Forward glide in freestyle

Howdy - I started swimming again couple months ago after many years away from the pool and I am struggling quite a bit with my freestyle timing. I think that I have too much of a "windmill" approach - forward arm entering water right when sweeping arm is close to finishing upsweep. That means that it is hard for me to glide on the arm extending forward - I need to transfer quickly to sweeping it back and - worst of all - I need to use portion of the sweep to prevent myself from sinking when taking a breath. Which amounts to wasting energy (and unnecessary up/down movement). I found this video on YouTube: YouTube - Freestyle - Reaching Your Limits I do not know enough about details of technique to comment on her elbows being low or not - what interests me is the timing issue - for her the forward arm is extending while sweeping arm is about to go into upsweep (or perhaps even earlier). Is this the timing I should be striving for? Extending arm BEFORE completing the sweep? TIA for any comments or pointers and apologies for trivial question, JT