The big picture: breathing in through mouth and out through nose, relaxing, floating, and moving with organic/core motion of the torso/hips/shoulders.
Class begins with some face-down flotation and the organic movement of "crawling" in the water; then "skate" position on left and right edges; then one skate immediately into a roll-onto-back. Student shows excellent relaxation in the water, keeping head - and hair - dipping deeply into the water. She's so excited, she says "wow!" from her relaxed float. Relaxation in water is an essential element of mastering flotation.
Student also practices extending the length of her glide during skate by adding a gentle flutter kick. This gives her time to check her relaxed neck and head alignment. We do only a little bit of flutter kicking during exercises and try to let it go quickly. The final goal is simply to have a 2-beat "organic" kick: legs which react to the rotation of hips/core body movement with only a flick of ankle to aid in rotation during switches.
Then student combined 1 skate and 1 skate-to-back; slowly lifting the free hand above the body to re-enter the water, rolling and reaching into face-down position again. This is a challenge! It's a useful skill to have but it will not be an element of her final uninterrupted stroke.
Finally, a few elegant, slow and mindful underwater switches. Student shows mindful control of the timing of the "switch."
