If you have not yet acquired that perfect confidence necessary to enable you to become a swimmer, you may at first allow one foot to touch the ground; but if you find you can manage without doing so, so much the better.
THE STROKE.
At the same time that you bring your arms back to your sides, you must draw up your legs, and extending your arms again as in the first movement, strike your feet out steadily behind you.
The action of the legs in swimming is most important. The strokes should come from the knees, not from the hips, the feet spreading wide apart, and striking backward and downward, in order to obtain the greatest amount of resistance from the water, and the ankle-joints firm.
When you have learned the stroke with the arms and that with the legs, you are able to swim. Always make your strokes with steadiness, and not too rapidly, taking a fresh breath every time you strike out. After all, you will find hard-and-fast rules on this subject are not of much use, as you will soon naturally breathe at the right time.
SWIMMING ON THE BACK.
In order to swim on your back, you must, of course, first turn over. This is done exactly as you turn in bed. Drop the arm and leg opposite to the side to which you turn, and embrace, as it were, the water with the other. This movement seems very difficult, but it is a perfectly natural one, and you have only to obey the impulse of your will in order to perform it.
Having turned over, let your head lie well back, no other part of your body being out of the water, the hands close to the hips, and then strike out with the feet as directed in your first lesson in breast swimming.
In swimming on your back you can use your hands in various ways, as you may desire to go faster or slower. If in no haste, merely paddling with them by the sides of your hips will greatly assist, or you can push them down from the waist toward your thighs, bringing them back edgewise, so as to offer as little resistance as possible to the water. But the greatest speed while swimming on your back is to be attained by stretching both hands as far as possible out of the water behind your head, and bringing them with a rapid sweep edgewise into the water again, opposing your palms to the water, so as to get as great a pressure as possible. You can, of course, at the same time use your legs, though you can progress by the use of your arms alone, but with nothing like the same speed.