Which swimming strokes can you do?

[baldrick]

all of them, except butterfly

I want to be able to do it, but we never did it at school even though it was one of the events at the gala

i think it looks great when you see it on telly

 

[toblerone3]

I can do Butterfly stroke for about 10 metres. I think its a rubbish stroke.

 

[Melinda]

It saps your energy.

You need an abdomen of steel.

 

[baldrick]

I want abs of steel. I just can't co-ordinate the ratio of kicks to arm movements. there's 2 of one to 1 of the other but I can't remember which plus nobody ever does it in the local pool so i can't copy them

 

[ScallyWag II]

All of them except about two strokes of butterfly before i sink. But i can do the *man from atlantis* swim stylee.

 

[marty21]

Butterfly option is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

i have a mate who was a very good swimmer, i'm sire he still is, but he swam for the university and wales, and if he hadn't got into drink and that - might have got to the olympics or commonwealth games (his sister did swim in the commonwealth)

he used to do a length of butterfly at the leisure centre

 

[spring-peeper]

Not according to my understanding of wiki.

Float on your back, with your arms and legs at your side.
Step2
Draw your knees up toward your chest. At the same time, draw your arms up along your sides, bending them at the elbows so that your hands are almost in your armpits.
Step3
Kick your legs out and apart, then quickly squeeze them together. They should end up straight, with your toes pointed.
Step4
Extend your arms like an airplane, and then squeeze them down against your sides.
Step5
Coordinate your arms and legs so that both go up, out and together all at the same time. The result should be a burst of motion through the water.
Step6
Glide and repeat.

Squidstroke is mine!

I would really love to see that stroke, btw.

 

[quimcunx]

I would really love to see that stroke, btw.

Where did you get that description? Anyway, it's different again.

E2A: Actually that might be a description of it... I'll have to find a private spot and check.


I am very much NOT going to get someone to video me doing it for you!

I have demonstrated it fully clothed on an Airport floor before though, when someone (possibly wilfully) refused to understand my description.

 

[Melinda]

I would really love to see that stroke, btw.

I have demonstrated it fully clothed on an Airport floor before though

 

[Dr. Furface]

In order of preference/ability -

front crawl
backstroke
sidestroke
breast stroke
butterfly

Nice technique, shame about the lungs!

 

[aylee]

How the fuck do you do the butterfly? That's the one that I never could do, I always felt like I was going backwards rather than forwards and would always collapse after doing about half a length.

I'm not a bad swimmer .... I do a kilometre on the rare occasions when I go swimming and used to do a mile, but the butterfly was always beyond me.

 

[cesare]

How the fuck do you do the butterfly? That's the one that I never could do, I always felt like I was going backwards rather than forwards and would always collapse after doing about half a length.

I'm not a bad swimmer .... I do a kilometre on the rare occasions when I go swimming and used to do a mile, but the butterfly was always beyond me.

½ a length's not bad for the butterfly

 

[stavros]

I used to swim competitively as a kid, and I think I got disqualified from every breast stroke and butterfly event I ever entered. With the former I just can't do the legs, and the latter my arms are far too weak.

I'm not bad at crawl, but my stroke was always backstroke. I won the 50m backstroke at secondary school.

 

[weltweit]

Actually I have been able to do butterfly but badly.

When I try breaststroke my limbs move but I generate absolutely no forward motion.

My favourite is backstroke because my face is out of the water.

I would be faster at crawl but as I like to keep my face out of the water I kind of mill about from right to left head held high as I make progress.

I learnt how to lifesave when I was at school including how to jump in without going completely underwater so you can keep an eye on where the person to be saved is at. It was a kind of jump in and perform a star jump iirc. Luckily never had to actually rescue anyone but I would have a go if needed. I am good at swimming on my back with a person in front of me and my hand around their chin!

You didn't mention diving? not that it is swimming, but it takes a certain bottle to dive off the higher boards, something I have not managed.

 

[weltweit]

Earlier I had trouble with the leg kicking in crawl and backstroke. I thought my instructors had said I should keep my whole leg straight and kick without bending the knee. It was very hard and I was not very good at it. Then I watched swimmers at some televised event and saw that they all bent their knees when they kicked so I followed suit. Much much easier and I made good progress.

When I was a lad there was a river me and my mates liked to play in. My dad suddenly realised there was a drowning risk so he forbade me to swim in the river until I could do 14 lengths of a pool. Well by about length 5 my progress had become very slow and by about length 10 I was hardly making any progress in the pool at all but I persevered and in the end I did my 14 lengths and was allowed to go and play with my buddies in the river again.

 

[weltweit]

When my son learnt to swim it was all gradually stuff with floatation things in a shallow pool with lots of encouragement, which meant basically that he was still learning, and we were still paying months later.

Why his grandad, (my dad) learnt to swim, around 1910 probably. They just took all the kids from his class to a cold open air pool, and threw them into the deep end. When you need it, most animals can manage doggy paddle!