muscles but a mediocre exponent of his art, and yet be towards the top of the tree as regards knowledge and power of instruction.
A coach, like his pupils, often becomes too ‘mechanical’; he sees some salient fault in his crew, he sets himself to eradicate it, and meanwhile it is possible that he may overlook some other great fault which is gradually developing itself among one or more of the men. And yet if he were asked to coach some other crew for the day, in which crew this same fault existed, he would be almost certain to note it, and to set to work to cure it.