So far, most of my swimming experience has centered on the crawl stroke (often referred to a as “freestyle”) for the purpose of swimming laps. What I like about the crawl stroke is that it works both the arms and legs intensely at the same time. I do a fair amount of running which does nothing for the arms, but since I’ve been swimming several times a week the past couple of months I’ve been told my upper body seems more built (though I don’t really see it). In learning the crawl stroke, I have had a particularly hard time getting the side breathing down. I’m doing much better at this, but I still can’t make it a full 25 meters without having to stop once after about 15 to 20 meters (when my breathing gets out of sync). I’m close, and I think I will get there if I keep building my endurance and figuring out the right timing for the breaths.

Anyway, at the gym I notice people doing “individual medleys” where they alternate among different strokes while doing laps whereas I’m just doing the crawl stroke. Aside from the crawl stroke, my other swimming abilities are sparse. I can do a basic backstroke (but not the back crawl stroke yet), I can do the dolphin kick (but not the butterfly stroke), and I can do standing dives (not technically well, but I can do it). I was thinking that during my workouts I might burn out less quickly and improve my endurance if I alternate laps with a less intense stroke. So, I decided that I wanted to learn the breaststroke. I’ve heard this referred to as “frog style” because of the frog-like kick, and I’ve also heard that it’s easier to breathe with this stroke.

I went back to the instructor who first taught me to swim for help with the breaststroke. He showed me the kick and the pull by themselves and had me practice these separately. I pracitced the kick while holding on the side of the pool. It wasn’t that hard for me to figure out the kick, and I find it kind of fun. I could tell when I was doing it right because of the way my legs moved the water. I had a harder time getting the pull right, however. My instructor described the arm movements like using both hands to simultaneously scrape the opposite sides of an ice cream barrel. I guess it does look sort of like that. I practiced this with the pull buoy, and I’m going to need a lot more work to be confident with this. Though it was probably premature, I tried coordinating the stroke and the kick together, but I’m just not there yet. It sounds easy enough to “pull, kick, glide” and looks easy, but I still find it like trying to sit on a bike and make it go; I just fall flat. Well, I didn’t expect to get this instantaneously. I’m going to keep visualizing this and keep working on the kick and the pull separately, making sure that I got those down correctly. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put them together before too long…