The Navy’s Obscure, Super-Efficient Swim Stroke 

That's mostly true, except they banned the underwater dolphin kick because it's too good.

I always wondered why it was called freestyle...that does make sense.

@@ShankarSivarajan True, that's why I said 'basically". You could also argue that without that rule it would be more freediving than swimming.

Thanks for clarifying. I was just about to ask if Enlish had a stroke or so.

That's why it's called 'freestyle'...

I wonder if he'll also admit that the sidestroke is actually pretty well known

@@BeefinOut It's the stroke Link is using in all the 3D Legend of Zelda games, isn't it?

@@BeefinOut maybe for swimmers but I've never heard of it

And that breaststroke is not pronounced "breath stroke"

@@lonestarr1490 yes it is!

Sure the technique is not obscure for a lifeguard. But it is less known ("obscure") for the rare/occasional swimmers like myself, tho.

Who did you train with? I went through American Red Cross for my lifeguard class and were only allowed to do breaststroke and crawl stroke

The program was also through the American Red Cross and we taught side strike and elementary backstroke to kids as young as 6. Obviously we taught breaststroke, backstroke, and front crawl too, but that came a little later

Yeah, I learned the side stroke in the boy scouts about 25 years ago, and was taught it again in the Marines about 20 years ago. Very useful for trying to swim with dead weight. Though for me, the elementary back stroke is still the least demanding and best to use if swimming a long distance by yourself.

As some who was taught this young, and sucks at swimming, I exclusively use this technique

Breast stroke is another long distance stroke. I find myself alternating between Side, breast and back with the same whip kick as the breast stroke.

You mean you're an undrownifier ;)

@@rich45davis exactly

You lifeguards are evil people.

As a former lifeguard, you are exactly correct👏🛟

I was taught this in swimming lessons as well

Arguably the survival backstroke is better, but unless the water is very warm it'll usually be the hypothermia that gets you first. (Especially if you are wearing a life jacket or other PFD, which you definitely should be prepared to do if you ever get on a boat of course)

@@overwrite_oversweet I'd pick one of the other two because in a survival situation I want to watch where the hell I'm going. But yes, learned the same 3 survival strokes at a young age so surprised to hear people don't know sidestroke

Same

For distance, the Backstroke version is much better due to energy usage, plus you can keep your head above water the entire time. You change when you know you are getting closer to something or feel that you need a bit more awareness of surroundings. I don't even know what the mentioned third one is

1.One of the forward crawls (depends on the "usual" number of strokes before lifting your face to breathe) 2. Backstroke 3. Elementary Backstroke... which sounds weird, but it's subsurface where you "squid" yourself along with a good view of the surface, for getting clear of burning oil or debris before attempting to breach the surface in a boating emergency... SHOULD be taught everywhere there are boats... 4. Sidestroke... These were taught to me as a child around boats, rivers, streams, and lots of dubious water-sporting activities. Things like the breast stroke and butterfly would come with competitions and beginning to snorkel after pennies in the pool, but that was more a natural progression rather than any particular lessons "taught" by someone coaching about moving too fast or "fighting" the water rather than working with it. Of the bunch, yes, the backstroke is THE premier for water-survival because ultimately, ALL your energy is about propulsion. You don't waste ANYTHING about keeping your face clear of water or staying afloat and there's no faff... Every motion pushes you through the water, and you can relax and breathe, putting as much or as little "real effort" into moving forward as you wish, so even at relative breath-catching pace, you still make progress if you wish... It's ultimately like walking for water, where YOU make the pace and priority. If I'm in a hurry, it's a crawl. There's just no other way to really move fast in the water. Splash or don't, pick up a breath every 4 or every 8 complete stroke-cycles, or just when you're about to run out of bubbles... whatever... the point is 100% about hauling ass. Try not to waste energy needlessly beating on the water, but otherwise, Point A to Point B is all you really think about. Love the Elementary backstroke for escapes... Whether there's just a fire on the boat, or if it's capsizing and stuff is still "raining down" from the various decks and levels, you can put some space between you and the surface and keep an eye up above while you're "squidding along" so the debris slows before you're in direct danger, giving you time and space to move out of the way and still make progress... A breast stroke down there doesn't give you that opportunity, and you have no idea (until you roll over and look) where the fire stops... AND the Side stroke... Ultimately efficient AND spacially aware. It's the one downside to the backstroke for all the benefits. YOU CAN NOT SEE WHERE YOU'RE GOING... BUT with the side stroke, your head is up to swivel about. There's a blind-spot to the one side, but an occasional pause to look is all that's required, and generally it's not a terrible risk. The sidestroke has NO REQUIREMENT for your limbs to breach the surface, either. SO the only real difference between a conventional side stroke and the "combat sidestroke" is that you expressly keep everything below your shoulders BELOW the surface... That mixed with moving slowly enough not to cause any excess noise is how Seals can "appear out of nowhere" in almost no water to speak of... I mean, the water can be kneed deep and they can still skulk through it without you hearing or seeing a damn thing... It's worth practicing. ;o)

Yep, I think every Australia kid knows this one.

Yep, I remember learning it at school and practicing water rescues with it. I think we were around 11yrs old.

Oh you just unlocked a core memory with "pick the apple, put it in the basket", I'd completely forgotten that.

Everyone in America knows it too, including the "apple picking" thing. Idk why he's pretending it's obscure.

@@warman1944 TBH, I think it's only obscure for those that haven't learned to swim. We used the apple picking mnemonic as well. I can't recall what if anything was said about the legs though.

I never heard of it shrug

I've never heard of it, just kinda depends who teaches you I guess

I’ve never heard of it either

Same it was one of my first

I mean not sure if this is relevant but I'm from Canada and learned the back, front and side stroke first as well

Same, and yeah. I learned it at the YMCA and taught it through Red Cross lessons, it's not obscure.

@@riggs20 I don't teach swimming, but I remember learning it taking swim lessons as a kid.

@@riggs20 not really. I knew what sidestroke was when I was seven, I didn't start teaching swim lessons till my 20s. You don't need to be a swim instructor to know what it is.

Yep. Learned it as well.

i was on the ymca swim team for years and they made us do it sometimes

Is there a stroke that's not quicker with fins? 😜

@@ChrispyNut meant to highlight that even with fins, it's not at all fast. Good point though, haha

@@ChrispyNut the walking stoke :)

When I did the mile swim in the Boy Scouts I used mostly a side stroke. Maybe not as fast but it doesn't wear you out. 🤔🤓🍻

KDSA

Yeah came to say a similar thing. It's even called the survival stroke in many scenarios. Water safety is important 👍

@@lachlanjeffery2597 yeah, I was taught survival backstroke and (survival) sidestroke as a kid

You can as with any stroke except butterfly

I learned the "tadpole" as "modified backstroke." It's my favourite for swimming in open water as you can just rest and float any time and as a result you can swim pretty much indefinitely, albeit quite slowly.

We leant that in school as "lifeguard backstroke"

I learned elementary backstroke, it's actually one of the easiest energy-wise because you just float on your back. It also reduces your body from the water, which increases the time before hypothermia.

this one is also useful in the navy, since you can chain people together, putting one persons legs under the next persons armpits, and create what is essentially a row-boat made of people (or a water-caterpillar I guess), making it easier to keep a group floating and swimming towards safety

Learned it as frogstroke, and along with sidesteoke I was taught it at a swim classes as kid. They were the "six swim strokes" I'm learning today right now that the "six strokes" isn't universal

Me to

Yeah that's all pretty standard for the upper levels of swim lessons

I wonder if that happens only in Australia.

Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm American, not Australian 😅

Came here to say the same! Also, learning to swim is compulsory in Australian schools, for survival reasons. People don't usually get taught how to do the sidestroke super well tho, cos it's never used for sport.

sidestroke, backstroke, swim to shore hit the beach and we're ready for war! hoorah

Thank God for my MCWISS in Pcola lmao, Made NACCS look like cake

Can you give some inside secrets of swimming? I am a pro pro swimmer

Just my 5 cents. I’ve been a swimmer and breaststroker for over 40 years. The real breaststroke is actually very energy demanding and whatever video shows as a breaststroke the most inefficient version of it. Looking at the sidestroke I’m not sure how to make it work since the movements look really disruptive and creating tons of drag. I’ve never been a life guard but just for fun I tried on many occasions to transport people in the water. I found out that a regular upside down breaststroke kick while laying on the back and a person on top of me with the head face up on my chest was the most efficient way to promote myself in the water. Setting the kick does create some drag but once it is delivered there’s some likeness of a streamline and glide phase which seems to me less disruptive than simultaneous arms and legs movement.

but most people don't go to swimming courses

In which country... Or are you talking for all countries in general?

@@Jehty_I don’t think it’s in all countries. I did high level swimming in Europe as a teen, and I’ve never heard of it before.

@@pepsitruther67 that's why I wrote my comment 😁

@@Jehty_ I was referring to USA. Good point about it being different in different countries (even with states in USA!) @_oskr could be different where you are but basic swim lessons were part of required PE courses in High School and side stroke was included in that.

I took swim classes as a kid and never learnt this.

I learned sidestroke in childhood swim lessons.

I learned it, but after butterfly.

I've never heard of sidestroke, and I swim pretty much every day

I learned back, front and breast strokes, but never side. I stopped the year before butterfly, but side was definitely never there. For rescue, front was used to get to the person in danger, and eggbeater or smth to get back to land so you could keep them in sight while also having good propulsion.

Swimming merit badge and Lifesaving merit badge, baby 😎

​@@alexandermcleanalmndbuttrt4714 first class rank up

@@alexandermcleanalmndbuttrt4714 heck yea baby, can’t wait for camp, it’s so soon

@@alexandermcleanalmndbuttrt4714 lifesaving > e prep any day of the week

I learned side stroke for swimming and life saving merit badge, but I certainly never learned it in any swimming lessons i took outside boy scouts. And i rarely if ever see anybody doing it.

I don’t think that’s nation wide. None of my friends or I ever learnt it at swim school.

Can confirm this was the case in WA. Mandatory in primary school.

yep, learnt this in primary school

You're bringing back memories from twenty years ago for me lol. Thanks homie

Omg me too. I love side stroke. So easy and efficient, especially in lakes and open water!

@@fred_e 30-35 years, man. When the hell I get so old?

Exactly how I was taught, apples and all !

Everyone does know about it. Sam and his writers have just apparently been living under a rock.

same, except I learned it as a kid in the 70's ---in both the US and Holland (military kid). So on 2 different continents, this was well known and widely taught 50 years ago and from the comments it seems that's still true (on more than 2 continents)....dunno why he insists no one knows this...

Born in 2000 and never learned it in swim school

I learned sidestroke last, in mandatory swimclass for high school. Previously, I had learned the other four strokes for competitions

His writing team also didn't learn that it is called a crawl, not a freestyle.

@@sewpungyow5154 Born around?

Doubt it I learned side stroke too and am pretty confident I’m younger then his writers, could be location based though

Same man

same! it’s pretty hard hahahah

???It's the easiest stroke.

It takes a little bit to get the kick down. When I initially had to use it, the person teaching me explained it poorly. So I wound up with an inefficient and painful swim stroke until I figured it out watching others use it.

I was taught sidestroke in the standard public pool swimming lessons, so I would guess pretty much all Australians who grew up in the late '90s early 2000s would be aware of it too.

Its not. I would not have survived the 1 mile swim at BSA summer camp. You can flip sides which really helps rest some muscles. I think side stroke is almost mandatory for Scuba and wearing flippers.

Its not taught under the swimming merit badge but under the lifesaving merti badge

​@@austinyu8550 and in the YMCA introduction to drinking for 6 year olds. Front crawl, side stroke, back crawl, back stroke, and underwater stroke. None of us kids were strong enough for the breaststroke.

@@ColHunterGathershonestly for scuba you don’t really need to conserve as much energy because you are supposed to be neutrally buoyant, meaning you are not supposed to be floating or sinking so you don’t need to keep yourself afloat through swimming

I use to call that one "The Jellyfish" (opposing the "The Dolphin", aka Butterfly)

Same. My first reaction when he listed the first 4 strokes was, "what about the side stroke?" It's really not obscure.

side stroke is the best for distance and resting while still navigation. Also, it is THE stroke in lifeguard and rescue...

Same

Same! I think they called it the scissor kick

@@ImConstantlyConfused That's just the kick which can be used with other strokes.

Oh wouldn’t it be nice if there was nothing else to do!

Freestyle is most efficient and effortless if you know what you doing trust me.

Agree, not secret at all

what do you expect from HAI

the Navy version or the normal one?

My (UK) swimming lessons never covered side stroke. Just front crawl, backstroke, breast stroke and sculling

Normal one

Yeah -- the swim classes at my town's pool were basically feeders into swim team (where the real $$ was made).

yep. you can flip sides so that different muscles get some rest and your face is out of the water so you can navigate. This video is totally wrong and just shows that the writers never learned something so its now a mystery...

​@@ColHunterGathersit's about the combat sidestroke, not the normal sidestroke

same here

That's exactly the first thing that came into my mind when I saw how the stroke was performed

lmao I learned to swim by just trying to mimic the animation as it appeared in Twilight Princess, years before BSA taught me it was an actual stroke. Front crawl always tired me right tf out and I could never get the hang of breaststroke, felt impossible to get my face out of the water

When I was in Boy Scouts 30 years ago, they definitely taught all of us side-stroke. I also enjoyed elementary backstroke the most, and still use it today. (It's not great for rough water, but it's an efficient stroke that is relaxing since it keeps your head out of the water.)

I just figured everyone just intuitively figured out "elementary T" and side stroke. We only have a couple basic motions in swimming, scissor or frog kick, and windmill or scoop with arms, add in how you position yourself in water and by combining these motions you get just about every stroke. (Except butterfly which is unique for both the dolphin kick and the synchronized windmill arms, unless I'm just unaware of another stoke using these motions)

Did they teach you "elementary T" as "little bird, big bird, flap"?

@@_maxgray Maybe, I don't remember. That certainly is a reasonable way to describe it to little kids.

@@_maxgray thats how I learned it, alongside chicken-airplane-rocket

Good job 🤣

In BSA from 2012-19, was also taught it for Swimming Merit Badge. Not that I hadn't learned it already when learning to swim, I think it was the third or fourth stroke I learned after crawl and breaststroke. IIRC it was mentioned as very efficient and what you should be using if rescuing someone. Also generally favored by scouts who did the Mile Swim.

@@loficampingguy9664 How about 'freestyle' Thats a stroke I never heard of!! I swam freestyle in HS and used the crawl but I didn't know there was a stroke called freestyle... such a dumb illinformed video...

Interesting. This was the first stroke I taught when teaching swim lessons to elementary school kids. They can keep their heads above water the whole time so it's very basic.

@@listen1st267 there are some students that can and do pick up the needed kick pattern for sidestroke, a lot of the students that I have worked with range between 4 and and full grown adults. Generally the best thing to do first is get the student comfortable with floating and then teaching the simple flutter kick. If I have a student who is that uncomfortable with water being on their face then the priorities switch to getting that student to more calm and working on putting their face in the water.

It definitely was back in the 90's when I learned as a cub scout.

I can cornfirm

would not have been possible for me to survive the 1 mile swim at scout camp without the side stroke.

@@ColHunterGathers I only did the sidestroke for the mile just for the fun of it

its a great swim stroke, and can also be used in rescue situations too. usually you would tow the victim to shore, where they are holding onto a rope/ item of clothing and are being towed to shore.

I think of that as jellyfish swimming and i know that isn't the proper name. (The breast stroke resembles a frog) But that motion is good to get someone back to shore, you get them face up and wrap your arms around their chest to hold them and keep their face out of the water and just scissor kick back to shore. (Really the main thing when rescuing someone is keeping their face above the water without drowning yourself)

The backstroke was the first way I learned to swim...for some reason, the others didn't stick. It may not be as energy efficient for when you're actually on a mission to get somewhere, but for just casual swimming, it's pretty hard to beat. Any time you start to get tired, just stop and rest! Or take a break with your arms and just paddle gently with your legs, whatever.

I got taught that one as a toddler because it's the easiest way for a kid to learn how to not drown (in calm-ish water) Face away from water, floating, forward movement without big motions keeps you stable

That's because it really isn't that obscure. It's taught in Red Cross lessons, which, at least in the US, is one of the larger swim lesson certification programs. But yeah, it's generally either the third or fourth stroke most students learn.

@@waffles3629 Boy and Girl scouts, lifeguards, military and anyone above basic swimming learned side-stroke.

@@ColHunterGathers yeah, I know, I'm a swim and lifeguard instructor, I've taught it. I only had to actually teach it to one lifeguard student, the rest already knew it.

It's good when you _want_ to waste energy: exercise.

Everyone but the writer of this video knows the sode-stoke. If you took any lesson above basic ever you are 99% positive you learned it.

You could technically doggy paddle if you wanted to. It wouldn't be recommended, but you technically could.

life saver too. You can swim long distances in open water with it. Backstroke is not as good since it is harder to navigate on your back and in open water waves are hard to deal with on your back.

which one... the 'freestyle' stoke they keep calling the crawl but also call the crawl stroke correctly.

When talking about the time period its fair tbh

@@ToastbackWhale most americans would still consider europe to be racist to this day considering 99% of the jokes made in europe are racially based, so from an american perspective everyone is evil and racist, even though european friend groups are diverse It was very out of place in a video talking about a swim stroke because racism and swimming have nothing to do with each other, not even remotely

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts learn this stroke as welll.... this video gets the most basic of swimming wrong. There is no such thing as a freestyle stroke... freestyle is a race where you are FREE to choose whatever stoke you want...

wow really

They don't taste good?

interesting