What are the different swimming strokes?

In competitive swimming, there is free style, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly and those are the four competitive strokes.

The breaststroke is almost the easiest way to describe. It

is what you see a frog do. That's the kick, although the knees bend a wrong way. It is basically described as the frog style stroke. The arms and the legs are both synchronized. It is the exact same thing at the exact same time. The arms sweep out back and forward and the hands do not pass the shoulders. So the recovery in the pool is done in front of the shoulders and the legs kick more like a frog. The feet come up together, go out together and then back together. The breath is taken forward and you breathe on every stroke in breaststroke.

The butterfly is the most difficult. You have to recover both arms and your head out of the water all at the same time. For most people this is a very tough thing to do and it takes a lot of timing and teaching in order to get someone to be able to do that efficiently and effectively. This is one of those instinctual things that the people just try to do it. It's going to be really tough one to do.