THE TRUDGEON SWIMMING STROKE The king of all strokes, however, is the trudgeon. It is the fastest of all those which there is any fun in swimming. It is the one stroke which gives the highest speed with the least exertion : it is the one stroke which is suited equally for speed and distance, for racing and pleasure, for the swimming-tank and the open sea. Back-stroke, breast-stroke, and trudgeon make together a perfect equipment for any purpose.
The trudgeon, so-called because the great Trudgeon did not swim it and never heard of it in its present-day form, is essen tially a double over-arm side-stroke, in which the body is turned face downward in the water, in order that the under arm may be swung clear of its surface. As swum by sprinters, the body keeps face down most of the time. We shall take up here the more leisurely form in which the body rolls strongly.
No trudgeoning whatever is possible on land; it all has to be done in the water, and ought to be done after the side-stroke is familiar. Swim the side-stroke single over-arm. Upper arm, breath, slide, come in the usual way. At the end of the slide, as the under arm comes down, the body rolls slowly on its face. The pull of the under arm is at right angles with the water, as in one of the two methods in the side stroke. Naturally, therefore, as the body rolls, the arm comes more and more to the front, until it finishes in the same relative position to the body as the upper arm. As in the side-stroke, the upper arm re covers as the lower arm comes down, but the recovery is not quite so easy in the trudgeon, because the upper shoulder is lower in the water. As the under arm finishes, the body now being face down on an even keel, this arm in its turn is swung forward clear of the water. Imme diately the upper arm begins its pull, and at once turns the body on its side again. This, helped if necessary by a turn of the neck, brings the mouth again above the surface for the next breath. The breath ing out comes after the proper interval, but through the nose under water. Like the other side-strokes, the double over arm is swum either side up ; and best swum either indifferently.
The trudgeon, then, differs from the side-stroke in the roll of the body, and in the fact that both arms pull at right angles to the surface of the water. The difficult part of the stroke is the timing. Breath ing, roll, arms, legs, must begin and end their parts on the instant ; and there are a good many things to be kept in mind at once. For this reason among others, not many persons swim the trudgeon smoothly and without splash. Swum nicely, it is as graceful as it is swift.
The ease and speed of the trudgeon arise from several elements. To begin with, much of the time the head is under water, so that no effort is wasted in floating it ; and the body lies horizontally in the water and shoots through it with the greatest ease. In addition, both arms recover out of the water, as in the back stroke, while the scissor-kick does away with much of the drag of the recovery.
For sprinting, the trudgeon is made still more speedy by the addition of a series of " crawl-kicks " (to be described later) introduced between the end of the scissor-kick and its recovery, while the body is traveling on its face. Any reader with sufficient patience and imagination may now figure out how many different movements there are in the sprinting trudgeon, and just what each member is doing at each instant in the cycle of each of the others ! At the same time, the trudgeon is really not so bad as it sounds. After all, it is only the side-stroke plus the roll of the body. Nor is the peculiar method of taking breath with a turn of the head, and exhaling under water, especially trou blesome. The difficulty is to get enough air at the right instant, and at the same time to keep all the other movements in mind. Most learners, therefore, will do well to practice the breathing as a separate lesson, first in wash-bowl or bath-tub, and afterward floating face downward in the water, until the method becomes automatic. The secret of learning any complex act is in taking it one bit at a time.