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Butterfly
For beginners, this is the most demanding and technically precise strokes. If done well, butterfly will feel almost effortless, but if it is done improperly, it will seem like you're swimming in molasses and impossible to move. Like breaststroke, butterfly is an iterative stroke. It has a power cycle and a glide cycle. As such, butterfly requires a very clean and fluid motion in order to be done well. Furthermore, like breaststroke, butterfliers are required to be symmetrical in all their motions. Not only is this a requirement by US and international swimming rules, but it's a good idea from the standpoint of streamlining. Any excess or out of sync movements will greatly diminish your ability to perform butterfly well, if at all.
Butterfly Recovery All of these cautions can be daunting so let's start with something simple, the butterfly kick. Fly kick starts from the belly. Many instructors talk about hip rotation, but this motion is really the consequence of a good and powerful abdominal movement. While holding your hands in front of you with your thumbs together and arms at full extension, lay prone in the water with the waterline at the top of your forehead. With your feet together, start a wave of your body starting at your belly that runs the length of your body down to your legs. First your stomach will arch downwards, then back up while your pelvis moves downwards, followed by your knees, then your feet. When you get good at the rhythm of this kick, you will feel an almost constant pressure on your feet. The pressure will be on the soles of your feet during the upward motion of the kick and the pressure will be on the tops of your feet during the downward motion of the kick. Unlike most kicks, most of the effort for the butterfly kick comes from the stomach and back muscles. Given this fact, many butterfliers, and those of us who only did butterfly in Individual Medeleys (IMs), had to do hundreds of sit-ups. All-in-all, many swimmers do 500 or so sit-ups every day to get the core of their bodies ready for butterfly kick and freestyle turns. Given that backstroke is done these days with a significant amount of butterfly kick (inverted and underwater, but butterfly nonetheless), this regimen of sit-ups and sit-up variants continues to this day. Butterfly just won't work without its kick. Oh sure, you can perform butterfly with a pull-buoy but you'll find that you're still kicking during the stroke cycle because it's that necessary to the motion of the rest of the stroke. Therefore it's best to plug the kick right into the stroke as soon as you're ready to work on the arms. Starting from the prone position with your arms outstretched over your head and your hands shoulder-width apart, begin your catch. This catch is done by bringing your hands perpendicular to the bottom of the pool and keeping your elbows high so that your arms form a large circle around your head. While you begin your pull, perform your first kick. Start tracing the outline of an hourglass with your fingertips keeping your elbows high throughout the stroke. Bring your hands down and slightly outside the line of your shoulders then pull downwards until your hands are even with your shoulders. Then reverse the direction of your pull. Bring your hands in towards your centerline under your belly about four inches apart. At this time perform another kick with the second half of your stroke. Here you will start the bottom half of your hourglass but not finish it. Rotate your hands at the wrists outwards so that you don't let go of the balls of water you got at the catch and extend your arms so that your hands exit the water at your thighs. Now perform the recovery. Butterfly recovery is one of the more spectacular sights of competitive swimming. Even swimmers who don't do butterfly like to have their picture taken with their arms outstretched over the water. It is an impressive sight. However, if the rest of the stroke up until this point hasn't been done well, you won't have the speed to get there. Your arms come out of the water at the same time as you perform the up stroke of your second kick. Before your next downward kick, those arms must leave the water, you must take your breath, then be reset at the beginning of the stroke, ready to start your catch all over again. Here's how it's done. Using the momentum from the power phase of the stroke, and a little overbalancing by kicking up against the water, draw your head out of the water. The water level need be no higher than your bottom lip so don't try to lift your body too high. With your shoulders and chin now at the water's surface, lift your arms out of the water at the elbows and once your hands are free of the water, draw your arms in a wide arc around your body. When your hands reach the level of your shoulders, your breath is finished and you will tuck your chin into your chest drawing your head underwater and snapping your hands together over your head. Your hands must knife into the water at the top of the stroke with your elbows slightly bent so that you don't create too much drag during the recovery phase of the stroke. Then you bring your hands into the catch position to start the stroke cycle again. |
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