THE SPORT OF ROWING injury, starting in 1982 it had also tended to devolve toward mutant segmented-effort Kernschlag under the influence of the group of scullers working under Harry Parker in Cambridge, just as Frank Cunningham has surmised. It seems more than coincidence that John’s technique improved so much in Seattle during the winter of 1983-84 when he was rowing behind Paul Enquist, a fine Classical Technique role model, and receiving feedback from Cunningham. But when he was struggling, there were many technical similarities to the leg-back sequentiality of Tiff Wood during the 1984 Sculling Camp and to Altekruse, Bouscaren and Colgan in Lucerne and to Fleming on Lake Casitas. It should be stated that this change was not intended by Parker himself, who relied on his athletes to subconsciously arrive at their own conclusions as to how to move boats without micromanagement from a coach.7385 The potential flaw in that approach is that intramural competition within teams or at selection camps, especially when seat racing is involved, conformity to the group norm, whatever that may be. If you can blend with your teammates, then you succeed. Majority rules. So if the majority is pounding the legs at the catch, then that is what you must do in order to succeed. Anything else, including Classical concurrent Schubschlag, the historic hallmark of champion sculling boats for more than a century, is selected out. But it’s more than that. As Sean Colgan stated in Chapter 141, explosive legs seem to have a particular advantage in a seat racing environment. The noticeable pulse upon entry is readily apparent to all and can quickly galvanize the members of a coxed- four or a quad. You pound the catch 7385 See Chapter 102. tends to reward together, get an early lead and demoralize the other boats. The pieces are shorter than 2,000 meters, so the advantage shifts to the aggressive early leader.7386 For John Biglow, his personal devolution in technique perhaps involved not just his subconscious effort to compensate for a serious back injury but also his subconscious adaptation to the group-think of the Camp. The Decline and Fall of Tiff Wood In 1983 when Tiff placed third in the World Championships rowing in the sliding- rigger boat with mild Kernschlag force application, it had been the summit of his rowing career. But the next year, when he returned to his regular segmented-force Kernschlag approach, it all came apart. First he narrowly missed out in the Singles Trials he had won the previous year. Then – despite the Camp Coach being Harry Parker, for whom he had rowed with such distinction at Harvard – Tiff also failed to make the top Camp Double. Next he couldn’t make the Camp Quad. Then came the loss at the Doubles In frustration, his desperation Trials. double-partner, Jim Dietz, had accused him of “killing fish”7387 with his oars. As a final humiliation, he suffered a horizon job in the Quads Trials. Halberstam: “The more anxious he became, the more he sought to push through solely on power, and the rougher he rowed.”7388 Odysseus tied to the mast. 7386 Sean wrote an instructive article in Andy Anderson’s Doctor Rowing column in the February, 2009 issue of Rowing News describing How to Win a Seat Race. 7387 Dietz, qtd. by Halberstam, p. 185 7388 Halberstam, p. 164 2060
