Butterfly Stroke Feet Position

Series Summary

Competitive swimming began in Europe around 1800 and first became an Olympic Event in 1896. Recreational swimming has been around since man first walked the earth. Whether it is in a pool in the backyard or a pool in the Olympics, a river in the woods or the endless oceans, swimming is one of the world's favorite past times. Not only is swimming a great recreational hobby, it is one of the most efficient ways to exercise, both cardiovascular and muscle strengthening. Needless to say, with all of the benefits of swimming, it is a good idea to learn how to swim and the butterfly stroke is a great way to begin. Learn how to do the butterfly stroke in this free online video series of swimming lessons featuring swim instructor Peter Elizondo. Elizondo teaches proper butterfly stroke body movement, butterfly stroke hand rotation, butterfly stroke breathing technique, butterfly stroke shoulder rotation, butterfly stroke hand position, butterfly stroke big kick, butterfly stroke small kick and how to do the butterfly stroke with correct feet position.

Video Transcript

"In this section of the butterfly stroke, step one, what I'm going to explain to you is, basically, this is one of the hardest strokes to learn for swimming. So you've got a lot of fundamentals that are included on here. You're going to be using your shoulders a lot. You're going to be moving your body in S-type form, like a snake, and your feet. So let me, kind of, show you in the beginning how your feet will be. If you want your lower body, and if you can look at that, your legs are going to be close like this the whole entire time. So imagine if you had tape around your ankles. Your feet will always be like this, and they're going to be kind of up, like that. Okay? So you see how I have them up? That's how they're going to be in the water. Like a dolphin. Think if you had fins, okay? And then you're going to end up doing like a big splash and a little splash in the water. So if you want to come back up, I'll show you really quick. With the dolphin kick, I'm going to explain to you how to do the dolphin kick. But I just wanted to show you how you want to have your feet in the very, very beginning. A lot of times, a lot of us will think that the feet are open or you kick with one or you kick with the other. No, you just bring them close together. Okay? And you're going to end up imagining like, as if a mermaid, in a sense. Okay? So your two legs are now joined together. All right? And you're going to end up flutter kicking. So I'm going to show you. So that's what you do on the first step."