Beverly came to the pool on Day 1 with a nicely coordinated side stroke and good flotation on her back. She practiced superman float, superman glide, "tic toc" hip rotation, slot-to-skate, and elbow circles for recovery arm. Here is her crawl at the start of lesson #2 with a bit more relaxed arms and head:
Lesson 2 began with a skate-with-flutter drill in 3 steps: (1) motion of the head to air and to downward alignment; (2) slow motion of the recovery arm, dragging fingertips and forming a geometric entry; (3) slot-to-switch (bringing her to the other "edge"). Since her first switch was so powerful that it flipped her onto her back, we moved right into practicing the "sweet spot" (on 3/4 back) breathing position. Here is a sample of that skating practice:
From there, after another practice of superman and tic-toc hip rotation, she repeated yesterday's practice of slot-to-skate and elbow circles for recovery arm. She did repetitions of "relaxing her forearm" by dragging it in the water. The next video is Bev's best swim at the end of class:
I see a well organized core body with a rhythmic forward thrust of propulsion created by her relaxed recovery arm and stable "underwater reaching" arm. I feel fairly certain that she is not thinking about her legs... but you can see the clear "plunk" splash of one foot that demonstrates oppositional (contralateral) core body engagement.
Future goals for Bev: wide tracks, timing of switch-to-pocket, and a bit further deconstruction of her 2-beat kick until it is effective (primarily for hip rotation) and streamlined.
