Harper's Round Table, August 18, 1896

by Various

From instantaneous Photographs of Professor Gus Sundstrom, Champion All-round Swimmer of the United States.

Although it is preferable to have some one to teach you how to swim, it is not absolutely necessary, and any one who has failed to learn as a youngster may, by following out the instructions here given, learn how to swim and float and dive by practising in the water all by himself.

One of the most important things for the beginner to have, of course, is confidence. He must not fear the water any more than a rider should fear his horse; on the other hand, he should not be overbold or reckless and attempt too many risks. The beginner should not go to a stream where there is a current, or in sea-water where there might be an undertow. He should choose a lake or a pond or, if at the sea-side, a bay; and he should stick at first pretty closely to shallow water. Salt water being so much more buoyant than fresh water, it is much easier to learn how to swim in the sea; in fact, if a man who has absolutely no knowledge of swimming will only keep control of his head, and retain his hands under water, he need never fear of drowning should he fall overboard into salt water. It is advisable, however, when first attempting to swim, to have some one on the bank near by who could come to your assistance should anything happen.

And now for the preliminary steps. First drive a stake into the bottom of the pond where the water is from three to four feet deep. Then take hold of the stake with both hands and stretch the body straight out on the surface of the water, with the back upward, of course. I might just as well say here as anywhere that the first thing to do when going into the water is to submerge the entire body, head included. In fact, it is a very good thing for timid people to go into shallow water and put their heads under the water and open their eyes, for this very soon gives them confidence in themselves. The head should always be wet, too, because otherwise, with all the body under water and only the head in the sunlight, the blood is apt to rush upwards and eventually cause a head-ache.

FIG. 7.—DETAIL OF BREAST STROKE.

To return to the stake. The first motions to be learned are those of the legs, and they may be divided into three parts. The first motion of the legs is to draw them up, with the knees bending outward, and the feet kept as closely together as possible. The second motion is to extend the feet outward and move the legs backward, and the third motion is to draw the feet quickly together, extended as far out from the body as possible. These motions are clearly shown in Fig. 7, and they are also displayed in illustration No. 1. This photograph was taken while the arms were going back and the legs were starting to come up.

It will take the novice some time before he can master these motions absolutely, and unless he is careful he will never master them at all; and although he will learn to know how to swim, he will not swim correctly, nor will he be able to get the greatest advantage out of the labor expended. To acquire this leg motion correctly a beginner should go through this kicking action twenty or thirty times, counting one, two, three, as he does so, and keeping his mind all the time on the theory of the thing. Then he should come out of the water and rest a few minutes, and then go back again to the stake and go through the exercises again.

After the leg motion has been thoroughly mastered, the proper use of the arms must be learned. It is a common fallacy that the beginning of the stroke in swimming consists of holding the hands in front of the face palm to palm. This is the wrong way. The hands should be held flat out, thumb knuckle to thumb knuckle and forefinger to forefinger, under the chin and almost touching the breast (see Fig. 7.). As soon as the stroke is begun the palms should be turned a little outward so as to assist in moving the body forward. The hands should not be separated to any great extent until they have been pushed out almost to arm's length, and when they are brought backwards in the stroke they should not be allowed to pass much behind the line of the shoulders.

A good way to learn the arm stroke is to kneel in shallow water, or to lie across a plank in the water, and practise it. The most difficult part of the early stages of swimming is to learn how to combine the stroke of the arms with the stroke of the legs. It is absolutely necessary that the arms and legs should work in harmony, and therefore the following rules should be strictly observed:

1. When the hands are being thrust out forward, the legs should be coming together, as in the third part of the leg motion described above.

2. When the arms are straight out in front the legs should be straight out behind.

3. When the arms are passing back in the act of performing the stroke, the legs are being drawn up.

The beginner should not try to swim any long distance at first. As soon as he finds that he can keep his body floating easily on the water by means of the strokes he has learned, he should aim to perfect his form rather than aim to cover long distances. The stroke which has just been described is technically called the forward breast stroke, and although there are a great many other kinds of strokes in swimming, this is the easiest of all strokes to learn, and the one that is most generally used, except, perhaps, for racing.

One of the most common of the fancy strokes is the overhand stroke. This is performed by placing the body on the right side, with the legs held out behind perfectly straight. One leg is then brought up in front and the other is lifted up behind, and the next motion is to bring them together with a swift, scissorlike motion, exerting as much force as possible. In the mean time the right hand is moved out in front and brought down through the water as far as the left thigh, while the left hand passes out of the water from the rear forward, and is drawn back similarly through the water, thus pulling the body ahead, just as one might pull one's self along by means of a rope. The start and finish of the arm-work in this stroke are well shown in illustrations Nos. 5 and 6. It is a stroke which requires considerable practice.

But perhaps before trying to learn fancy strokes, it might be well for the beginner to learn how to float. It is, of course, much easier to float in salt water than in fresh water, and it is therefore advisable when possible to learn in sea-water. The method is simple, and any one who has perfect confidence in himself ought to be able to float the first time he tries. The first thing to do is to fill the lungs well, and then cut off the air at the curve of the larynx instead of up in the nostrils. This is done by holding the muscles of the throat as they are when performing the act of swallowing. This keeps the bulk of the air in the lungs, and consequently under water; any air held in the mouth does not give buoyancy to the body.

Fat people, of course, float much more easily than thin people, just the same as a piece of fat will float on the water, whereas a piece of lean meat will in all probability sink. In the same way men with greater lung-power will float more easily than others with a lesser lung capacity. To float, a beginner should not thrust himself backward violently. He should take a long breath, and then fall backwards in the water gently, making a sort of sculling movement with his hands, at the same time raising his arms upwards until they are stretched as far out from the shoulders as he can and slightly above the lines of the shoulder-blades. The arms (which, of course, must never be lifted out of the water) should be raised no higher than this above the head, otherwise they diminish the capacity of the lungs by pressing them in. The feet should be worked up slowly from the bottom, and the legs should be spread out. (The correct position is shown in illustration No. 2.)

The first attempts will naturally result in the beginner's head going under water for a moment at a time, every now and then; but this should not alarm or discourage him, for if he holds the air in his lungs and follows the instructions just given, the head will soon come above the surface again. Then, after the body has settled into the proper position, the floater may breathe naturally, but he should take long breaths, and when driving the air out of the lungs he should do it rapidly, and likewise inhale rapidly, holding the air in the body as long as possible.

After one has learned to float, a pleasant diversion is to learn the forward sculling stroke. This is a fancy stroke, and is of no particular service, except perhaps that it is restful. The hands should be held in the same position as in floating, but the feet should be brought together. (Illustration No. 4.) Then both hands should be worked at the wrists in a sort of semicircle—this is called the sculling motion. After a few turns of the wrist the body will take a slow forward movement, which gradually increases, and this aids materially in keeping the swimmer afloat. Nevertheless he should keep his lungs full of air, as he does when floating.

There is also a backward sculling stroke, but this is performed by lying face downward on the water. (Illustration No. 3.) The body is held rigid, the feet are pointed forward, and kept moving up and down at the ankle to keep the legs from sinking, the legs are held stiff, and the hands spread out as before, and moved in the same manner.

FIG. 8.—SWIMMING ON THE BACK.

The stroke which should perhaps first be learned after one has mastered the art of floating is that which enables one to swim on the back. The fastest and easiest way of swimming on the back is called the double over-arm, and the method is well illustrated in Fig. 8. In order to practise this the swimmer must, of course, first come to the floating position, and then he should bring his feet together and keep them moving up and down, so as to hold them near the surface of the water. The movement of the arms is a sort of windmill motion, and as they pass through the water the palms and forearms propel the body onward. This is an easy stroke to learn when one knows how to float.

These are perhaps the most important points about swimming that can be given in so brief a paper. It will take the beginner some time to master these, and after he has learned them and has become familiar with the water, he should practise diving. At an early date this Department will be devoted, in text and illustration, to the interesting subject of diving.

The Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, M.P., made a speech on the subject of athletics recently when he delivered prizes to the boys of the King's School at Warwick, England, and the London Sporting Life quotes a few of his remarks, which, I believe, are just as true concerning American sport as they are of English sport, and must consequently be of interest to our American school-boys. Mr. Lyttelton said that nobody could accuse him of saying anything against athletic games, for he is a great lover of sports; but he added that he feared there was a tendency to overdo matters, and to allow athletics to occupy a more important place in the world than they should—to make a business of them, in fact, instead of keeping them as a recreation which should make us more fitted to do our work in this world.

The speech created a good deal of comment among sportsmen abroad; and Sporting Life, a week later, devoted considerable space to editorial remarks on what Mr. Lyttelton had said. I quote a few sentences: "Few will deny the 'growing professional spirit in most of our games' decried by that famous sportsman [Mr. Lyttelton], or venture to contradict his statement that the majority of them are being reduced to a mere matter of £ s. d. by exponents galore nowadays.... But above and beyond this lamentable endeavor to reduce all things to pounds, shillings, and pence there is an excess of enthusiasm in sport equally to be decried by all.... The fact is that many devotees of sport make far too much of it by having allowed themselves to be taught that ordinary success in any branch thereof is not worth having. They do so in the spirit of the old saying that whatever you do you should do well, which, like many other old sayings, is very untrue, and very dangerous in its lack of truth. And nowhere is this more untrue than in reference to our amusements."

The editorial then goes on to give some examples, saying that to play billiards, for instance, is the amusement of a gentleman, but to play billiards pre-eminently well is hardly that. The writer argues that a man who makes it his life's work to become a successful billiard-player can hardly, in the mean time, have continued to be a gentleman in the best use of the word. As another example, the writer states that chess is perhaps, of all recreations, the one most adapted to intellectual persons, but to be pre-eminent at chess, he argues, is generally to be that and nothing else.

There is a good deal of truth in this, and it may well be said that the athletes who go in purely for record-breaking, even if they stick strictly to the amateur spirit so far as the letter of the law is concerned, devote themselves so fully to their endeavors that they have little time to cultivate the gentler arts and amenities of social life. They consort so constantly with trainers and rubbers and professional sports that they grow more or less to be like these; they talk like them, they act like them, and they begin to shun more elegant society; and while still remaining amateurs, they are unquestionably amateurs of a lower social caste. This degradation is due solely to their own conduct. There is a wide difference between a healthy and keen indulgence in sport and a passion for breaking records, putting aside any mention of the money-making feature of the question.

It would seem that Mr. Lyttelton is not the only man in England whose attention has been called to this weakness among their amateurs; for the Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P., who was present at Stamford Bridge on the occasion of the athletic meeting of the Association of Conservative Clubs, made remarks in a similar vein when he distributed the prizes to the winners. He said that there were critics of athletics who watched the rapid growth of interest in sport with something like suspicion, not to say dislike. He asserted, however, that he did not share their views, for he had always held that the healthy interest in athletic sports was one of the most distinguishing and characteristic marks of our age, and he considered it an admirable sign of the times. Nevertheless he warned the young men who were listening to him to beware of the danger of carrying their sports too far, and he said that that point was reached when training or indulgence in sports ceased to be a pastime and became an occupation. There is fruit for considerable thought in the remarks of these two prominent English gentlemen.

The Interscholastic Tennis Tournament at Newport has been postponed until August 19, and will therefore not be treated in this Department until the issue of August 25.

R. W. Neal, Salem, Mass.—1. The price of Track Athletics in Detail has been printed conspicuously at the bottom of the second page of this Department for the past six weeks. 2. I do not know the book you mention. 3. Track Athletics in Detail is the only volume so far published in the Harper's Round Table Library. 4. Other good books on athletics are Walter Camp's Book of College Sports (Century Company), and Blaikie's How to Get Strong.

F. F. Smith, Cumberland, Md.—The articles on canoe-building appeared in the Round Table, August 13 and 20, 1895.

F. E. D., New York.—You will find the advice you seek in Blaikie's How to Get Strong (Harper and Brothers, $1); and Sound Bodies for Boys and Girls (Harper and Brothers, 40c.).

V. W. Hall, Portland, Me.—See answer to F. E. D.

C. W. Gillespie, Terre Haute, Ind.—It was assumed, in writing the article on "Hammer-throwing," that the athlete was more or less familiar with the various track-athletic events now practised, and consequently it was thought unnecessary to go into various specific details concerning the "turn" which puzzles you. In throwing the hammer you only turn once. The act is merely that of jumping about and facing the other direction. If you are confused at the start, practise this turn without a hammer. The shoes should have spikes both in the toes and the heels.