swim lessons part: 1

[ich bin ein berliner]

i'm debating if i should make some more 1337 stick figure pictures to illustrate what im talking about to make this walk through more clearer, if people request, i'll make some crude ones to get the idea across.

 

so anyways, on to the awesome learning that is swimming!

 

so your swimming the front crawl or freestyle. you dont seem to be moving much water and your not going anywhere. the idea of swimming freestyle is to keep your body long in the water. what i mean by this is, aerodynamics of your body. the longer and flatter your body is, the easier it will move through the water. one thing to help you is by keeping your kick Grade A.

 

To have perfect kick for your freestyle, you DO NOT bend your legs. The main power of your kick does not come from your knees. an ansii version of this, if you bend your legs, they'll look somewhat like a "V" if you keep your legs straight, they'll look like, well straight.

 

When you kick you use your hips as your generating power. you move your hips from side to side rotating on your long axis. considering im getting pretty deep into the ethics of swimming, this is your long axis

 

1337 stick figure 1:

fullsize image

http://www.freepichosting.info/hpics/show....longaxis662.jpg

 

 

notice the red line going through the lenth of the body, this is your so called 'long axis'

 

when you kick, your hips are moving (as fast as you want to) left and right.

 

starting position of your hips. this is a cut section, very simple. the red line indicates your axis.

1337 stick figure 2:

 

url=http://www.freepichosting.info/hpics/show.php?img=801114hipsstraight641.jpg

http://www.freepichosting.info/hpics/show....straight641.jpg

 

ok yes it looks extremly messed up but hopefully this will help clarify things. watch what your hips are suppose to do when you kick.

 

1337 stick figure 3:

http://www.freepichosting.info/hpics/show....turnhips538.jpg

 

blue line indicates water. so as clearly as i can freaking illustrate it, your hips turn moving one of your legs up, and your other one down.

 

it looks incredibly weird in this tutorial but if you get in the water and try it, you'll be able to see the difference of moving your hips and bending your knees to kick.

 

click on the links to see the full size image, it'll make things alot easier to figure out.

 

question? comments? if you need clarification, ask, i'll do my best to help you out. if no one requests further tutorials, i wont post any more, this one took a half hour to make.

Edited November 1, 2005 by ich bin ein berliner