ENGLISH ORTHODOX MEETS CLASSICAL TECHNIQUE “When a light day’s work was thought advisable, the afternoon was devoted to tub- pair coaching. Every detail was gone into with scrupulous care, and he nearly always took an oar himself for part of the time and gave a practical illustration of how the stroke ought to be rowed.”784 The Eton VIIIs in Warre’s time were impressive athletically and fully competitive with the University colleges they met at Henley. Vivian Nickalls, describing the Eton 1888 semi-finalists in the Ladies’ Plate at Henley: “All the Eight except stroke and bow were six feet in height [183 cm, quite tall by the standards of the day, especially for schoolboys], and on one occasion when we were putting our boat in the water, one riverside critic was heard to say to another: “‘Say, Bill, who be those?’ “‘Those be Eton boys,’ said Bill. “‘Boys!’ remarked No. 1, ‘‘airy-chested dock wallopers I calls ‘em!’”785 Classical Technique After his years of coaching, Edmond Warre served as Eton headmaster from 1884 to 1905 and after that provost until 1918. Through all these decades, his was considered the last word on English Orthodox Technique. He had experienced the introduction of sliding seats and the Fairbairn revolution. Later, his lectures On the Grammar of Rowing, peppered with quotes from Horace and Homer and published in 1909, codified his teachings and became the Holy Scripture of English Orthodoxy. Byrne & Churchill: “His influence was refining, bracing, elevating, and he provided those who came in contact with him every day with the spectacle of a cultured 784 Bourne, Memories, pp. 66-9 785 V. Nickalls, p. 34 intelligence devoting its entire energy to the task at hand. Not only Eton, but the whole world of rowing owes to Warre a freedom from professionalism and a spirit of self- sacrifice which many of those interested in other sports would gladly attain if they knew how.”786 In 1922, Warre biographer C.R.L. Fletcher, an Eton wet-bob during the 1870s, called Edmond Warre “the oracle and prophet of the Aquatic World.”787 In fact, the concurrent technique that Warre described in his 1909 lectures benefited fully from the innovations of Steve Fairbairn. Warre: “The hands rise sharply so that the blade falls square into the water – and then instantaneously, without the loss of a thousandth part of a second, the stroke begins – the weight of the body going on to the handle of the oar and stretcher – the glutei and dorsal muscles lifting the body, so that the beginning is made by them and by the extensors of the legs simultaneously – and as the body rises, so the slide begins to go back harmoniously in one homogeneous effort – making the whole stroke one piece – one action – not two or three efforts pieced one on to the other – but one continuous drive of the oar against the water from the beginning to the finish of each stroke. [my emphasis]”788 Despite many English Orthodox details, Edmond Warre was essentially a Classical Technique coach! From the perspective of Haig-Thomas & Nicholson,789 Warre was a proponent of the English Style, and the so- called Fairbairn and Orthodox crews the authors saw all around them in the 1950s had both diverged, albeit in different 786 Byrne & Churchill, p. 184 787 Fletcher, p. 272 788 Warre, pp. 37-8 789 See Chapter 15. 207
