THE LONG ECLIPSE OF AMERICAN ROWING morph from smooth-force Schubschlag through smooth-force Kernschlag to mutant segmented-force Kernschlag. By the mid- 20th Century, it had already happened to English Orthodoxy, to Fairbairnism and to the 1st Generation Conibear Stroke. It had happened with the followers of George Pocock, but as yet the emerging pattern had gone unnoticed. According to Charlie McIntyre, George Pocock used to call what the Muller Style became in the 1950s “the Philadelphia dipsy-doodle, legs and then back. “George taught us that your legs should go down steadily so they finish together with the back. Otherwise you get a double- stroke, and that was very common in Philadelphia, back swing coming after the legs were down.”4933 Stan Pocock: “The ‘Philadelphia dipsy- doodle’ was the term my Dad used to describe the action of swinging into the bow with one’s body after the legs had been driven home: the classic double-stroke and the enemy of speed. “The name ‘dipsy-doodle’ came from a popular song from long ago now.4934 “To Dad, it was imperative that the body swing be completed at the same moment as the drive of the legs and then both held firm as the arms and shoulders squeezed in to complete the drive and initiate the beginnings of the release [ferryman’s finish]. “While a crew or sculler doing the dipsy-doodle was rather pretty – almost mesmerizing – to watch, it was a dead giveaway to the fact that the back was not being used to [brace] against the shove of the legs. The inevitable result was that the 4933 McIntyre, personal conversation, 2005 4934 a 1937 hit for Edythe Wright and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. blade could not be moved through the end of the drive as fast as it otherwise might.”4935 Charlie McIntyre: “As kids, we learned directly from Muller and Paul Costello, but we also heard the dipsy-doodle approach from Bear Curran, Joe Dougherty and Jack Bratten, who believed they were carrying on for Muller. “They came out of the Great Eight that won the European Championship in 1930. They had all been West Catholic kids in the ‘20s, and they were along the Row doing the generous thing by teaching young people to row and passing down Muller’s legacy. “But it was different from the way that Paul Costello and Garret Gilmore and Ken Myers and Bill Miller and even Old Man Kelly rowed.4936 You could see them! They were all still rowing on the Schuylkill! “My experience of what often happens is that second generation guys mean well, but they bastardize what they were taught. They forget exactly what it was they were taught, and they think, ‘Well, Muller taught us that, but I can do something with this.’ “The result was that everybody in Philadelphia seemed to throw their back at it after their legs were down, and as George would say, ‘That’s the mortal sin of rowing.’ “I think that what happens is that they don’t have the patience to stick with what actually works.”4937 The Origin of the Philadelphia Dipsy-Doodle? This was not the first time in history, nor will it be the last, that Schubschlag mutated into segmented-force Kernschlag. There was a definite precedent for “legs first, then backs” sequential rowing in the coaching of Frank Muller. The Kelly family film 4935 S. Pocock, personal correspondence, 2005 4936 See Chapter 64. 4937 McIntyre, op. cit., 2006 1377