Why Do Swimming Teachers Focus on Front Crawl (And Why This Is Unhelpful for Beginners)

You’ll most often see front crawl being taught in swimming lessons, even for beginners. But this can be really unhelpful when learning to swim for the first time.

So why is this?

Front crawl is the one stroke where you can rely heavily on a kickboard. It’s easy to kick your legs with a float, and using a kickboard allows you to stand up easily, bypassing the essential skill of learning to stand safely and independently as a beginner. With a kickboard, it's also easy to lift your arms out of the water one at a time, and to ‘breath to the side’ (without needing to develop balance) giving the illusion of front crawl progress early on.

Handing swimmers kickboards throughout the lesson allows teachers to stay out of the water, but this also means bypassing the teaching of fundamental skills that are crucial to becoming independent, safe, and confident in the water, which will often need the physical, hands-on support of the teacher. Kickboards allow learners to skip essential core skills like floating, balance, stability, and standing—foundational elements that build true confidence in the water.

Front crawl is really the only stroke where this can happen. In strokes like breaststroke, the hands/arms and their connection to the water are essential, making it impossible to rely on a float in the same way. Breaststroke, which is a much more relaxing and versatile stroke, can be swum with a breathing rhythm or with the head out of the water entirely—an essential deep-water safety skill. It also requires greater development of rhythm and coordination. That’s why it’s often ignored, even though it’s much more valuable for helping swimmers feel safe and in control in the water.

All too often, after 10, 20, or even more lessons of front crawl, the kickboard is removed, and swimmers find themselves right back at square one—feeling unsafe, uncomfortable, and out of control in the water, even after all of that apparent progress.

I’ve even had swimmers tell me they wanted to learn breaststroke, only to be discouraged by their previous teachers, who told them it was too hard a stroke to learn. I’d suggest it was more likely that the teacher wasn’t comfortable teaching it or didn’t have the time or patience to focus on it. After months of frustration with front crawl elsewhere, this swimmer learned to swim breaststroke independently, with her head up, after just our second session together.

At the end of the day, truly mastering swimming isn’t about learning one stroke and being confined to it—it’s about building confidence, versatility, and being able to swim comfortably in different situations, feeling relaxed and in control whenever you're in the water. When swimmers and their teachers take the time to build a solid foundation first, emphasising relaxation, stability, control, and versatility in the water, then front crawl, and all of the other strokes, will become so much easier—and enjoyable—to learn, and to swim.