THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT position hasn’t changed. Body position hasn’t changed. “The blade goes down into the water. There is no lifting of shoulders. Blade is going down into the water by lifting hands. It’s only lift of his hands. “With my European background, I never paid too much attention to the catch, and I learned everything about the catch from American coaches. Any time we talk about catch, there’s always some kind of controversy. “Some people are talking about fast catch. Some people are talking about strong catch. “I learned from watching American and European crews that we should talk about direct catch, not necessarily strong catch. We talk about placement versus hitting. We talk about locking blade in the water versus just slamming, hammering the water. “Hammer is not placement.”5778 Here in a nutshell is Kris addressing Kernschlag versus Schubschlag, one of the only three issues in rowing technique worth arguing about. It had been a non-issue for him in Europe where everybody rowed Schubschlag, but Kris came to the United States and discovered a well-entrenched Kernschlag establishment, and this was what he was fighting with the above statements. Korzeniowski: “What it means? We are trying to place blade in the water before any action to the blade occurs, before we press legs, before opening body. “Very often we say that catch has to be last part of recovery. What we mean by this is that on last part of our slide we already commit ourselves to the catch, and while we are still going forward on recovery, we are doing catch. We place blade in water, and action of legs occurs just one moment later. 5778 Ferris, Korzeniowski “Of course, at full speed that’s extremely difficult, so difficult that we use different drills to synchronize time of placing blade in water and first action of leg drive. You have to be extremely relaxed, and all tension has to occur after placement. Some people get set and get tense before, and they will miss this point of synchronization of catch versus leg drive. “Everything is done to teach to separate catch from drive because the most common mistake is to drive . . . and catch, open [body angle] . . . and catch, pressing legs . . . and catch, missing a lot of water and missing placement completely. “Catch should be in relation to speed of boat, just quick enough to lock blade in very direct without any slowing down, without hanging, without slamming down, just very direct motion back and down into the water, locking in. “Place blade, putting weight on footstretchers and on oar handle, but only after we feel the resistance of the water. “After we place blade in water, you should see tension on your lats. We are not trying to lift ourself up while pressing down on seat. No, we are [driving low and horizontal]. You can see [the outside arm] is stretched. Leg drive is stretching my arm [demonstrating], almost pulling my arm out of shoulder, and I am prying with my lats backwards. It is very horizontal stroke. It is not [lift the shoulders]. It is [horizontal motion]. Leg Drive Phase “In this picture [next page], we are approaching half of the leg drive. The most important thing to remember is there is still no body opening, just holding body and driving legs. Shoulders are curved nicely, like at the moment of the catch. Arms are 1599
