Front crawl is a survival style of swimming taught by Red Cross, LifeSaving Society, and YMCA learn to swim programs with the specific focus on water safety: the goal is to prevent drownings by teaching how to travel short distances unassisted (e.g. to the side of a pool, or to a boat or platform in open water). The Front Crawl requires a low level of skill allowing it to be gained in a matter of hours.
What is front crawl? Easiest way to think of it is as a cross between dog paddle and freestyle. If you watch a dog do dog paddle, they use their front legs to paddle and they typically recoil their back legs using them and their backend as a rudder, occasionally ‘kicking’ with their back legs to steer, but rarely for propulsion. In front crawl the pattern is the same: front crawl swimmers drag their legs, rarely kick, and when they do its typically to restore balance in body position. Also, when front crawlers do try and kick it ends up looking more like a cycling pedal stroke rather than a swimmers kick. This also explains why front crawlers preferred way to train is using paddles and pull buoys. Since there is little to no kick in dog paddle, why train to kick for front crawl? Pull buoys allow you to drag your legs while muscling the pull of the stroke desperately trying to force the stroke faster (which only makes the effort exhausting). Front crawlers breathe forwards (as in head-up) or to the front-side. Freestyle technique allows the breathe to be taken comfortably to the side, if not to the side-back. The front crawl breathing pattern causes countless problems not only for breathing but also in body position, namely a dropped hip posture which creates immense drag making swimming even more exhausting. Due to lack of body roll, front crawlers end up with all the problems that limit their potential (i.e. dropped elbows in recovery, early entry, a weak catch, low elbow pull, head up breathing, dropped hips, fish-tailing, etc…). All the stroke technique work and drills are pointless when the underlying stroke is front crawl. That’s like duct taping spoilers onto a clunker thinking it can then compete in a Formula1 race. Learn freestyle and all of these improper patterns correct themselves, while swimming becomes fun, enjoyable and offers endless opportunity to progress further still.