I first learn to swim with my father at the mobile home park pool as a 7 year old. Then I took lessions in the summer time at the community pool in our area thru Red Cross. I went to a swim school to learn butterfly.
Also,Skaky, in high school, many of the kids were hispanic since I had moved to Fountain Valley California during Jr high and attended Los Amigos High which had 25 percent of the students with spanish surnames and everyone was require to learn to swim in their freshmen year. Los Amigos had a lot of kids from Santa Ana, a city in those days which was already 25 percent hispanic. So, in some ways it was different but hispanics in those days number few on AAU teams. I remember a hispanic girl from Commerce, she switched from swimming to water Polo and did really well in AAU polo than she did at swimming.
It was so fun growing up in the summer...as swimming was an everyday thing. By 3 years old I was diving off the baords, and accomplished my first high dive by age 5. It was my spirited sister, an accomplished fly swimmer, who taught me how to flip turn, and breath, at a hotel pool close to our house. I think I learned this by the age of 4 or 5. But, it wasn't until my high school developed a swim team, that I learned things properly, such as arm placement, roll, etc. Where I grew up, Portsmouth, Ohio, there was a giantic pool (Dreamland), where my parents met about a hundred years ago. We swam the dickens out of that pool, and many friends of mine are still saddened that an Aldi grocery store, of all things, has replaced the wonderous pool.
When I was a child, I desperately craved swimming, and in the heart of winter, would put on my suit, and beg my parents to take me to the nearby holiday inn (indoor pool) for a splash.
What a fun question!
Have a great day,
JoAnne
Sally, you are correct its the Trudgeon Crawl that I learn as a child. Also, I learn side-stroke, the life guard stroke. In fact some gentleman here on this forum that was in the navy a year ago stated that they had a 500 yard side-stroke competion in the navy. Skaky, its a shame that blacks couldn't go to the public pool where you were at. I learn to swim in Gardena California which even in those days had a good size Japanese populaton and many kids were Japanese that learned to swim at the Red Cross program. Gail, you are remarkable in that I know that you were one of the top breaststrokers in the early 1950's.
Trudgeon crawl is basically freestyle with a scizzor kick. The kick is timed with the breath. It kind of has a "herky jerky" rhythm but there is alot of power in the scizzor kick (which is one reason why it was used in lifesaving for so long).
Next time you're at a pool for lap swimming check out the senior swimmers. I bet you'll find someone doing trudgeon crawl.
Sally
I learned at a summer camp my parents sent me to when I was about 10 or 11. The swimming instructor was a college student who was a good swimmer but she didn't really know how to teach kids and she didn't have much patience. I hated taking lessons. (When kids had trouble picking up skills, she would get frustrated, yell a lot and -- literally -- push us into the water.) So I learned to swim, but it was a few years until I enjoyed it. Now I can't live without it :) .
I grew up as a "river rat" and there was no such thing as technique or different kinds of strokes!!! My family lived on a river in Maryland (Back River) and I had a bunch of cousins who lived next door or across the road and we simply swam (every summer day)-- however it took to get out to that raft to play "king of the raft" or to play "tag" or take a boat out for an adventure as pirates. I remember that "swimming underwater" was really "running" underwater to get away from whoever was "IT" during the tag chases. We would look for the bubbles of breath to track the direction our prey had taken. I don't recall actual swim srokes, but I do think it was at first the dog paddle, and later a simulation of a crawl with head held out of the water so we could breath! I think the "trudgeon crawl" was something similar to the "Australian crawl" but with no flutter kick in there anywhere.
It wasn't until I got to college and as a Physical Education major I learned how to swim with strokes and techniques that had names! I never did compete in swim competitions, but did do some synchronized swimming events and learned even more about different ways to stay afloat for different reasons.
The journey has been fun and I have such fond memories of it all. I shall remain a lifetime swimmer even if I do take a hiatus periodically:p
And now I train for my very first triathlon.
Nancy
I've seen that scissor kick! In fact, I've seen it up close as one of those old guys scissor kicked me under the rope from the next lane!
I wondered what they thought they were doing.
