Page:Boating - Woodgate - 1888.pdf/94

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70
Boating.

to row the car home. The shoulders should be braced well back, ‘Ihe extra inch or less of forward reach which the over- reach obtains is not worth having at the cost of weakening the catch and cramping the finish. The fault is best cured by gig- coaching and by demonstrating in person the correct and the wrong poses of the shoulders,

Meeting the oar—Vhis may come from more than one cause. If the legs leave off supporting the body before the ear-handle comes to the chest, the body droops to the strain from want, of due support ; or if the oarsman tries to row the stroke home with arms only, ceasing the swing hack ; and still more, if he tries to finish with biceps instead of by shoulder muscles, he is not unlikely to row deep, because he feels the strain of rowing the oar home in time, with less power behind it than that employed by others in the boat. He finds the oar come home easier if it is slightly deflected, and so unconsciously he begins to row rather deep (or light) at the finish, in order Lo get his oar home at the right instant.

Swing—faults of may be various. ‘There may be a hang, or conversely a burry, in the swing ; and, as shown above, the causes of these errors in swing may often be beneath the sur- face, and be connected with faulty hold of an oar, or a loose or badly placed strap, or 2 stretcher of wrong length, or from faulty finish of the preceding stroke. Tateness in swing may arise fer sé, and so may a ‘ bucket,’ but as often as not they are linked with other fauits, which have to be corrected at least simultancously, and often antecedently.

Serewing either arises frou mechanical fault at the moment or from former habits of rowing under difficulties occasionally with bad appliances. Ifa man sits square, with correct oar, rowlock, and stretcher, he does net naturally screw. Tf the habit scems to have grown upon him, a change of side will often do more than anything else to cure him. He is screwing because he is working his limbs and loins unevenly ; hence the obvious policy of making him change the side on which he puts the greater pressure.