Strokes:

Freestyle – Also known as the forward crawl. Swam on stomach. Reaching arms and small flutter kicks.  Ideally, we want the kids to breathe to the side every 5 strokes.  

Backstroke – Swam on your back. Long straight arms and a small flutter kick. Belly up, head back. Swimmers must remain on their back the entire time, including their finish. 

Breaststroke – Swam on stomach, with a narrow “frog kick”. Breathe every stroke. Swimmers must touch the wall with 2 hands. All about timing and power.

Butterfly – Swam on stomach. Both arms and legs move together side by side. Imagine a butterflies wings, they look identical just as your wings (arms) should as they are swimming the stroke. Arms should come out of the water.  Kick is like a mermaid or dolphin with feet, knees, and thighs staying together.  Swimmers must touch the wall with 2 hands. 

Terminology:

Distances – The Seven Oaks' pool is 25 yards long.  If swimmers are asked to swim "100 Free" is 4 laps of Freestyle.  

Starting Blocks – Not to be confused with diving boards, these are stationary and do not spring. This is where the race begins. Swimmers can choose whether to start on top of them or they can start from the side of the pool. 

Backstroke flags – The triangle flags at each end of the pool, they are used primarily for backstroke, to let the swimmer know the wall is near. Swimmers should "count their strokes" during pre-meet warmups so that they know how many strokes it will take them to get from the flags to the wall.  Encourage your swimmer to count their strokes while they are swimming fast in order for their count to be accurate. 

Relay – Swam with 4 swimmers. For swimmers 10 and under there are 2 relays one is the 100 Medley Relay and the other is the 100 Freestyle relay. Each swimmer will swim a 25. For the 11 and up swimmers the relays are 200 Medley and 200 Freestyle. Each swimmer will swim a 50.  One swimmer will swim at a time, of course, and when that swimmers touches the wall the next swimmer will dive in and start swimming their leg of the race.

IM – Individual Medley – Individual means 1 or a single swimmer, Medley means a combination of things. The IM or Individual Medley is a race where the swimmer will swim EACH of the strokes.

IM Order – Fly, Back, Breast, Free. Ex. 100 IM is a 25 yard swim of Butterfly, 25 yard swim of Backstroke, 25 yard swim of Breaststroke, and a 25 yard swim of Freestyle, in that order.

Medley Relay Order– This is swam in a different order since you can’t dive in and swim backstroke. Back, Breast, Fly, Free.

Disqualified/DQ – Imagine you were caught cheating on a test in school, you would get a 0 as your grade. That is what it means to get disqualified. You did something “illegal” according to the rules of the stroke set by USA Swimming and you will receive a “0” or nothing for your efforts during the race. Please don't get upset if your swimmer gets a DQ. The coaches will know what they did and will work with them to make sure they don't do it again!

Typical Rules Broken:

Freestyle –

Pushing yourself forward off the bottom of the pool.

Pulling yourself forward with the lane line, other than those two things you are free to swim the style you choose.

Backstroke –

Rolling on to your stomach (other than if you are about to doing a flip turn)

Pulling on the lane line

Pushing off the bottom of the pool

Breaststroke –

Doing a butterfly, flutter, or scissor kick

Not getting your head out of the water every stroke.

Keeping the 1/1/1 ratio, 1 pull with your arms, 1 breath (don’t actually have to breathe but your head must come up), 1 breaststroke kick with toes out and feet flex for the majority of the kick

Arms going below belly button

Not touching the wall with two hands for your finish

Butterfly –

Non-simultaneous arms (arms not moving together or in sync)

Feet coming apart (flutter kick or breaststroke kick)

Arms not coming out and going over the water after the pull

Not touching the wall with two hands for your finish

All Strokes –

Moving on the block after the start says “Take your mark” and before the BEEP, this will cause a false start, the first false start of every heat is strike one for the entire heat, next swimmer to false start is DQ’ed

Not finishing a race

Stopping to fix goggles (excluding freestyle)

Pushing off the bottom of the pool

Pulling on the lane line

Swimming in another swimmers lane

Relay – Not getting out of the water fast enough (before the swimmer after you gets to the other wall) or leaving too early.