So this regards swimming, but you don't have to know anything about that to help me decide.

We have come to the time in the season where we work on the stroke we will be swimming for the season (in addition to freestyle). Many people of course already have a stroke. Because I am new, I do not, so I need to decide; I am choosing between breaststroke and butterfly. I can always choose something else next year. These are the pros and cons.

Butterfly: I love swimming it and make decent times (for my inexperience). However, it is really exhausting and I'm not certain that even with the ramping up we are doing that I am strong enough to put in the sets we'll get eventually.

Breaststroke: I used to hate it. However my coach thinks I have some skill in this area (he really seems to want me to swim it), and I have to say that the more I swim it, the more I appreciate it. It's definitely a challenge, but I like that. I don't think my times for it are so great, and I am worried that sometime in March I'm gonna be swimming this and looking at the butterflyers with great envy.

I'm going to talk to my coach anyway, but he is biased. What would you do?

I'd choose breaststroke, because that was the one I was good at when I was on swim team as a child. I was on the B team, and once they put me in a meet, and instead of coming in 6th, I came in 5th because a girl had an asthma attack. What stroke? BREASTSTROKE BABY.

So yea, breaststroke.

Breaststroke, because it sounds like you will improve at it quicker (because you'll be fucking exhausted all the time doing butterfly, and tiredness makes it harder to improve technique).

This is my layperson's opinion.

I'm gonna have to say butterfly, but only because I like a good challenge.

Being a really good breaststroker is probably a big asset for the team. I imagine most swimmers would feel like it held them back from the speed and power of the butterfly and would thus clamor to be moved to fly and complain about staying in breast.

If you log the time in at breaststroke and get really good, those butterflyers might be looking at your medals with great envy. It's a tough call, though. Breaststroke photos, with the head surfacing through water flow, look cooler than butterfly, with the arms and the splashes and all.

Personally, I would choose to pee in the pool.

Go with the breaststroke. If the coach thinks you have potential, he's probably right and you'll never know if you don't try. (Besides, I prefer it to butterfly.)

Listen to coach - that's why he's coach ;)

Why is he biased - do you think he has inexperience w/ butterfly? Breaststroke is very complex - easy to start but a lot of learning to get it just right. It could be a lot of fun, and a challenge also.

Butterfly is bad ass; I always envied those dudes when I was on the swim team. But I find breast stroke is an unsung heroine, so go for the latter.

Besides, I just like saying breast stroke.

Given the choice between doing a hard thing and an easier thing, other things being more or less equal, take the hard thing, it will probably be more rewarding in the end.

He's biased because he used to be a breastroker. He has said in the past that I have a nice fly (and I just learned ot this year), so I don't think he hates my fly.

But Capn, part of the thing is that to me they are equally hard. Just for different reasons.

But Capn, part of the thing is that to me they are equally hard. Just for different reasons.

To put it another way, given the choice between something you're already pretty good at, and something new, take the new thing.

he used to be a breastroker

heee heee heee hee heee *snort* *titter*

Sounds like he probably could teach you breast stroke better than butterfly - including eliminating bad form right at the start. Breast stroke is not easy - there's an awful lot of form. Swim training manuals (such as those put out by the Red Cross for swimming instructors - maybe the pool has a copy if you have not seen one) will give you insight into how small adjustments in form can affect your times.

You could make headway on your own with butterfly, but then realise that you'd picked up some bad habits; then you'd have to unlearn them. Also - nothing to stop you looking for another club with a butterfly specialist, if you want.

Girl, rock that butterfly. If you got it you gotta work it. (I've told you how I can't get that stroke down to save my life).

Breast stroke this year. Butterfly after that (whether it be next year or the year after).

That's how I'd slice it up. Why? I'd want to learn from the breast stroker while he's enthusiastic about me doing it / from someone with the experience who sees my potential. Yadda. And, because it's new to me whereas I already got a good fly and the coach agrees. I can fly later.

That's if I were pretending to be you, which is, of course, not the same as being you so let us know how it goes.

i vote dog paddle. ; >

(breast, i guess)

I've been enjoying reading the words "breast" and "stroke".

Well Specklet, there's always the other well-loved swimmers refrains: "I don't know what he looks like with clothes on"/"I didn't recognize you in your clothes."

Breast stroke. Thinking about butterfly makes it hard to breathe. we can't have that. And what specklet said. :D

Heh, that's funny, dame. I actually got that comment once from some people who had only seen me competing at Strip Jeopardy...