There are three main areas that you should focus on when you're wanting to learn proper swim techniques. Now this is just a brief overview and swimming takes a lot of time and practice to learn to do well but let me just aim you in the right direction. First, especially if you're new to swimming it's very important to develop a proper breathing rhythm. The key with swimming is that when you turn your head for a breath you don't have time to breath out and in. So what you need to do is while you're swimming, you need to be blowing bubbles while your face is down so that when you turn to breath in you have just enough time to get a breath and put your head back down. A very simple and effective drill for this is to practice some bobs on the edge of the pool before you get in, before you start swimming. So, the thing to do there is just put you're face in the water and blow all your air out, and do that five or ten times. That helps you get the feel for the breathing rhythm you'll need when you're swimming. Breathing is the first area. The second area is balance in the water, this is what allows you to float and slice through the water. Two aspects of balance and the first is you're fore-aft balance of your body. So, if this is my body in the water, and this is my head, and these are my hips and my legs, beginning swimmers swim through the water like this. It's a very difficult way to swim. The key is to learn how to stretch your body out and balance so that you are swimming on top of the water, fore-aft balance. The second kind of balance is body roll and again the same, the torso, you roll side to side while you're swimming. So it's not true that you swim with your body flat in the water but rather with each stroke you roll from side to side. OK? The third general area of proper swim technique is proper stroke mechanics, namely, what do you do with the arm? And again this is a complex topic but just a couple clues that you can work on. The first one is, when you pull your arm through the water you want to have a good ninety degree bend here so that you get lots of grip on the water. You don't want to lead with the elbow or swim with a straight arm but rather shape your arm in such a way that you get a nice anchor and you're able to propel yourself. Secondly, with proper stroke mechanics, when you take a stroke you don't pull your arm slowly through the water but rather you accelerate your arm in the water. OK? With each stroke you follow through powerfully. A powerful follow through will propel you better and it will allow you to glide further with each stroke. So, the three main areas we work on for proper swim technique is a breathing rhythm, balance, and stroke mechanics.
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