INTERNATIONAL ROWING TURNS PROFESSIONAL you know you’re not swapping one for the other? “Then they would recoil off the footboards, accelerate in, and the shaft would bend early on. “The jumping away from the footboard was amazing because you couldn’t believe anybody could get to the stern with such a rush, catch with such blinding speed, and still jump away from the footboards.”3096 Porter: “The Russian explanation of the bound up to frontstops is simply that of the bouncing ball: the faster the approach to the frontstops, the faster the rebound.”3097 The “rebound effect” of springing into the catch and recoiling back was visually quite distinctive. In the words of Allen Rosenberg, “I remember seeing the Soviet crews throwing their bodies into the stern, lifting and hauling!”3098 Force application from the entry all the way to the release ranged from an effective Kernschlag to a very elegant Schubschlag characterized by a high arc of the back. Fairbairn on the Steppes Samsonov: “If there is a ‘Russian Style of rowing, it has been developed since the war. Our Bible has been My Stories on Rowing3099 by Stiv Ferbern. He has most influenced the sport in our country. His book was later improved and its rules applied to the sport by two famous trainers – Shwedov and Shebuev. On their studies, Russian rowing is founded.”3100 Kleshnev: “In rowing, sport science played a positive role in 1950s, when two bright coaches, Shwedov and Shebuev, 3096 Nash, op. cit. 3097 Porter, op. cit., p. 61 3098 Rosenberg, personal conversation, 2004 3099 Russian translation of Chats on Rowing. 3100 Qtd. by Lanouette, op. cit., pp. 125-6 developed a scientific model of Soviet rowing style based on Fairbairn ideas.”3101 Spracklen: “When the Soviet team came to Henley in the 1950s, they rowed very high and around and in, and that was their interpretation of Fairbairn. “It wasn’t really what Steve taught, but it was their interpretation. They drove it in from behind, so it actually hit the water hard.”3102 In other words, they were attempting to recreate the Jesus Bell-Note!3103 Zenon Babraj, former Polish national team rower and coach and currently the women’s coach at the University of Southern California, recalls: “When I started rowing, we rowed good Moscow Style: you go and hit with the body, and then see what happens. So there was emphasis on lifting the shoulders, really. A lot of teams in Eastern Europe were rowing like this.”3104 Despite initial inspiration from the writings of Fairbairn, the Moscow Style represented a radical departure from the rhythm and the force application patterns of the Conibear and Fairbairn approaches, and Babraj’s description effectively captures how the difference felt to the participant. For many, instead of a preoccupation with the Courtney-Fairbairn single-cut pullthrough, an entry accelerated strongly to the release, the Moscow emphasis was all on the front half of the stroke with the rest an afterthought. This is Kernschlag philosophy, although many crews, especially in small sweep and sculling boats, strongly accelerated to the release after their windmill entry. 3101 Kleshnev, op. cit. 3102 Spracklen, op. cit. 3103 See Chapter 14 ff. 3104 Babraj, USRA Clinic, Chula Vista, CA, Sept 11-2, 2004 865
