What’s your favourite swim stroke? Trudgeon, side-stroke or double-armed backstroke? I thought not. But there is more to swimming than front crawl, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. Take, for example, the corkscrew stroke, which was invented by me and my brother on holiday in France in the 1980s. With every front crawl stroke you do a full rotation, screwing yourself through the water. It is very fast, but also makes you quite dizzy, so maybe not the best choice for long-distance swimming. But in honour of this issue devoted to creativity and swimming, why not think of ways to be more maverick in your swimming? There is a big world out there full of very stupid/incredible things just waiting to be done. My goal for 2024 is to swim the length of Windermere. Perhaps I need to be more maverick and be the first person to corkscrew its length!
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