THE SPORT OF ROWING Guy Nickalls: “The proudest moment of my life was on the 2nd of July 1885, setting out to drive to Henley in light blue blazer, white cap and flannels amidst the plaudits of the whole school. “We were a very good crew indeed. We won the Ladies’ Plate in better time than the Jesus crew won the Grand. This is the Jesus crew often alluded to by Steve Fairbairn,991 and it was Jesus’ second and [last until 1947] win in the Grand Challenge Cup.”992 Guy Nickalls and his Eton classmate Claude Holland were responsible for transferring the Fairbairn innovations from Cambridge to Oxford after they had learned them while rowing at Leander with Fairbairn’s teammate, S.D. Muttlebury.993 Classical Technique Nickalls: “Old Edmond Warre never liked my rowing – I think merely because I understood the uses of the slide as he did not. He considered I abused the slide [drove the legs], but it was this abusing of it which enabled me, an old man, to compete with younger men in their prime.”994 “Warre was nothing if not a stickler for form, the arched back (inwards) and the slide [leg drive] held until the [back] swing was almost completed, alone appealed to him.”995 According to Mendenhall, “sculling taught Guy the proper function of legs and slide, ‘keeping the loins firm and never driving the slide away.’ This emancipated him from the straight back and even the shoulder catch, which still obsessed many of his contemporaries.”996 The result was a reaffirmation of Classical Technique as opposed to English Orthodoxy. The Fairbairn innovations passed by Muttlebury to Guy Nickalls himself at Leander in 1888 were already second nature to him! In his book, Rowing, Gully Nickalls, Guy’s son, described his father’s ideal technique through the photo frames on the following page. “[Frame 1] demonstrates the forward position. There is no sign of strain anywhere. The shoulders are not over- reaching, and the head is looking up. The body is in a position where great power can be exercised, and in which the legs will be able to drive the weight straight back from the stretcher. “[Frame 2 shows] the beginning of the recoil. The oarsman is making a superlative lift with his back muscles and driving his feet down into the stretchers as hard as he can. The force exerted by the muscles at the top of the thigh is obvious, and the little bulge at the base of the back indicates the power that is being used. The erectness of the head and the tautness of the arms demonstrate the force that is being applied by the big muscles of the legs and back. “As the swing of the body dies out [Frames 3-5], there is still some slide left to finish on, and the [arms and] shoulders come in to play to aid the thrust of the legs so that maximum pull is maintained on the fingers and acceleration maintained on the boat. It is a leg thrust and a shoulder draw, and maximum power is being exerted right up to the time that the hands drop at the finish.”997 The frames demonstrate that back and 991 See Chapter 14. 992 G. Nickalls, Life, p. 54 993 See Chapter 15. 994 G. Nickalls, Life, p. 192 995 Ibid, p. 51 legs were completely concurrent, with the back perhaps barely leading early. Arms 996 Mendenhall, Harvard-Yale, p. 282 997 Nickalls & Mallam, pp. 12-15 264
