Windmill Revolution

Swimming Technique, Jul-Sep 2004 by Volckening, Bill

Coach Bergen is on the cutting edge of the straight-arm freestyle movement and was one of the first coaches in the United ; States to teach the stroke starting with the youngest swimmers at the beginner's level.

"It's excellent for teaching young agegroupers," said Bergen, "so our kids all start with straight-arm free. After the age of 12, we sometimes allow them to go back to a bent-arm free. However, if it is a butterflyer, we're still pretty much sticking with the straight-arm freestyle."

Looking back to the days of Flying Gull and Tobacco, the level of detailed technical analysis about swimming technique was certainly not what it is today.

When Janet Evans emerged, there was a lot of discussion, but most people generally thought of the stroke as an individual anomaly. All of these swimmers shared something in common, which is something they share with today's swimmers. Even though it appeared to be unrefined-even uncivilized at times-they were all just trying to get across the pool as fast as they could.

Bill Volckening is the United States Maters Swimming editor for SWIM Magazine.