4 months already?? - VIDS!

Well, for only four months of swimming, my goggles are off to you!! Congrats!! I think it is so brave for people to post these videos, I never have but I don't have access to one, but I sure wish I did. I noticed, in addition to a slight arm crossover like Kyra mentioned, that your left arm appears a little more lazy. What I mean is on the slow video and a time or two on the fast video, your elbow is almost entering the water first instead of your arm/forearm. I also noticed that when you turn to breathe, your legs are splitting apart instead of staying parallel to one another and this causes too much body movement. The last thing I noticed, because I could see the left arm better than the right arm, is when you were almost finished with the underwater pull stroke, you were in a hurry to recover that arm to start another stroke. At the moment this happened, it looked like it was "slipping". And when I mention slipping I mean that the water you had previously caught and grabbed in the front part of the stroke, you let go of it toward the end. I would call this not quite finishing the stroke. But for four months of swimming, I'd say you are IN!!! donna

I'm not posting my front crawl.. OMG you people are wicked... ;) kidding Keep it going Dorian. Let me know when you post Breaststroke lol ;)

You have a little bit of a cross over. You're putting your hands in the water in line with your head, and you want to put it in line with your shoulder. Other than that, from what I can see it looks good.

I agree with Donna on the not finishing part. You are pulling your hand out of the water too soon, need to finish the stroke all the way through. A good drill for this is regular Speedo type rectangular paddles but you take the wrist strap off completely, leaving only the finger strap. Then if you try and cheat your stroke by pulling your hand out early, it will pull the paddle off of your hand letting you know you need to finish more. Something my old High School coach taught me years ago....it works.

Thanks for the comments guys. I have another video taken after about a month of swimming and i can definitely see improvements. I wonder what my swimming technique will look like 3 months from now. I do notice your points and i'm happy i have something to focus and work on.

Well, the feet shouldn't be more than about 6-10 inches away from each other, but another point is this: the only part of the foot that should ever come out of the water is your heel. And when you turn to breathe, think about not scissor kicking. Since I am barely a 2-beat kicker and rely mainly on my body position/hip rotation/long stroke, there may be others here with better advice on kicking. donna

It appears your right arm is not extending far enough forward. You need to extend the arm further so you can begin a full stroke. This will also help your body rotation and result in a stronger stroke. Keep up the good work and I recommend concentrating on one suggestion at a time. See what works for you!

After 4 mo. you swim amazingly well,really fantastic. I agree with the other tips,plus it seems to me you are swimming relatively flat. I'd recommend you work more on rotating along your long axis.

Thanks, guys. I would also like to get your feedback about two other things. First, how is my streamline? Do you notice any weak points? Also, i'm not very happy with my leg work, i think it is my weakest link. Should my kicking be narrower, legs closer together, better kicking rhythm? If you pros can chime in that will be great.