ENGLISH ORTHODOX MEETS CLASSICAL TECHNIQUE the muscles down the sides of the back are brought into play. The harder you draw, the more these back muscles will be brought into play and developed, and the better the [body] weight will be applied.”903 Fairbairn credited his professional sculler acquaintances for instinctively knowing how important the arms were. He quoted W.G. East, a champion sculler of England, who wrote, “The amateurs say they do not use their arms when rowing. All I can say is, every professional does.”904 Arms have always been the poor of relations rowing, “The hands have got to pull at once – that is, directly the body starts to spring off the stretcher. The hands have to pull the oar into the body from the start. “The old fear was that this would tire the arms is another fallacy.907 By forgetting the body and limbs, and concentrating on working the oar, disappears.”908 this difficulty so often underappreciated and misunderstood. Contrary to the opinions of most rowers and coaches, the use of arms is not merely a peripheral issue in discussing rowing technique. As has already been mentioned, we shall eventually come to appreciate that it is one of only three great issues which have truly divided coaches throughout history down to the present, the other two being whether to use the ferryman’s finish and the choice between Schubschlag and Kernschlag. Steve Fairbairn was the first amateur coach to seriously reconsider the seminal role of arms on the pullthrough and then write extensively about it. Fairbairn: “People say you must not use your arms [at the entry], but the oar has got to be drawn evenly into the body, and I don’t see how you are going to do it without using the arms.”905 “The endless chain movement of the oar means that the handle has to be continuously moving sufficiently faster than the body, so as to arrive into the body just as it finishes its swing back.”906 903 Fairbairn On Rowing, p. 253 904 Qtd. by Ibid, pp. 162-3 905 Ibid, pp. 252-3 906 Ibid, p. 398 Fairbairn’s Evolution Spracklen: “Steve introduced his own ideas, and his crews were successful, but instead of respect for his achievements, he found himself under attack from the English coaches. They disliked his criticism of their style, and it is evident that there was some envy of his success. “Fairbairn was unforgiving with his criticism of the way they rowed. His outspoken and provocative comments annoyed the English coaches, who defended the way they rowed vehemently. But Fairbairn’s success gave him confidence and his criticisms increased, which served only to drive the two sides further apart. The press jumped on to the bandwagon, which only escalated the antagonism between the two sides.”909 Geoffrey Page: “He was frequently accused of ruining English rowing, mainly by what he termed the ‘Orthodox Brigade.’ He always had a ready answer to his critics, of course, and in one of the many letters he wrote to my father910 between 1923 and his death, he said, ‘People have said to me: “If that is rowing, I don’t know anything about 907 Ibid, p. 130 908 Ibid, pp. 252-3 909 Spracklen, The Fairbairn Method 910 Freddie Page, master and coach at St. Paul’s School, London, and five-times captain of Thames Rowing Club. 237
