ENGLISH ORTHODOX MEETS CLASSICAL TECHNIQUE Despite being published in 1897, nearly a decade after Muttlebury had arrived at Leander Club, Isthmian Rowing still described the post-sliding-seat, pre- Fairbairn sequential English Orthodox Technique of the 1870s and early 1880s. To a large extent, Lehmann helped the English Orthodox Technique of the 1890s and into the 1900s rid itself of much of the attitude and viewpoint that formed the foundation of Classical Technique. Conservatism reasserted itself through R.C. Lehmann. Coordination of Backs and Legs Lehmann, 1897: “The natural tendency of the tiro will be to drive his slide away before his shoulders have begun to move [Thames Waterman’s Stroke]. This must at all costs be avoided. In order to secure the effectual combination of body swing and leg work, it is essential that the swing should start first. “It is equally reprehensible to swing the body full back before starting the slide [English Orthodoxy at its pre-1886 extreme]. You thus cut the stroke into two distinct parts, one composed of mere body swing, the other of mere leg work.”831 Despite what he could have learned from the example of Muttlebury at Leander Club in 1888, in 1897 Lehmann was still describing only near-concurrency of legs and back, basically a return to the English Orthodox status quo. But Rudie Lehmann was a student of rowing history and well aware of the efficacy of Classical Technique. Ten years later in his second book, Lehmann looked back on the flaws of the pre-Fairbairn initially edited by Bertram Fletcher Robinson and published by A.D. Innes & Co., London. 831 Lehmann, Isthmian, p. 48 832 Lehmann, Complete, pp. 48-51 833 Ibid. version of English Orthodoxy: “The fault of using nearly the whole of the body swing without the help of leg-power is never inculcated now, for there is a universal agreement in regard to the principles of the matter. It has, however, in times past had its advocates and exponents, chiefly, I think, at Oxford. “[While the 1878 Oxford crew] used their bodies with immense gusto and dash, they used their legs scarcely at all. Some little time after this, as a result of four successive defeats at the hands of Cambridge [the Fairbairn/Muttlebury era], Oxford men recognized the true doctrine [the Nickalls/Holland era], and have ever since been its most brilliant exponents.”832 Nevertheless, Lehmann held on to his own belief in the sequential use of backs and legs. Body Swing First Lehmann, 1908: “We desire that the body impulse should precede very slightly the action of the slide. “As the blade sinks swiftly into the water the whole body must, without waste of a fraction of a second, be hurled back so that its weight may be applied to propulsion with lightning celerity. “The effect should be the swift uncoiling of a steel spring. With tremendous rapidity and impulse, the body moves in a solid column from the hips.”833 “Immediately after the body has thus started on its backward journey, the slide must begin to move. The two movements of body and slide take place in so swift a succession, and occupy so small a fraction of time, that it is extremely difficult to disentangle them even on paper for the purpose of instruction. [my emphasis] 217
