Two questions about Synchronized Swimming

Factual Questions
1

I saw an awesome show by a local Sychronized Swimming team this weekend, and I had a few questions. Hopefully, there are a few people who might know out there.

  1. How do they tread water is such close proximity to each other.

I presume they’re doing the egg beater kick to stay up, but how do they do it so closely without kicking each other to death? Do they actually synchronize the kick? If so, how do you do that? It seems like different swimmers would require different rates of kick to remain afloat.

  1. Are they holding their breath for that long?

They seem to be holding their breath for incredibly long periods, is there some illusion to this (I doubt it), or have they just worked up to holding their breath for a long time, and if so, what sort of drills do you do, hold your breath at every stop light?

2

Oh, and one more question;

  1. How does the typical synchronized swimmer come to the sport?

The sport seems to be an intersection between swimming (duh!), gymnastics, and dance. Is it mostly swimmers who are bored of going back and forth? Is it often dancers or gymnasts who can swim?

3

Three questions! And not one of them is WHY? – colour me confused…