NS Entry and Arm Switch Timing

[Jamee Small]

In our last session worked on building skills for the recovery arm swing, while relying upon the skills for balance and streamline.

 

This lesson will build on these previous skills of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke. These are explained in the following introductions:

• Send Force Forward (Continued to include Entry)
• Optimal Arm Switch Timing

And, here is the outline of the skills, drills and focal points, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of focal points may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson.

 

The instructor will watch the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant focal points for you to work with.

Drills

There are three sections to this whole Recovery movement that we need to construct:

1. The exit – how the elbow and forearm and hand will leave the water
2. The recovery swing – how the shoulder slides and arm swings from back to forward position

Finally, we included the Entry

3. The entry – how the arm is positioned to enter the water, and the pathway it follows to Skate

Recovery Swing and Entry Drills

These drills may be used for Exit, Recovery Swing and Entry skills:

• Standing rehearsal for recovery swing
• Swing Skate in slow-motion
• Standing rehearsal to create entry arm shape
• Swing Skate (swing to Entry Position and dip that arm it a few times)
• 2- Arm Slot To Skate
• Swing Switch in slow-motion, With Pauses

Swing Skate is where you hold Skate Position on one side and then practice swinging the recovery arm on the other side, in slow motion. There is no switching of the arms.

 

2-Arm Slot To Skate is where you are standing in shallow water, with one arm in entry position, the lead arm in front and that side leg forward.  Then you fall forward over your leading leg, as the face touches the water, switch arms, and slide into Skate Position, and slide forward for a couple seconds.

 

Swing Switch is where you start in Skate, swing the recovery arm, then pause just a moment at entry, then switch the arms, slide into Skate, and repeat on the other side.

 

In Swing Switch, once you remove pauses, your stroke is continuous and smooth. Your movements are getting closer and closer to normal-speed, whole stroke swimming. As you gradually speed up the motion of the swing, you may also gradually lift that forearm out of the water (let the hand go wider to gain clearance), up to the point where your fingernails are still brushing the surface.

 

You may view demonstrations of these drills on the Video Tutorial page. You may also see snapshots of particular moments in these drill positions on the Freestyle Drill Resources page.

Focal Points

(See previous lesson for Exit and Recovery Swing Focal Points)

Entry Focal Points

• Elbow swings forward in front of the head as far as comfortable
• Elbow high above ear (like a tent over the head)
• Feel the stretch in the back as you reach entry position
• Forearm aiming straight ahead on track
• Hand entry position across from opposite (lead arm) elbow)
• Ski jump shape entry path – Slide down to target depth and then extend forward

You may examine other useful focal points for Entry on the 101 Focal Points page.

 

Bringing the arm to this high elbow position is like building a wave to its peak height before the energy breaks and spills back into the water. It is so tempting to drop that elbow before it reaches its high position above and in front of the ear. Focusing on bringing the hand around will urge the elbow to drop, so let that hand drag behind the elbow until the last possible moment (that your shoulder joint comfortably allows). This will urge the elbow to climb higher as it comes forward, coming to its peak position higher than the head (seen in image below).

 

 

This high elbow sets up the forearm to aim straight ahead on its track, angled downward steeply into the water. Then you let gravity just pull this arm down into the water and begin extending underwater, following the Ski Jump path to the target.

Progression From Drill To Whole Stroke

You may follow this progression in Swing Switch Without Pauses to gradually raise the arm up above the surface while maintaining the qualities with focal points:

• Full (relaxed) forearm is submerged
• Half of forearm is submerged
• Watchband is submerged
• (soft) Fingers are submerged, dragging through the water
• Fingernails are just brushing the surface

As a useful permanent standard, you may keep your fingernails every so lightly brushing the surface during your recovery swing, all the way to entry. I like to call this ‘dragonfly fingertips’, like a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond.

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