THE SPORT OF ROWING mystique because on the water his speech flows endlessly, like the awareness of a boat’s movement that he is trying to unlock in the minds of those he coaches.’6602 Harry’s drive for perfection was unremitting. Mahon: “Keep those hands moving out, stretching out and separating . . . Feel you are sitting there, and the boat is sucking you towards it rather than the opposite way around . . . No, too quick for the boat . . . Steady with it . . . Steady with it . . . Better . . . Hold your shoulders back, and just sit there and watch your handles go away from your body. Now you’re feeling the boat underneath your feet, running through the water . . . Your hands are leading you . . . The water that’s running under you is telling you when your handles will arrive at your feet . . . That was good . . . Yeah, three in a row where you picked it just right . . . ”6603 Pleasing Harry rarely came easily. One New Zealand rower summed up the experience of being coached by Harry as “no no no no no no no no no no yes no no no no no no no no no no no no no . . . ”6604 Quarrell: “Swiss Olympic Singles Champion [Xeno Müller] describes with relish how Mahon would have him row a stroke at a time with one of his two oars: plodding round in circles for hours on the lake, until after hundreds of hissed ‘No’s’ came the single emphatic ‘Yes!’”6605 Xeno: “The circles that I did on the water were all about lifting the blade out, feathering it and then dropping it in before you would pull. I can do it eyes closed now, but when I make people row, it is really interesting to see that the gentle lift of the blade on the square, then the flow into a 6602 Cross, p. 37 6603 Qtd. By Cross, pp. 47-8 6604 www.rowing.org.uk/mahon.html 6605 Quarrell, op. cit. feather and then maintaining the height of the feathered blade steadily so that you still have a little bit of room to have the blade squared without changing the handle height, that’s something that if you haven’t really thought about it and done it a few hundred or a few thousand times, you will just always be a little inconsistent, and the whole goal is to be consistent over thousands of strokes. “So when Harry was coaching me, he would say, ‘No no no no no GOOD no no no no no no no no GOOD!’ “He said to me, ‘Xeno, you do it . . . but you need to do thousands of strokes the same way.’”6606 Quarrell: “His approach of smooth efficiency gave his crews a graceful, flowing style which was a delight to watch, and he was most gifted at explaining verbally what he wanted to see on the water.”6607 Mark A. Shuttleworth, who knew Harry in South Africa: “Sometimes what seemed to the rower to be trivial he would quietly and continuously pursue in such a way that the rower discovered, absorbed and owned the improvement in her- or himself, finally also appreciating the importance of the change. The small steady improvements became real and fundamental. There was no ego involved with Harry, so the ego of the rower also took a holiday. “Harry was so effective and admired because he was unaware of and unconcerned with admiration. He discussed with you your discovery of the right way. He was simply about helping people to row better.”6608 Searle: “I remember him being very particular on what it was he wanted me to be doing. His magic was that he insisted that I internalize what good felt like for myself. In saying this, I mean he would discuss with 6606 Müller, personal conversation, 2008 6607 Quarrell, op. cit. 6608 Shuttleworth, personal correspondence, 2008 1830
