Now if only I could swim "right"

[cjsmith]

I have developed a weird style that has arms from, oh, the breaststroke or the butterfly or something, and a scissor-kick from the sidestroke. My head bobs on every stroke; at the high point I breathe, and even at the low point my eyes are usually still out of the water. (That last is very handy for me. I veer if I'm not looking.) I'm bothered by the asymmetry of the scissor-kick, but not enough that I spend time doing it the opposite way.

I have almost completely forgotten how to do the basic crawl. I can flutter-kick, and I am comfortable doing that when I am on a kickboard, but the flutter-kick doesn't go well with what my arms want to do. The arm and head motion of the crawl feels very wrong to me, and besides, it puts water in my ears. I am convinced this is the main purpose of the crawl. :-)

Comments

[davidlevine]

I never learned to swim, despite years of classes at school and camp, until I finally had an instructor who taught me the breast stroke instead of the crawl. The crawl is an awful stroke -- it's hard to learn, it expends a lot of energy, it's a bad choice for survival -- the only thing it has going for it is speed. Which is why the "freestyle" events in the Olympics are all crawl -- no one who's trying to win a race would choose any other stroke. But for exercise or recreation or not-drowning, the crawl is the worst possible stroke. Good for you that you've found something else that works (which is not to say you couldn't find something that works better for you).

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

In comments to my previous post, aliceinfinland echoed that sentiment: her classes didn't teach other strokes until the student could master the crawl, which was frustrating.

I'm torn between working for speed so that I can stay out of the lane with the nearly-stationary people and working for endurance so that I can get a better cardio workout. Speed = learn crawl. Endurance = don't. Then there's "am I slowly injuring myself with my weird style" (learn crawl!) and "how long do I want to spend of a morning anyway?" (learn crawl! get tired faster!)

So many options, so low a priority! :-)

[rampling.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I guess I disagree with you about the crawl -- I'd always heard that it's the most efficient, and expends less energy, than other strokes. And I feel that effeciency myself, after having improved my crawl stroke dramatically. I love to relax and glide while I'm doing the crawl.

Checking the web, I find, for example: Freestyle or Crawl: The fastest, most efficient, and most popular stroke. (http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwfit/swimming.html)

That sounds weird, that they were trying to teach you the crawl at the same time you were learing to swim?! That makes no sense to me. But then I didn't learn to swim in a class. I'd think you should start with a casual version of breaststroke or dogpaddle or the like. Then later progress on to the crawl, when you're ready.

Maybe the crawl isn't everyone's favorite stroke (of course), but it does have some major benefits. My actual favorite is butterfly, but that's hard, and Really Really Really Tiring! But, ohhhh, the flying!! Just don't ask me to do more than one length of the pool with butterfly....

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think when I learned to swim we started out with Generalized Flailing just to get used to the water. We'd bob, we'd splash, whatever. But the first actual swimming was the crawl. Maybe it wasn't a good, efficient crawl, of course! That's just the general motions we were taught: one arm pulling at a time, head rotates to the side for breaths, flutter kick.

[davidlevine]

Every single swimming class I had tried to start with the crawl. And I couldn't do it -- I kept inhaling water, and I couldn't coordinate my arms and legs. I needed a stroke that brought my head higher out of the water, like the breast stroke.

The crawl is definitely the fastest, and is the most popular because everyone teaches it. I'm not sure I agree that it's the most efficient, but it might be. But it sure is hard to learn.