My second
home is in the water. Last week it
struck me that there has been some terrific changes in swimming strokes just
since I started swimming in the 1940’s.
Every morning when I make my way to the local Y, I see these changes all
around me.
Various
swimming styles have been around for a long time. “Bas-relief artwork in an Egyptian tomb from
around 2,000 B.C. shows an over-arm stroke like the front crawl. The Assyrians
showed an early breaststroke in their stone carvings. The Hittites, the
Minoans, and other early civilizations left drawings of swimming and diving
skills,” an article in the Washington Post tells us. The breast stroke was described in the
1600’s, and the Japanese held the first swimming competition in 36BC, they
continue. I see these changes all around
me as I workout in the pool first thing in the mornings.
My mother
taught me how to do the sidestroke just as she learned it in the early
1900’s. One arm was pulled toward you
under the water then shot out ahead as you glided. To reduce resistance and gain power, the top
arm pushed strongly to the legs then recovered out of the water as if it
learned to move in Australia. It was an
easy, graceful stroke, and when you held the long gentle glide, it was an
elegant stroke.
That’s not
how it’s done today. As primary stroke
used in rescue swimming, the sidestroke of the 21st century is rapid
and concise. With a drowning victim
tucked under your upper arm, all the movements are made under the water. No long lazy glides, today the arms come
together under the water as the legs slam together in the classic scissors
kick. It’s a fast, powerful stroke that
that will put you and a rescued person on a boat or at the shore in short
order. Once just a means of Edwardian locomotion,
today it’s a tool that saves lives.
The
breaststroke was the first formalized swimming motion. Swimmers found the sidestroke more easily
adaptable to change. Our current major
swimming technique is an outgrowth of the sidestroke. English swimmer John Trudgen had searched
for a stronger stroke. In 1902, as he
altered the arm motions, he continued moving the legs in a scissors kick. Trudgen thought to turn the trunk flat on the
water with the arms moving in rotation.
He was the first swimmer to officially invent a version of the front
crawl. It was awkward. Two arm strokes to each scissors kick. I would have great difficulty with the midway
twist of the body and the coordination to make this stroke work perhaps
resembling a drowning elephant.
The New York
Times tells us that, “The inefficiency of the Trudgen kick led Australian
Richard Cavill to try new methods. He used a stroke he observed natives of the
Solomon Islands using, which combined an up-and-down kick with an alternating
overarm stroke. He used the new stroke in 1902 at the International Championships
and set a new world record (100 yards in 58.4 seconds). This stroke became
known as the Australian crawl.” Today a
version of this same stroke is called Freestyle. Freestyle techniques are constantly being
modified. No more chopping at the water,
something I am an expert at, now we all reach as far forward as we can. The forearm surface is what pulls the body
forward they’ve by discovered watching videos of the best swimmers. Body position and head position make it all
work. But we knew that.
Did anyone
say anything about keeping water out of my nose and ears?
Another
example of swimming change comes in the form of the lane turns. If you do laps or any sort of training in a
pool, you need to turn around when you get to the end of your lane. To keep things continuous, the “Open Turn”
was standardized for competition. Swim
to the side of the pool, touch it with your hand while bringing your legs up to
push yourself strongly off the wall. You
glide at a good speed underwater then resume your stroke. I learned this in the 1940’s. It would have been simple if I could have
seen the wall. Again and again I would
swim right into the side of the pool. In
agony I would then have to listen to the instructor to say one more time, “Oh,
we all do that when we are first beginning.”
If I could find her now, I would tell her that I was still swimming
right into sides of pools.
Today’s
swimmers use the “Flip Turn.” I cannot
imagine my overweight body reaching the end of a lap and blindly flipping over
in a somersault. Will my legs break as
they hit the lip of the pool? Will I
concuss myself once again on the wall of the pool? Not only do you not get that extra bit of
breathable air using this turn, but flip turns are disorienting. It’s easy to lose sight of where you are
going.
Trying to
keep up with all the latest changes mid-stroke, sometimes leaves me at a
disadvantage. Just as it would be
easier to let an programming editor take care of my blogging design, it would
also be easier to change my mode of swimming.
Instead, I do my own html and use many of the old strokes. No html5 or freestyle for me. The only change I have made in my antique
swimming strokes is to add a half hour of water aerobics. We used to call those calisthenics. Revolutionary. Perhaps that will allow me a connection to
both worlds.
I was always grateful that I learned the "Australian crawl" and could actually swim with it. Because most other strokes -- even a modified backstroke -- never worked as well. Just me, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAh! The sidestroke! Lovely! My fave!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could swim. I've never really mastered it. I admire those of you who swim on a regular basis.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest granddaughter was a competitive swimmer for a while. She taught me a thing or two. All I could do now is the sidestroke and I would probably drown if I did it. Mostly I walk in the pool. Nice piece. Dianne
ReplyDeleteI learned to swim when I was 47. It was one of the most difficult things I ever did, learning that is. After several years of 30 laps at a time I moved on to other kinds of exercise. Swimming is not for me.
ReplyDeleteLearned to swim in a cold adirondack lake at 8:30 every morning of my childhood summers. When you live in a village on a lake you make sure your kids know how to swim. My parents signed us up every summer for the early morning community lessons that produced everything from splashers to life guards to olympians and professional syncronized swimmers. An old photograph shows me and my sibs in soaked suits, guts pulled in from the brutal lakewater cold shivering under a shared towel. After the lessons we went home, warmed up, ate a meal and returned for the warmer afternoon to play on the beach and swim. It was a big deal when you were certified to go beyond the ropes to the dock. Sadly there was at least one drowning every summer. Lessons or not.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I jumped off a boat into a cold Idaho lake - and my life quickly passed before my eyes..I am definitely too old to be that cold. Now I love the gently heated old lady pool.
This brought back many memories of girl scout camp, learning to swim. We learned the sidestroke as "reaching up to pick the apple then put it in the basket" meeting the other hand at the waist. I am not sure I would be able to do it any other way. I haven't gone swimming in a very long time, as I do not wear swimsuits. I kind of miss it.
ReplyDelete