Shelly's Swim

Please see the below review on your swim. It was a quick glance from you swimming beside as I was doing my own.. so please pardon if it is a little vague. Besides, there are a lot of things that I need to show in the pool in order for you to understand.

So, here we go, FREESTYLE REVIEW.

Good points:
- Streamlining is OKAY, not optimal, but OKAY.
- Roughly gets the general idea of "freestyle swim" thus you could clip a board on and pull on and on
- Capability to turn and breathe with less than disruptive body position
- Core strength to maintain hip stability while body twist from side to side is notable as you pull through the water in a snaky manner
- Stamina is not too bad.

Note: Core = Shoulder, Chest, Back, Abs, Lower Back, Buttock, Hamstrings and Thigh and Calves. Not just the abs.

Ugly points:
-Head position was too much forward, like breast stroke. Need to look diagonally forward, in a proud, chest up posture.
- Body was "snaking", thus not optimal streamline position. Unsure of which muscle parts to activate to keep the body straight and long.
- Pull was REAL short, it ends before the palm even reaches the stomach
- Besides pull being short, the pitching of palm was not in the correct "attack" angles. No signs of sculling knowledge.
- There was no Catch, no Pull, no Push, just one straight pull through
- Kick was not from the hips
- Body rotation was very dominant on the breathing side, i.e when breathing, the twist of body was very hard and thus causing the body to twist, adding to the "snaking"
- Breathing rhythm was not right, there was not rhythm of "hold breathe, relax, breathe out quick, inhale quick, return head position..."
- Arm Recovery was rushed forward because of the short pull, top it up with the rapid breathing patterns with no tries to relax, the swim was a struggle and tensed up affair right from the first 3 strokes you take.

Reason for the not so optimal swim:
- Lack of understanding that swim is really all about reducing drag to the ABSOLUTE MINIMAL, before increasing propulsion power.
- Lack of awareness on how body "looks like" when you're swimming.
- Basically just going through the motions, moving the arms and legs and body on its own, without knowing the specific purpose on what each movement is supposed to do to help you swim better
- Due to the above points, you do not know when to relax, when to breathe, when to exert force and when to STAY STILL and hold position.

Before we meet again, I need you to find somebody, maybe your boyfriend, to video your swim from the deck and let you see what you are doing and compare against this list of items I listed. Try to understand and then we will work on your freestyle soon.

Note: Efficient Swimming = Holding a rigid streamline posture relaxed-ly to allow optimal transfer of power from the limbs to constant forward velocity.
Keywords are: Rigid, Streamline, Relax, Constant Forward Velocity.

Cheers
KK