Different strokes

When I finish my swim, I often linger by the pool, people watching. As with waterholes in the wild, the variety of characters drawn to the average swimming pool is astounding.

There are all levels of ability on display. All body types. People who are aware of others around them. People who don't care and get in everybody's way.

Once in a while, like a beautiful migratory bird, a competitive swimmer visits. She (it's usually a she) stands briefly at the edge of a pool long limbs, narrow waist and huge, powerful shoulders. She dives into the water with a whisper, emerging halfway down the pool.

You hardly know when she starts to swim it's so effortless. There's a little splash as she does a tumble turn at the end and speeds back. It's almost as awe-inspiring as seeing dolphins in the wild.

Tossed into the pool

Sadly, her kind rarely stays long. More often there is a parade of people who look as if they've had limbs broken at random before being tossed into the pool to scrabble to the other side.

Sometimes there are earnest swimmers of average ability who arrive with a range of floats, paddles and fins and do lap after tireless lap in a multitude of variations. Then there are the show-offs in competition suits who spend most of the workout sitting in the water and bragging about lap times before asking the coach to time them over one explosive length.

At four in the afternoon, the school gates open and the rush of children starts. This is usually the cue for the lap swimmers to leave, unless they enjoy a live, watery version of Frogger.

As children, we'd swim a few laps and then while away the afternoon diving for coins or playing endless rounds of a noisy game called Marco Polo. These days, the children run industriously around the pool to warm up before getting in and swimming laps. They use kickboards to churn up and down like little motorboats. They do swimming drills in groups by the poolside.

But, as always, there's a little fellow (it's usually a he) who refuses to let go of the side of the pool as he screams over and over: "I don't want to learn how to swim."

Watching all this, I often think about what an honest recreation swimming is. Swimmers have nothing to hide and, anyway, there's no place to hide it. There's little or no high technology to depend on. (At least, until Speedo came up with its highly engineered shark-skin body suit.)

Changed over the years

Even so, technology has had an influence. The breast stroke my mother learned is completely different from the one swum today. Even the old favourite freestyle has been changed over the years.

Many changes came when coaches started using physics in their favour. For a long time swimmers tried to increase speed by increasing power and strength.

The benefits were not impressive. Then somebody remembered that to double speed you have to quadruple power, but only halve drag. Strokes now keep the exponential relationship on their side by focussing on reducing drag. For instance, the glide time underwater in breast stroke has increased dramatically.

Freestyle uses a more body roll than before keeping more of the body away from the surface, where drag is highest.

This is why I love swimming and watching swimming. It's technology of flesh and blood. Of course, when watching the overzealous inept, it's just plain funny. Which brings us to the question: which of the swim types I've mentioned am I? I won't tell you. Swimming may be honest, but it's not that honest.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in Bangalore