Am I alone in pursuing freestyle only?
I never understood/appreciated anything other than "swim as fast as you can from A to B".
I was a long time hard-core runner, and the different swimstrokes seems to me to be akin to running backwards or sideways. (Or....heaven forbid......Racewalking!!)
Why shouldn't swimming follow the same path as running? Ie No stroke rules. Just go from A to B in the water anyway you wish? As fast as you can.
School me! Kick my ass! In my newbieness I cannot understand anything other than "A to B in the water as fast as you can."
Why do we have these 4 different strokes? It seems like a beauty contest. (I expect to be crucified for such blasphemy.)
Educate me, USMS people. Help me understand why you would want to find a way to swim slower!! :)
Interesting.
I'm having a challenging time trying to master one stroke. Do you think the pursuit of the other strokes actually helps with each? ie Does the variety = betterment?
It could, there are definitely takeaways from freestyle to backstroke to fly that can be applied to each other. Breaststroke is pretty unique though.
You have to remember though - people that have been swimming their whole lives have a bit of a different perspective than those that pick up the sport as adults. Swimming is not exactly a "natural" movement for humans, at least not in terms of the competitive strokes. People that learn the strokes when they are young and still developing physically and mentally have the advantage of growing into those movement patterns when they're still malleable. From what I've seen, it takes exponentially more effort to master strokes as an adult than as a child/adolescent.
I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this, except that really mastering even one stroke while learning swimming as an adult is a accomplishment in my book.
As a breaststroker I take umbrage at any aspersions on this great,most beautiful stroke. As to why different strokes, unlike track, where there is just running, or running with hurdles or water hazards or long jump, high jump, triple jump, hammer throw, javeline throw, shot put. pole vault, etc.
Because variety is fun. I've always enjoyed working on all four strokes and the intricacies of each. I'm not sure if I'd have gotten back in the pool when I started Masters if it was just all freestyle all the time.
Interesting.
I'm having a challenging time trying to master one stroke. Do you think the pursuit of the other strokes actually helps with each? ie Does the variety = betterment?
Because variety is fun. I've always enjoyed working on all four strokes and the intricacies of each. I'm not sure if I'd have gotten back in the pool when I started Masters if it was just all freestyle all the time.
Eventually I am going to do a lot of drills in my warmups. Maybe doing the 3 "other" strokes, or parts thereof, makes a better warmup, and a better freestyle?
As a breaststroker I take umbrage at any aspersions on this great,most beautiful stroke. As to why different strokes, unlike track, where there is just running, or running with hurdles or water hazards or long jump, high jump, triple jump, hammer throw, javeline throw, shot put. pole vault, etc.
Point taken!! (I was being rather cheeky on the initial post.)
and butterfly is simply a mean to show off, completely useless on its own.
Hmmm, maybe some butterfly would help you figure out how to kick your legs straight up and down instead of scissoring.
Am I alone in pursuing freestyle only?
I never understood/appreciated anything other than "swim as fast as you can from A to B".
I was a long time hard-core runner, and the different swimstrokes seems to me to be akin to running backwards or sideways. (Or....heaven forbid......Racewalking!!)
Why shouldn't swimming follow the same path as running? Ie No stroke rules. Just go from A to B in the water anyway you wish? As fast as you can.
School me! Kick my ass! In my newbieness I cannot understand anything other than "A to B in the water as fast as you can."
Why do we have these 4 different strokes? It seems like a beauty contest. (I expect to be crucified for such blasphemy.)
Educate me, USMS people. Help me understand why you would want to find a way to swim slower!! :)
I have the same feeling of you therefore only do freestyle. For me, breaststroke is only used when need to have better sighing, backstroke is a recovery stroke, and butterfly is simply a mean to show off, completely useless on its own.
Skuj -- Like you, I got into swimming many many years ago, as a young adult, after having been a distance runner since h.s. Mostly, I don't really care about the other strokes. I just needed to swim for triathlons. WRT your comparison as the other strokes to running backwards, sideways, etc. Personally, I use the strokes-to-running comparison a little differently. Like running hurdles, for example. I was never on an organized/coached swim team...but in recent years I've worked a little on my other strokes and gotten myself up to where I can swim a 400m IM (albeit ever so slow) (actually I'll swim a 1600m IM now and then). The other question I've pondered is how, aside from the front crawl ("freestyle")...because it's the fastest... that we arrived at the butterfly, *** stroke, and backstroke as the other strokes that would be used in competitive swimming. Why didn't the trudgeon stroke, side stroke, or elementary backstroke make the cut?
Dan
