Learning to swim breastroke first?

[vera16]

In my day everyone learned breastroke first and then moved in to front crawl if they wanted to get serious about swimming. Breastroke can be done with head out of the water and is also crucial for treading water so consequently you can get comfortable in the water quite quickly - IMO. My DS is currently learning front crawl as a first strike and is struggling because he doesn't want to put his head in the water yet. I would actually much prefer him to learn breastroke first for above reasons. Anyone know how I can find a swim school which teaches this?

Ha, something I have wondered about as I also learned breaststroke first. In several different European countries children learn breaststroke first but not found/ heard about it in England. I'm fact the coaches I have spoken to all say breaststroke is the most difficult to learn....
So although I agree with you, I am not sure you will find a swimschool who agrees.

Breaststroke is actually very hard to teach a child - to be able to coordinate head and legs in a very specific motion

Kids usually start with a dog paddle motion then move on to using floats

They don't do front crawl with the head in the water for absolutely ages

My eldest didn't start front crawl with head in the wager until well through stage 2

I think the aim would be to get him comfortable getting his face in the water which you could help with by going swimming in between sessions and having some fun playtime. I would assume if swim schools don’t teach breaststroke first there’s a reason for it.

Well, as mentioned in some European countries breaststroke with head above water (actually they call it schoolstroke to distinguish this from breaststroke) is considered easiest to learn

I do get this but I'm not looking for Olympic quality breastroke I just want to get him safe and confident in the water.

I am actually a very good freestyle swimmer myself and used to swim competitively but for pootling round the pool it would be head up breastroke every time.

I look at the more advanced stages when I'm on the balcony watching his lessons and it seems like the kids don't get really 'comfortable' in the water until they get the front crawl breathing sorted. Which is not easy,

Backstroke was the first lesson they taught at my DC swim school, then front crawl.

Interesting!

35 years ago we learnt front crawl, breast stroke and backstroke from the start, a rotating week on each. Head up for all of them.

I didn't learn to tread water until much later, I believe the thinking is to get kids confident in the water abd able to get out of a situation first. So they are more likely to need to swim to the side of a pool or lake and get out than they are to stay and tread water for a long period.

Breaststroke is hard to teach properly and frustrating to learn.

Yes, must admit I was surprised, but it seemed to work. Faces out of the water and they learn to lie flat in the water.

My DS is in stage 5, and isn’t consistently putting his face in the water in any stroke. I am hoping the teacher does something about this soon!

Breastroke is really hard for children to get - the leg movements required are not intuitive. My 4 year old can’t do front crawl arms but can do 50m in doggy paddle and move herself about the pool really well like that and do a decent backstroke. Can’t do frogs legs at all though.

@lickenchugget and also how they should lie to float ( ie to stop themselves drowning) so quite sensible. My dc learned to swim overseas and the method used is survival focused so all spent first few weeks just lying on their backs. They are taught that if they get tired doing another stroke to return to that position for a rest.

I would be wary of trying to find somewhere that does things the way they were done back in your day, as the world moves on. The best approach is for you to find a provider you are happy with and then try to support your son to achieve what they are setting out to do.

You should be able to speak to any swimming teacher about how they work and which scheme they use, I would just phone around and ask them if you can visit and have a chat.

Ridiculous, sorry. I've taught swimming for years, and kids can't be comfortable with any stroke until they're happy going underwater. Get him some goggles and practice picking up bricks from the bottom of the shallow end

Mine did breaststroke, backstroke, front crawl then butterfly. Thought that's hoe everyone learnt, it was the old dolphin award way.

And I live in England. Having said that, they had to learn to put their heads under virtually from the first lesson
Mine started lessons aged 3 and all picked the breaststroke up easily enough.

So interesting! From my observations of watching my children and many others learn to swim, once they are happy with putting their head under they make strides, before that they spend so much effort keeping their head out it really hampers them.

But I am really interested that other countries do it differently.

Mine learned doggy paddle/front crawl with their face in from the get-go. But they were taught in america, where that was the norm. Heads in the water (looking for the fishies) right from the start. In fact DD did a kind of burrowing stroke all of her own. From hat Front crawl was finessed, then breast stroke came relatively easily. But they both still prefer the crawl even in 'fun' settings.

Are they allowed goggles OP? I always hated putting my face in and hated swimming lessons at school. I discovered goggles when I was about 25, and I still don't love it but at least I can see now and the water doesn't hurt my eyes.

I've just had my first lesson at the grand old age of 35. I spent the first 30 minutes practicing breathing out underwater which was surprisingly hard. After that I was holding onto the pool edge breathing out while kicking my legs for the final 30 minutes. There are 6 of us in the lesson all at different stages. It looks like everyone in the lesson is learning front crawl first.

He's got goggles and I am happy that he's being encouraged to put his head in. But I don't see why he can't learn breastroke and learn to put his head in at the same time?

There must be pros and cons to both approaches as google tells me US and Aus teach front crawl first whereas breastroke is more usual in Europe. UK must have moved towards US system.

I also get that doggy paddle can be head out but a length of doggy paddle is actually really hard work compared to breastroke. But could be different dependent on child I guess.

I'd be a bit suspect of any swim school that teaches head out of the water breaststroke... that isn't breaststroke!!!

Absolutely makes sense that they get water confidence and happy in the water first. Then proper strokes. Ours did "froggy kick" with a board before breaststroke. And similarly front crawl arms/legs. Breaststroke is quite hard to pull together.

(Also swim schools are so different - pp said their stage 5 child isn't routinely putting head I the water - you wouldn't get to stage 5 here without that )

A good swimming teacher will introduce a quick dip of the face in the water on lesson 1. Then blowing bubbles, then bobbing under etc. Swimming lessons have changed massively since we learned - just like how they teach maths and English in school.

Breaststroke is shit if you get into trouble in the water. Front crawl is a hugely more powerful stroke. If you want to test it out find a pool with a current (lazy river type thing maybe) and try swimming against the current, first breaststroke, then freestyle/frontcrawl. Don’t figure it out whilst caught in a rip like I did.
I’m sure this must be the reason Australia focuses of front crawl/freestyle rather than breaststroke.

I was thinking more about learn to tread water for safety vs how to swim upstream in a string current . But fair point.

But how do you trade water competently without knowing breastroke?