As a new swimmer, and being 47 years old, I basically swim freestyle and a little *** (have trouble keeping my kick legal). Today, during my morning workout provided me by this very website, a dolphin kick was necessary. Quickly donning my zoomers (I suck at kick) I proceeded down the pool. Seeing as it still took me forever, I had a lot of time to ponder lifes meaning. For me its "Start early if you want to swim fly." For although two years into my swimming career, no way I can do fly. Even if I had the strength to get my arms out of the water that long...I am so rhythmic challenged I will never pull it together. Oh well, I feel comfortable swimming free, and so far the lack of the additional events hasnt hurt me none. Anyone out there learn to swim fly at such an advanced age?
I learned at age 11 and stopped at age 19 after the big rip. I waited 25 years and then I started again. A lot had changed in the interim. LOL. I felt like I had to re-learn it. But after a lot of drills, SDK work and some fin use, I can do it again at age 45. The old "Learn to Fly" threads are very useful, with lots of good suggestions. Start there.
I swam fly as a kid and was pretty abyssmal at it. I took it back up at age 28 or 30. I have enjoyed learning it correctly now.
I will say that I'm working with a teammate who is learning fly in her 40s and it's tough to learn, even for a very accomplished athlete.
I started flying around age 7, however my mother started closer to 60 and while it wasn’t pretty at first she now has a few national top 10’s in the 50 fly in her age group.
So there is hope through perseverance.
I started to learn the stroke in 2002 at age 50. I struggled with the stroke for most of the time since and am just now feeling comfortable with it. I am on the verge of going under 30 for a 50y and just recently began to attempt 100's. It hasn't been easy to get the rhythm and flow of the stroke but once it happened it was awesome!
Good luck.
I started teaching myself three or four years ago and actually had a coach look at it maybe 2.5 years ago. I am swimming all three distances at nationals this year. While there are definitely some folks who just struggle with the timing, I don't think it is as hard to swim the longer distances as people think it is. If you are swimming more than three times a week, I think you should have the endurance to carry it off. But unlike the other strokes, where you can just slow down if you are tired, you have to keep it together in fly. So people panic and flail and think it is *so hard*. But if you spent a year swimming it and refusing to do one arm unless absolutely necessary, you could swim a decent 100.
I swam competitively since grade school, but had the "off rhythm" fly. My senior year in high school we lost both flyers, so my coach tapped me on the shoulder and said "you're our flyer." It took me about 1.5 months struggling with the rhythm, then 3 weeks before our first meet someone gave me some fins. I went down one length of the pool and it clicked. I managed to drop 10 seconds off my 100yd fly time from the beginning of the season to state championships. Now after 20yrs of non-swimming I've gained 10+ seconds and feel like I'm starting over again.
Everyone goes through the "awkward stage" of learning butterfly. If you are around kids that don't swim year round, they have the same problems with rhythm. It just looks funnier on an adult because we are bigger.
Keep working at it, it will come.
I started flying at 22 years of age but had done all of the other strokes from about 5. The crawl stroke is probably the most benifit to swimming fly. I even did butterfrog before Terry L invented it. I never practiced a lot of fly, never worked more than 100 fly during a workout but did a lot of dolphin kicking. When I do fly workouts now I do repeats of 25s and occasionally 50s.
If I were to race I could do a 100 but never do any 100s in training.
I learned fly one afternoon at the local pool when I was 14. Not that it was good, but it was enough to get me started on the swim team. I still work on improving my fly during practices. It's fine for short distances, but I don't think I'll ever have the endurance for a 200.
There is a woman on my team in her sixties that is still "learning" fly. She was not a swimmer in her youth, but now competes regularly in all strokes. She is the first to make fun of her fly, but she keeps working on it.
Don't give up.
