THE SPORT OF ROWING yourself. I found him an incredibly positive coach. As far as he was concerned, you had no weaknesses, and I think he was probably like that with a lot of his athletes. He just concentrated on your strengths and concentrated on doing things well. He didn’t tell you what you weren’t. “For me, my size [5’9” 176cm 148 lb. 67kg] became an issue with coaches in later years, but with Harry I never knew that I was perhaps not tall enough or perhaps not heavy enough to be a heavyweight women’s single sculler because he never once said that was an issue. He just always talked about the positive things, you know, that I had a good power-to-weight ratio and things like that. He very much concentrated on positives.”6618 Al Morrow,6619 Canadian Women’s Sweep Coach during the 1990s: “I think Harry’s success was because he kept it simple, he was comprehensive in his approach, his athletes really liked him, and he did a lot of imaginative drills to teach technique. “I liked the way his crews rowed. Way back when I was first on the scene internationally with my own crews that were doing well, he said the same thing to me about our women, so obviously we shared some of the same views.”6620 Watermanship Brook: “Martin Cross described the NZ eights of this era as ‘ghosting along,’ and I think this description is accurate.”6621 The first time those words were used in this book, they came from the mouth of George Pocock,6622 a champion London professional sculler at the beginning of the 6618 S. Waddell, op. cit. 6619 See Chapter 134. 6620 Morrow, personal correspondence, 2008 6621 Brook, op. cit. 6622 See Chapter 61. 20th Century, son of the Eton boatbuilder and later a legendary North American boatbuilder in his own right, an eloquent preacher of the Thames Waterman’s Stroke to generations of rowers in his adopted home of the United States. For Harry, too, it was all about listening to and feeling the boat. He would home in on things like tightness in the shoulders, leaning one way or the other, exaggerated layback, slides too fast or too slow . . . Harry Mahon was teaching watermanship! Brook: “The lock, drive and pressure on the foot stretcher from eight pairs of legs and lower backs was uniform and powerful, whether it was 24 rating or 38 rating. “It looked and felt comfortable as the boat was accelerated on the drive phase and the boat was allowed ‘to do the work’ on the recovery phase as you forward,’ letting it run under you as you relaxed in anticipation of ‘floated the next accelerated drive off the footstretcher. “‘Work, then relax and float’ became the pattern, stroke after stroke, always the same.”6623 Sonia Waddell: “I guess the main theme of his coaching was about feeling the boat. It was about not thinking about what you were doing, just feeling the rhythm of the boat, timing the blade in from that rhythm and moving with the boat. It was always about feeling and rhythm and not thinking. “With Harry we used to do a lot of exercises. He was very big at getting the hands away at the finish, so we used sit at the back stops and just move the hands away as fast as we could and get the blades in the water. It had to be so fast. Again, it was all about not thinking about it, doing it as fast as your body and your mind allowed. 6623 Brook, op. cit. 1832
