THE SPORT OF ROWING ought to be. The stroke as thus modified has been the standard ever since.”8746 Richard Glendon, U.S. Naval Acade- my, 1910s: “With the catch, the trunk of the body is thrown upward and backward, the leg-drive blending with the body-swing throughout the pull.”8747 “The leg drive must correspond with the body-swing and pull of the arms. The com- bination of leg-drive and body-swing, and the smooth clean finish with the arms, must be mastered thoroughly to drive the boat along without pounding.”8748 Hiram Conibear, University of Wash- ington, 1910s: “I want my man to just drop his blade into the water and start leg drive, back and arm pull. . . . I want all the power possible to bow of the oarlock – back, legs and arms. The legs are the strongest muscle group we have. “Of course, in order to get the best out of the stroke I have described and to reap the full benefit of the leg drive, it is necessary for the oarsman to have a strong back and arms. From the time the oarsman starts to pull when out for the long reach, he must pull with his back all the time. “Elbows should be at the side at the same time the legs are straightened out. . . . Don’t let up on the leg drive when you begin to increase the power applied from back and arms.”8749 George Pocock, boatbuilder to Amer- ican colleges, first half of the 20th Centu- ry: “When the slide starts moving, it keeps going all the way back until the legs are flat, but those legs must go down slowly. Don’t whang them down. . . As the oar reaches the right angle position of the boat, the back starts up and the elbows break so as to keep that blade going through in one cut . . . This 8746 Courtney, qtd. by Young, p. 56 8747 Glendon, pp. 99-100 8748 Ibid, p. 162 8749 Conibear, pp. 318-9 ‘one cut stroke’ is not a loafing stroke but takes a lot of pulling.”8750 Tom Bolles, University of Washing- ton, Harvard University, 1930s-50s: “Keep the power ‘on’ unwavering and uniform, thus eliminating a catch that was so hard that the bodies could not continue it evenly throughout the drive.”8751 John Ferris, Cornell University, 1970s: “Steady pressure on the pin will re- sult in a constant acceleration of the boat and yield the greatest power output. . . As the boat accelerates, the oarsman must move the handle faster to keep a constant or in- creasing force on the pin.”8752 Bob Janoušek, British Men’s Team, 1970s: “We learn to do this pick up instead of hitting the water, just grabbing it and shifting the boat, smoothly.”8753 Buzz Congram, Northeastern Univer- sity, 1980s: “If your blade is locked in at the right moment, you can totally suspend your body weight, and you try to do that for the entire drive. The idea is to keep your body weight on your footstretchers and on the oar handle and on the oar lock and the on the blade, and you’re trying to do that through the entire drive. “But it’s always at the front end. It’s always trying to get the boat to accelerate right away, suspending your body and then being patient about sustaining that suspen- sion all the way through, and as the boat speed builds, you have to be quicker at the front end on the next stroke [my empha- sis].”8754 Al Shealy, Harvard University and U.S. stroke-oar, 1970s: “Pounding the catch seems a bit counterintuitive to me. Logic says that the catch is the point at which the boat is going its slowest, so applying maxi- 8750 Newell, pp. 160-1 8751 Qtd. by Mendenhall, Ch. XII, p. 9 8752 Ferris, p. 27 8753 Qtd. by Dodd, Pieces of Eight, p. 203 8754 Congram, personal conversation, 2004 2464