Video Example – Looking At the Wall

Video Transcription: You can already kind of see in this still frame here that he is staring at the wall. One of the big differences with this type of turn, versus his turn that we had before is you’re going to see like a hiccup in the turn. A hiccup is the best way to describe it. It’s a little bit of a glitch and it’s because he loses that momentum. When he lifts his head up, he also drops his kick, so he has to start and regain some momentum to get through that turn.

How he does that is he flips over to his stomach. He looks up and you can see now the only thing that’s moving him forward is this pull here. His legs have completely stopped. As he continues to pull, he now realizes I don’t have a lot of speed. And so as he’s about to initiate that turn, he Dolphin Kicks his feet down to get his body to drive down.

The Dolphin Kick is not something that’s commonly taught, but it’s also something that is seen. The best combination is still to swim through the turn. So kick through the turn and then just add the Dolphin Kick at the end versus this style where he’s not swimming through the turn and he’s using a Dolphin Kick to basically initiate that turn.

Head lift is not always a good thing, especially when we drop our legs and then we have to Dolphin Kick our body down. That’s what causes him to look very glitchy and hiccupy as he’s going through his turn versus smooth. After he hits the wall though, he’s a 10 out of 10 when it comes to that streamline. He’s got a great streamline already set and his feet are on the wall. He’s ready to push off and he’s got once again a beautiful push off on his back. He’s ready to go on his merry way. So for him, his issues are really the end of the approach and then through the flip, but the push off itself was really, really good.