THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING his technique, Allen Rosenberg most emphatically does not recommend explosive leg drive at the entry. He is a Schubschlag coach. Head Levels in the Rosenberg Style The Vesper crew made a tremendous impression on world rowing. Zenon Babraj is very clear on Allen’s place in history: “I want you to realize how revolutionary his technique was at the time that Allen started teaching it. A lot of teams in Europe were rowing with a vertical arc of the heads, so when the 1964 American Eight came and start rowing horizontally, it had enormous influence, and the Eastern Europeans changed their focus. “They didn’t undermine what Allen established. They added some stuff, a variation of the angles of the body, but the emphasis from the vertical back arc was taken away.”5103 From an Eastern European perspective, Allen’s crew rowed “horizontally.” By that, Zenon meant that if you watched the level of the heads of the Vesper oarsmen, they had very little up-and-down arc during the pullthrough. They had not adopted Ratzeburg’s ultra- long slides, and so retained a more natural posture at the entry and “a relaxed but firm and flawless carriage of the body.”5104 Rosenberg: “When Zenon describes my influence on the Soviets throwing their bodies into the stern, I remember seeing the Soviet crews do that, and I didn’t know where or when they began to change, but I 5103 Babraj, USRA Clinic, Chula Vista, CA, Sept 11-2, 2004 5104 Ferris, p. 95 5105 Rosenberg, personal conversation, 2004 5106 Rosenberg, USRA Clinic, Chula Vista, CA, Sept 11-2, 2004 5107 Ibid. The 1964 Vesper crew actually laid back to an angle of -20°. 5108 Ibid. 5109 Actually, Ned Hanlan Ten Eyck won the Diamond Sculls years before Fairbairn began coaching. Through his father, Jim Ten Eyck, Ned’s technique was actually an outgrowth of never thought that I had an impact even on them.”5105 In the area of horizontal rowing, had Rosenberg evolved beyond his own coach, Jim Manning? Yes. Allen changed to “less lift at the catch.”5106 The intent was to have the athlete carry good posture into the entry and then focus on moving back, and not up, at the beginning at the pullthrough. Toward the release, they were coached to maintain the posture in their lower backs and limit layback to approximately -15°.5107 Laying back any further meant “dropping your body down, only to have to lift it back up. “The usual fault in long layback is the little extra jerk. The chin comes out, the shoulders go up and then down, and the bow gets buried.”5108 Historian Peter Klavora has analyzed in detail the major rowing styles of the 1960s and 1970s. He was especially drawn to Allen’s comfortably erect posture and his steady recovery with no acceleration, no deceleration, and no hesitations. He considered the Rosenberg Style unique in its time and placed it in historical perspective. “Allen has been a student of Ned Ten Eyck, whose technique must have evolved from the prolific and controversial English rowing coach, Steve Fairbairn, at the turn of the century.5109 1409
