Page:Boating - Woodgate - 1888.pdf/161

 just to see how one gets on, but it is of no use to race unless the competitor has had some gallops beforehand ; and it is in trying to row a fast stroke before they can thoroughly sit a boat that so many scullers sow seeds of bad style, which stick to them long afterwards, and perhaps always, When at last the sculler has learned to sit his boat, to drop his hands in simultaneously, to feel an even pressure with both blades, to see his stern-post hold on true, arid not waver from side to side ; when he is able to drop and turn both wrists at the same in- stant, to lift both blades clean away from the water, and to shoot out his hands without fouling either his knees or the water, then he has mastered more than half the scullers of the

day—even though he can only perform thus for half-a-dozen strokes at a time without encountering a roll. He can now lay his weight well on his sculls, and can make his boat travel. He will have done well if all this time he has abstained from indulging in a slide ; he docs not need one as yet, he is not racing, and the fewer things be has to think about the better chance he has of being able to devote his attention to acquiring eyen hands and a tight seat. Once let him gain these accom- plishments, and he can then take’ to his slide, and in his first race go by many an opponent who started sculling long before him, but who began at once in a wager boat and on a slide.