CHAPTER IX

METHODS OF SWIMMING, FLOATING, DIVING, AND SOME GOOD WATER GAMES


Some girls, after they have learned the alphabet of music, and are
able to play elementary scales on the piano, are eager to surprise
themselves and annoy their listeners by starting in to play tunes, if
indeed they are not ambitious to tackle grand opera. But the wise
learner is satisfied to take one step at a time, and before going on
he is sure that he can do the previous steps reasonably well.

I am old enough to have boys of my own, still I hope I shall never be
so old as to forget my own boyhood, nor to feel that much of the boy
nature does not still keep with me; and this is why I advise my boy
friends who read this to learn surely whatever they undertake; in this
case it is swimming.

After you can manage the breast stroke well, try the side stroke,
which you will find more speedy, but it has its disadvantages in a
long swim, by reason of the tension thrown on the muscles of the neck
in keeping the head thrown so far back from its normal position, while
the chest and shoulders, square to the front, offer considerable
resistance to the water. History has not handed down the name of the
founder of the side stroke, but he deserves canonization equally with
the man who ate the first oyster. Nature evidently intended man to
swim on his side, as in this position the body moves more easily in
the water, to which it offers less resistance, while the action of the
arms is not so fatiguing, and the head is supported by the water at
its proper angle to the trunk.