THE SPORT OF ROWING of Jesus Style of sculling [i.e., body swing insufficient to qualify as proper English Or- thodox Technique]. He limits his swing strictly backwards and forwards, and within the narrow and highly efficient arc, he sculls with superb precision at 40 all over the course. “His boat runs well with scarcely any hesitation or bounce . . . apart from the gen- eral crispness of his blade work, the strength of his wrist work at the finish is worth watching. . . . “If he wins, he will have many imitators. “It has been said that there never has been a man capable of sculling in Burk’s style, but then no sculler of pretensions has ever been allowed by his advisers to try. “Though it must need good wrists and a sound mind, there is some reason to suppose that this, in fact, is the least exhausting and most efficient way of propelling a sculling boat. No energy is wasted on pinching a boat, and the body is never in an exhausting position which hampers breathing . . . He is, in fact, the best balanced sculler ever seen. “His short stroke, aided by unremitting practice, have made him so, and though his form may not be elegant [i.e., insufficient body swing] and he buries his oars a little too deep when tired, it seems as if from his time he would have relentlessly rowed down all the giants of the past . . . with his unemo- tional 40 strokes a minute.”2031 Land Training There was good reason that British jour- nalists and Time Magazine were impressed with Burk’s wrists. As Burk protégé Harry Parker2032 recalls, “He had massive fore- arms. When I was sculling with him, I re- member that was the first feature that you would notice. 2031 Qtd. by Mendenhall, op.cit., p.11 2032 See Chapter 59. “One of the hallmarks of Joe’s sculling was breaking the arms early and bending them continuously through the stroke, which, as he admits, put a tremendous strain on him, and it took quite a while for him to develop that strength. “I talked to a guy at Penn who was in the gym with Joe and used to describe some of the workouts he did with pulley weights, and he did phenomenal workouts strength- ening up his arms, his forearms in particu- lar.”2033 Of course, gym workouts were not Joe’s only land training. At his farm, “climbing up and down the ladders with thousands of 50-pound baskets of apples provided him with plenty of weightlifting.”2034 What Did it Feel Like? Joe: “When I first attempted it, I could go only a short distance before fatigue set in. So, I decided to scull every stroke in this manner. “I used to practice day after day on the Rancocas Creek, where we had a farm. I even had to dodge the floating ice during the winter. I would be all alone – miles away from my little dock at home. If I had struck an ice-flow, it would have been curtains. I was just plain lucky.”2035 According to historian Mendenhall, “the outings began with short stretches to warm up with and then longer pieces at rac- ing stroke, 36 the first year, then up to 38. Eventually he was sculling for twenty minutes at 40-42. Everything was directed to eliminate all wasted motions, anything that might reduce the rate of striking with the slide continuously moving. The speed 2033 Parker, personal conversation, 2004 2034 Mendenhall, op.cit., p. 10 2035 Burk, personal correspondence, 2004 556
