6. Breaststroke: Arms & Kick; Video

Transcription: 

(00:00):

 Thank you for joining the Teaching Swimming Essentials video course.  This is number six on breaststroke.  That’s right,  today we are talking about breaststroke and we’re gonna be going through the progression of skills for breaststroke and breaststroke arms and swimming.  This is the Essential Swim Skill,  breaststroke kick and breaststroke arms as found in the online course,  Teaching Swimming.  So breaststroke itself is a complicated advanced stroke and what we’re gonna talk about is how that fits into the larger structure and how you can start teaching it.

(00:39):

 Now, like any complex, difficult swimming stroke,  we’re gonna break it down into chunks.  So we’re gonna take the complex hole,  separate it into chunks and then train those chunks and then put the chunks back together into a combined whole. And so using that is gonna be how we slowly introduce breaststroke over time into our levels and then put it together into a cohesive whole stroke.

(01:06):

 So you might be looking at some of these skills and thinking,  you know,  why are you doing this in isolation?  It’s because we’re training the choreography or the dance move that is breaststroke in order to get a good result of the kind of comprehensive whole.  So what you should be seeing on here is the general progression for breaststroke.  This is from our swim sheets.  This is for breaststroke and then arm motions,

(01:32):

the kick,  and then the arms and the glide.  So you can do the arms or the kick really whichever fashion you please,  but we’re gonna start that in level three,  I believe.  That’s correct.  So level three is where we’re gonna start doing the breaststroke kick,  sitting on the edge in the water. And this is one of those things that takes such a massive amount of time practicing that we’re just introducing the basics of it in level three.  What we wanna do in level three is spend the majority of our time working on side breathing and instead just introducing or peppering in like seasoning,

(02:08):

breaststroke kick,  and breaststroke arms.  In level three as well,  one of the testable skills is demonstrate 11,  eat 11 on land and in the water. And this is a very specific choreography or dance move.  You can see as we zoom in here that it is 11.  So position 11 we’re familiar with,  eat,  elbows are up high,

(02:31):

the hand is towards the face and back to 11.  There’s no outward swinging scoop or circles.  It’s just from 11 into eat and back into 11.  And the reason is we can similar to doing freestyle with those big circle arms, we can chip away like the sculptor chipping away at a block of granite.  We can make it easier. We can do the scooping motion and breaststroke easier than we can train the basic hand motion.

(03:01):

 So we do 11,  eat 11 as that initial choreography or dance move for position 11.  And that’s why it’s in level three here.  We’ll do it on land and then we’ll do it in the water.  So let’s take a look here at arms because we’re starting with the arms.  So it’s 11,  eat 11,  avoid those wide sweeping circles or pizza sauce or wax on,  wax off motions.  You don’t wanna be going out here or out into Y just from 11 to eat and then back to 11 is all you need to do to make it,

(03:33):

the complicated motion easy.  Because remember we’re doing this with our beginners and our level three swimmers.  We don’t need to have swim team level skills yet. And we can easily get to those swim team level,  breaststroke motion very easily if we teach 11,  eat 11.  And so I’ve done hundreds of kids training in this.  It’s a really easy way to introduce them into breaststroke and specifically breaststroke arms.

(04:02):

So we wanna make it easy.  So I wanna make this easy for you and your instruction.  And to do that,  just keep it as simple as 11,  eat and 11 and nothing else. You don’t need to go complicated. You don’t need to do anything fancy,  no crazy words,  just get into it. If we do it too quickly,  the swimmers are gonna get kind of crazy and lazy.  So we wanna avoid them doing some random wild stuff as you can see in the video here.

(04:31):

Keep it as simple and as easy as possible,  11,  eat and 11.  So if we’re looking at it from above,  11 into eat and then back to 11 without a breath.  And then over time,  we can slowly introduce this concept,  11,  eat 11 into our swimming.  So let’s take a look at what it looks like from above or in the water.  This is a video from when we did Y.  So it’s just 11,

(05:01):

eat 11,  11,  eat 11.  And this is just this dance move.  It’s not providing propulsion.  There’s no kick. It’s just floating after a glide and going through the hand motions.  Now, over time,  you’re gonna do that breath with the sweeping in,  but we’re not gonna be doing that as we introduce.  We’re only gonna be doing 11,  eat 11.  That was pretty important because it’s that chunk.  We’re taking that chunk out of breaststroke,

(05:31):

that small piece,  we’re focusing on it, and then we’ll put it back into the hole when we continue.  So you can see here,  the script is 11,  eat,  or eat and breathe,  and then 11.  So as you get more advanced and they get better at doing 11, eat 11,  you can add the breath on the eat portion as you’re teaching it.  So position 11,  we’re familiar with that.  Eat,  so sweep the hands down,  just straight into the mouth,

(06:02):

and then back into 11. And if you’re gonna do eat and breathe,  it’s the head lifts up,  and then the face goes down.  So kind of like your head and your arms are attached with a string,  as they come in,  the head goes up,  and as they go forward,  the head goes back down.  And this is a simple thing to teach,  but requires to be very precise and very specific.  Now let’s take a look here at the introduction of arm motions.  So again,

(06:31):

we can see this all reiterated here.  The beginners are just 11, eat 11 with no breath,  and advanced to 11,  eat and breath,  and then back to 11.  And again, this is just the hand motion.  They’re floating in the surface and doing the hand motion without doing any additional kicks or anything complicated.  We don’t need to do any wild arms,  just this simple thing.  So streamline,  no kick,  do a single time,  11,  eat 11, and then stop and go back.

(07:01):

And we’re doing that rotation method.  You can see that when we get down here into the progression of arms,  so streamline plus 11,  eat 11,  glide a short distance,  11,  eat 11,  have it a pause,  so 11,  eat 11, and then stand up and go back and do it again.  All right, let’s move on here,  because I think we’ve gone through the arms.

(07:32):

 And I’m pretty satisfied with that.  So again,  reiterated in the workbook.  But let’s go to, let’s go on to breaststroke kick.  So this is lift,  flex,  circle,  and push and squeeze.  And we’ll get a good video of what that looks like here.  So lift,  circle, and squeeze,  lift,  flex,  circle,  and squeeze,  lift,  flex, circle, and squeeze,  lift,

(08:01):

flex,  circle,  and squeeze.  And what we’re talking about here are the feet is what we’re describing and the actions that are gonna take.  So beginning with flex is really important because it’s this very specific foot position that we wanna focus on.  So the,  let’s take a look here.  So flex.  So flex is this very important position that we wanna look at.  It’s basically lifting your toes and curling your feet outwards so that you’re gonna push the water with the inside of your foot or the inside ankle bone right here in this picture.

(08:40):

 We can start doing that by practicing the breaststroke kick dance on the deck.  So you just stand,  you lift your toes up,  put your toes down, toes up,  toes down,  heel up, heel down, toes out,  toes in,  toes out,  toes in,  heels out,  heels in,  so like this,  and then toes up at the end.  And what’s that called?

(09:01):

Flex.  So it’s the toes lifted and the toes out.  And then we’re gonna introduce it sitting on the side.  So when we do our breaststroke kicks sitting on the side,  our focus is on,  I keep mixing it up here,  leaning backwards so only the edge of your butt should be on the pool,  the edge of the pool.  The feet go down,  the toes lift up,  they’re gonna go out and around,  so flex position.

(09:31):

 And then they’re gonna squeeze the water and push it.  So like they’re splashing the water in front of them,  making a circle with their feet.  So down,  flex,  and then make a circle that comes together when they do it.  So legs straight,  put on the edge,  bend your knees, push your feet down,  flex,  and then push with the inside of your feet to draw a circle and push the water and squeeze the water with the inside of your feet.  And our goal is to keep the knees together,  but it’s okay to allow them to separate to cause a bigger kick motion because we want our swimmers to get the feel for what it’s like to use the inside of their foot when they’re kicking.

(10:09):

 And that’s why you see feel the kick.  Then I wanna move on to the actual progression here of skills,  which is really cool.  So it’s streamline plus flex,  streamline plus lift and flex,  and then finally streamline with lift and flex,  and then kick,  so doing the whole thing while you’re in streamline.  And I think this is the good progression here on the swim sheet for breaststroke kick.

(10:35):

 So lift,  flex,  circle, and squeeze.  So we’re gonna do lift and flex.  So actually let’s just go into streamline plus flex.  So that’s this right here.  We’re just gonna push off the wall normally,  stay in streamline,  there’s no kicking,  there’s no arms,  and just flex your feet.  So heels together,  toes lifted and turned outwards.  And what we’re doing is we’re just doing a streamline because streamlines are good habits,

(11:03):

but we’re also introducing flex because it’s a skill to move your feet in this position.  So this is one of those chunks of breaststroke kick is the flex part.  And it’s actually the most important part because you’re using the inside of your foot to push.  After they’ve done four times streamline plus flex so that they know what flex is now when you’re talking about it.  Then we can move on to streamline,  lift,  and flex.  And that’s where they push off in streamline.

(11:31):

They bend their feet,  so that’s lifting it.  So bending there at the knees,  you can see in the picture the knees are bent,  and then flexing the toes.  And this is a little more challenging  because this is the first part of breaststroke kick,  but we’re gonna pause right there.  So it’s like streamline,  lift your feet,  flex them, and then freeze like you’ve been frozen by a stun drive,  and then stop.  And then do four times streamline of lift and flex.  Then you can do streamline,

(12:03):

lift and flex,  and then push with the inside of your foot.  And there you have a full breaststroke kick.  So I would do just one breaststroke kick.  So streamline,  lift,  flex, and push.  And that is a streamline with one breaststroke kick.  So you can see we’re taking the kick as a whole.  We broke it into chunks,  and then we’re putting it back together and doing them all as one.  So let’s take a look here.

(12:31):

So streamline with no kick and flex,  that’s here.  Streamline with lift and flex,  that’s second,  and then streamline with two breaststroke kicks. So lift and flex,  push and squeeze.  And you can see that from this picture here.  So lift and then also flex.  So the feet lift and the feet also flex.  Okay, let’s go to putting it all together.

(13:02):

I’ll close that out.  So the arms are in level three,  the kick on the edge is in level three, and then putting it all together is in level four.  And we’re gonna put it together in a very specific way.  We’re not gonna just jump into,  okay,  go do 25 of breaststroke.  No,  we’re gonna do chunks again.  So begin in position 11,  so everything should start in position 11.  Again,  we’re chunking it out.  So we’re gonna start all separated,

(13:32):

and then over time,  as they get better,  we can start layering the pieces on top of each other a little bit more closer to a competitive swimming.  Remember,  this is for a beginner learning how to do the stroke and then putting it together at the end.  So we’re breaking it into smaller pieces or chunks and then putting those chunks back together.  So begin and glide position 11.  That’s why we do a streamline position 11.  And this is a short distance.  Do the arms with a breath 11,  eat 11,  return to 11.  And then when they’re in 11,

(14:01):

do a kick and then glide again.  So the breaststroke kick is independent of the arms.  So if you look on the screen,  there’s glide,  begin in position 11.  Do the arms with a breath with no kicking,  return to position 11 first,  and then do a kick and keep the hands in position 11.  Now this is a very drawn out,  slow,  so it’s glide,  arms,  glide,  kick,

(14:31):

glide.  It’s not all together.  It’s all broken up into pieces.  And then as swimmers get better and better at doing this,  arms by themselves,  kick by itself,  then you can have them do that multiple times.  So two times.  So streamline with two,  11, eat 11,  and then a kick.  Or you can do a streamline with two,  11,  eat and breathe 11,  and then a breaststroke kick in position 11.  So they do the arms with the breath independently and then a kick by itself independently.

(15:02):

 Now, once they get that,  you can say,  okay,  now we’re gonna swim the whole way and let them figure out how to do the timing on their own,  where they do the arms with the breath and then initiate the kick as the arms go forward,  back into position 11.  That’s really the most important thing there is streamline underwater,  do the arms at the surface,  and then separately do the kick while maintaining position 11.

(15:31):

 So you can see that here, this is at the end of the breaststroke swim sheet.  So streamline underwater with no kick because there’s no kick in breaststroke streamline.  Get in position 11 on the surface, that’s number two.  Number three,  do the arms with the breath.  And then number four,  after the arms and the breath,  do a kick and then hold the glide from the kick.  We do this by itself,  arms alone,  kick alone,  because eventually,

(16:01):

so we’re starting here,  eventually they’re gonna be layered over each other like this.  So the arms happen and then the kick happens.  So the arm starts and at the end of the arms,  the kick starts happening.  So they’re kind of layered like this, but we’re gonna start them separately. But eventually they’re here,  if you’re looking at a timeline.  And then once you’ve kind of mastered the combination of that,  we can start doing some advanced progressions.  And that’s where this progressions page comes from.

(16:32):

 So streamline plus flex,  we talked about that three times,  do a streamline plus lift and flex.  So that’s aiming at his repetition of holding these positions to learn how to get your body to move in that specific way.  And those are the chunks of breaststroke kick.  Now, the next part of the progression is do three sets of push ups. Three times,  do a streamline with two 11 eat 11s.  So you streamline,  11 eat,  11 pause,  11 eat,  11 pause.

(17:01):

And you can add a breath if you want,  but it’s not required.  And the next part of the progression is 11 eat and breathe,  11,  and then after you’ve done that,  a breaststroke kick,  so separately from it,  11 eat and breathe,  11.  Once you’re in 11,  then do the lift,  flex,  push,  and squeeze, and then return to position 11 and glide.  And the final part of that is to push off the wall and streamline,  do two full breaststroke strokes,  so arms with the breath,  and then swim freestyle the rest of the way.

(17:31):

And we do this because we wanna remove the opportunity for creating bad habits.  So just limiting a 25 swim to two breaststroke strokes gives them the ability to kind of practice breaststroke.  So arms with the breath and then kick and glide, arms with the breath and then kick and glide.  And then they can do freestyle the rest of the way because they’ve developed the endurance and ability to swim freestyle well, and it keeps them moving and engaged.  And that’s the progression.  That’s how we teach the very complicated skill breaststroke into these simple little chunks.

(18:03):

 They’re very easy on their own.  11 eat,  11,  11 eat and breathe,  11,  flex,  lift and flex,  and then lift and flex, and push and squeeze.  And that’s it.  And then you can take those pieces,  put them together,  and you have full breaststroke swimming.  All right, we’re gonna wrap it up here.  I think that’s a good brief run through of the different resources that we have.  So the swim sheets,

(18:31):

the breaststroke progression swim sheets,  the lesson coordinator handbook that goes over what the testable skills are for breaststroke,  as well as the online course teaching swimming.  And of course,  you can get all those downloads here in the teaching swimming download files page under teacher specific skill.  All right,  thank you.  And we’ll get together next time for Butterfly.  Take care.