This afternoon presented me with another “Why don’t I have my camera?!?” moment. At the very end of swimming lessons the teachers (they have two this session) took the kids (there are three in the class!) over to the BIG pool! The 9′ deep competition pool! The first boy (Lex’s classmate and a good friend of both of theirs) shouted with joy and jumped right in! I’m not certain he hasn’t been in that pool before. My two kids were very nervous. Eve made me (twist my arm!) come with them to the big pool. The two teachers, one in the pool and one out, were able to get Lex and Eve to sit on the edge of the pool and Eve worked up the courage to slip in. Once in she LOVED it! Lex, however, said quite clearly, “I don’t want to get into a very cold, nine foot deep swimming pool!” Hmm… when you put it that way I think he has a very valid point! I was pleased that his teachers respected that and gave him space. I think in the next few sessions he’ll work up the courage to join the other two. Eve, on the other hand, is already eager to start swimming laps!
I’m repeatedly impressed with how naturally swimming comes to Eve. Lex has been practicing his freestyle (back in my day we called it the Crawl Stroke) a lot lately. I have yet to see Eve even try it. At lessons today the instructor asked them to do it across the pool. Lex worked at it like he always does. He does a good job, but he is clearly thinking and trying. Eve just did it. Not perfectly, but smoothly and easily. She’s so little in the water, yet so smooth. Like a fish. I can’t wait to see her doing laps in the big pool. On second thought, yes, I can. She’s too little for the big pool!!!
awesome post. I love it!!! I was just telling Garrett a couple days ago how ive been practicing my crawl and im excited about how much better im getting and he said “what the heck is the crawl”…….i didnt know if it was a different name different places, or old fashioned name, but i have realized ever since i was a kid i haven’t heard it called the crawl anywhere else……interesting. I love the seeing them swim, they are so little and so cute.
It is the “crawl” and that is what we always called it, including the instructors who taught us. “Free-style”, of course, comes from swimming competition terms. How it got changed there, I have no idea. But Eve absolutely is in her element in the water, and may very well develop a competitive interest. Tessa your family, all of it, is my constant source of joy and happiness now. Thank you, my dear.
the forward crawl is the correct term for the stroke–freestyle comes from competition swimming. swimmers would compete in the four “big” strokes, which are forward crawl, backward crawl, breast stroke and butterfly, and often they would have a freestyle round. because the forward crawl is invariably the fastest stroke, forward crawl has been synonymous with freestyle.
ok i’m done being the obnoxious corrector for today…you’d think i was raised by a teacher or something.