Human swimming typically consists of repeating a specific body motion or swimming stroke. There are many kinds of strokes, each defining a different swimming style or crawl.
Most strokes involve rhythmic and coordinated movements of all major body parts — torso, arms, legs, hands, feet, and head. Breathing typically must be synchronized with the strokes, too. It is possible however to swim by moving only legs without arms or only arms without legs; such strokes may be used for special purposes, for training or exercise, or by amputees (paralympians) and paralytics.
Read more about Swimming Stroke: Special Purpose Styles
Famous quotes containing the words swimming and/or stroke:
“Loosed betwixt eye and lid, the swimming beams
Of memory, blind school of cuttlefish,
Rise to the air, plunge to the cold streams....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Fair maid, white and red,
Comb me smooth, and stroke my head;
And every hair a sheave shall be,
And every sheave a golden tree.”
—George Peele (1559–1596)