Understand Why We Do The Drill, :
- It teaches you to transition between the head up sighting position and the head down swimming position.
- It helps you learn how to correct your balance and alignment between each sighting stroke
- It teaches you to keep your head low to the water while looking forward
- It encourages you to push your chin forward instead of lifting your head up
- Helps you comfortable with the sighting position needed to get a clear view of your target.
How To Do It:
Body Position:
- Swim freestyle transitioning between four strokes with your head down and 2 strokes with your head up
The Movement:
- Begin by swimming four strokes of regular freestyle
- After four strokes, push your chin forward so your eyes break the surface and you can see the pool deck on the other side
- Take two strokes with your eyes looking forward and then relax your head back down
- Take another four strokes and repeat
- Do not breath while your eyes are looking forward. Only breathe during the four strokes where your head is down.
Things To Focus On:
- Do not breath while your eyes are looking forward. Breathing to the front puts you at risk of swallowing water and the strain on your neck when your eyes are looking forward makes it very difficult for air to travel down your windpipe to your lungs.
- Get your head to move from the relaxed, eyes down position to the forward position and back down in one up-down movement.
- Do not look forward off of a breath stroke and do not breathe on the very next stroke after looking forward.
- There must be one stroke after your breath before you push your chin forward and then one stroke after your head relaxes downwards before you breathe.
- Keep your head low to the water as you sight, you only need your eyes to come up above the surface far enough to see the target you are aiming for.
