Freestyle: "swim with your whole body"

How do we develop a smooth efficient whole body stroke? 

 I think of fish, who shimmer effortlessly through water using their core bodies, using their tails and fins for balance and direction changes. 

 If we can first balance on our sides, flutter kicking, head looking down, leading arm at 45 degrees, relaxed and weightless, ready to "catch", and we get our other arm ready to slice into the next stroke, high shoulder and high hip all snap all together with the last flick of our kick into a balanced position on the other side. That's what this drill on the video is helping a swimmer to feel.

 

Breaststroke: Underwater pullouts and swimming

Where do you put the dolphin kick in the underwater pullout?
How big a kick do you take?
What do you do with your arms and hands to sneak them forward after the kick?
While swimming, how quickly do you get your kick around and back into streamline?
How wide is your pull?  How wide is your kick?
How do you draw your feet up (toes in?  toes out?) before the whip?

Watch Kosuke Kitajima at real speed in this first video.  See the underwater swimming at about :30

 

In this next video, watch a swimmer who puts the dolphin kick at the end of the pullout out armpull in the beginning of the video.  Kitajima slow motion follows, who puts the dolphin kick at the beginning of the armpull.