THE SPORT OF ROWING Pause at the Catch was part of the Thames Waterman’s Stroke and has survived into the 21st Century. The Thames Waterman’s Stroke has been taught in the United States by George Pocock, his son Stan and their many followers. Stan Pocock: “I preferred to see an oarsman come to a dead stop at full reach just before the catch.”8413 “My dad called it a ‘pause,’ an almost imperceptible moment immediately prior to the next catch. He would say, ‘The boat is running; let all the useful run of the boat be used up before the next stroke.’”8414 Dick Lyon: “Stan [taught] the slight ‘pause at the catch’ to ensure you didn’t race down the slide and dump the stern into the water, killing the run of the boat. ‘Hands away . . . then relax.’”8415 Stan: “The pause before the catch, which was always insisted upon, was designed to eliminate the tendency of some oarsmen to use their rush up the slide as a windup for the catch. I had several who liked to do this. “Their argument was that they could make a more effective catch by compressing the body and springing into it, much as one does in the snatch when lifting weights. What they had to learn was that I did not want their catch to be that strong or heavy – just quick.”8416 The universally-understood disadvan- tage of pausing or stopping prior to entry is that in order to do so, the athlete has to lever against the boat beneath him to arrest his momentum. So by Newton’s Third Law, when the athlete pauses in his progress toward the stern, so does the boat pause in its progress toward the finish line.8417 However, as we shall soon discover in Chapter 164, it appears that all rowers, even those who leap into the catch, slow their bodies prior to entry. It’s just a matter of how much. Recovery Mechanics Steve Fairbairn: “The timing order is: Hands first, then body, then slide.”8418 There are few choices available pertaining to the actual mechanics of the recovery. Since rising knees quickly intrude on the path of the handle, the general sequence of arms first, then body, then legs has been universal since the invention of the sliding seat. How much the motions of these three parts of the body overlap seems to be a matter of stylistic preference. Some coaches require that arms be completely straight and the body reach its full forward position before the slide begins, while others allow the athlete to continue to gain body angle for a certain time after the slide has begun moving. Gilbert C. Bourne: “All the complex movements of the recovery . . . must be blended together into one harmonious whole.”8419 Colin Porter: “As the arms become nearly straight, the body will start to swing over, and as the swing nears completion, so the slide will start to move. With practice, all these muscle groups blend in together to give an impression of such fluid movement that it is impossible to say when one action finishes and the next starts.”8420 Conn Findlay: “Reach out with the legs still down hard (dead seat), and tilt all the 8413 S. Pocock, pp. 160-1 8414 S. Pocock, personal correspondence, 2005 8415 Lyon, personal correspondence, 2009 8416 S. Pocock, p. 161 8417 See Chapter 90. 8418 Fairbairn On Rowing, p. 263 8419 Bourne, Textbook, p. 123 8420 Porter, Rowing to Win, pp. 32-3 2366
