As a kid my father and my coach always wanted me to swim the fly but I always resisted. Only once was I ever persuaded to swim the 100m fly. I went out hell for leather in the first 50 and even turned in front but the wheels came off in the second 50, in a bad way, and I ended up limping in the last 25m swimming one arm butterfly! I never tried again!
Now after a 20 odd year abscence from swimming I find myself actually wanting to swim fly and enjoying it when I do. It's a beautiful feeling when the fly is executed well: smooth, rhythmic and exhilarating. When you hit the zone in fly it is an even better feeling than hitting the zone in crawl. It is an addictive feeling.
How did I get into fly? Well it has only been recently really, but I started to do a set of 25m at the end of every practice. I started off really slowly: 10 times 25m at 30 sec's alternating fly and crawl. Slowly I have built that up to 40 times 25m at 30sec and more recently I have been adding a set of 10 times 50 fly at 90sec. Next I plan to cut the repeat interval down to at least a minute on the 50's and then add some 100's. I can't wait to try the 100's but I don't want to try before I am really ready for them.
I always laugh when I see SwimStud's "Fly: Just say no!" because that is exactly how I felt but I have to say now, a practice without fly is a a practice without my 'fix'!
Anyone else have a similar experience?
Syd
Former Member
As a kid I remember it took a couple years of competitive swimming before I really got the necessary strength and rhythm of butterfly down to where I wasn't always behind the curve. It's almost like there's a wave in front of you as you try to swim fly, and you need to have the strength and technique to get in front of it. You'll know it when it all clicks. Red60, it sounds like you just got it.
Now, I'll add that at a meet this weekend I saw a guy in his 70s complete the 200 fly. It's probably the most feared event in all of swimming, not many people at any age even attempt it.
I will have a look and see what I can come up with but my Chinese and Japanese is not good enough to do a proper search.
In the meantime learn butterfrog here is Terry's first viedo explaining the butterfrog www.youtube.com/watch
This was his second video, the promotional one www.youtube.com/watch
hey geochuck,
those are such great videos for seeing all aspects of the stroke. :groovy: do you know of any that show the fly to back, back to ***, and *** to free turns in nice detail like that?
i would love to get to the point where i can do 100 fly. i am reading through this thread to get some ideas and started incorporating them into a workout this morning. specifically, i did some 200s where i did a few strokes of fly on every lap.
my question all of you is what to do when your stroke starts falling to pieces - is it better to give in and do free? or is it better to just muscle through it with 1-arm?
You just hold it together pace it from start to finish. www.youtube.com/watch
in my dreams! i don't care how slow i go right now, 25 is fine but once i make that turn, i can't get get even a 50 fly without loosing form. my goal is to eventually just be able to get through it and then work on speed.
Fly swimmers get in trouble holding their form because they go overboard on the kicking portion of fly. If we make a big kick and then a little one you will find it much easier. Keep the kick below the surface this also helps.
... my question all of you is what to do when your stroke starts falling to pieces - is it better to give in and do free? or is it better to just muscle through it with 1-arm?
practicing poor technique will only reinforce it. resting more, and/or changing strokes, and doing more drills will likely help you more than forcing things.
... i can't get get even a 50 fly without loosing form. my goal is to eventually just be able to get through it and then work on speed.
i know that feeling well... but i've gotten past it now.... that's a good goal. be patient, try different things technique-wise, do some reading, watch some videos, and keep chipping away at this forum. eventually you'll get where you want to be.
i got a lot of help/knowledge when i watched some super swimmers doing fly in videos i viewed with QuickTime, which allowed me to step through what they were doing one frame at a time. it helped me a lot in figuring out the timing.
...
Well I survived my 1st ever 200 fly. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. I went a 3:22 in scm. I am very excited about that. My goal was under 3:30 and didn't care if it was 3:29.99. I am definitely going to add that to my list of events for the rest of the year.
Next challenge....ButterNut....
