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  • Essay / An Overview of the Origin of Swimming

    Written records of swimming date back to almost 2000 BC, however, nowhere are the movements or techniques mentioned, children were simply learning to swim. A document dating between 2160 and 1780 BC. of an Egyptian nobleman indicates that "his children took swimming lessons with the king's children" (Colwin 4). Additionally, many passages in the biblical Old Testament mention swimming or the act of swimming; as in the Old Testament book of Isaiah: “as one who swims stretches out his hands to swim” (KJV Isa 25:11). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Until around the 1500s, there were no swimming manuals that taught specific techniques. In 1559, Sir Everard Digby wrote, in Latin, A Brief Introduction to Learning to Swim. Later, Christofer Middleton translated Sir Digby's work into everyday English "for the better instruction of those who do not understand the Latin language" (Digby 1). Digby wrote instructions on how to swim "like a dog" and "like a dolphin", as well as many other forms (Digby's table of contents). From there, other manuals were written to further refine the strokes. Although swimming was originally an ancient pastime, until the early 1800s the history of competitive swimming did not exist because competitive swimming itself did not exist. Until then, swimming had been an enjoyable pastime intended more for relaxation than exercise. This mentality changed in 19th century Britain with the opening of St. George's Baths in 1828, the first indoor public swimming pool. Subsequently, in 1837, the British National Swimming Society built many more indoor swimming pools and began holding swimming competitions (Sharma 1). Although the sport lay dormant for several decades, its popularity continued to grow until swimming made its global debut in the United States. 1896 Greek Olympics. In recent decades, athletes such as Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Nathan Adrian, Natalie Coughlin, Katie Ladecky and Missy Franklin have propelled the swimming world to the point of becoming one of the most televised sports during the Summer Olympics. .The language used in the sport of competitive swimming uses many words from non-aquatic sources. For example, butterfly swimming, although supposedly invented in 1933 by Brooklyn swimmer Henry Myers (Colwin 30). Instead, the butterfly stroke takes its name from the butterfly insect since the technique somewhat resembles that of its namesake. Several other words in the swimming lexicon follow the same mentality. Named not for who invented the technique, but rather for its appearance. Kicks such as the dolphin and whip kick, when classified in this manner, provide perfect examples of this method. The dolphin kick resembles a dolphin tail moving up and down in the water. The whip kick, sometimes called a frog kick, also makes sense because when human legs perform the kick, they mimic the action of frog legs. The swimming strokes themselves contain other examples of words from non-aquatic sources. Butterfly (explained previously), backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle have nothing to do with water. The back and chest movements seem to be self-explanatory, one performed by swimming on your back and the other performed by swimming with the chest or chest of your body facing down in the water. Although freestyle..