Butterfly - Head Lead Body Dolphin with Fins

Posted by Barbara Hummel on Mar 11, 2005 08:02AM (28,400 views)

This week's drill offers an unbeatable combination: one of the world's most basic butterfly drills demonstrated by one of the world's most talented butterfliers. Check out how Misty Hyman turns good-old Head-Lead Body Dolphin into pure poetry. (From the DVD Go Swim Butterfly with Misty Hyman.)

- Pick up Misty's DVD here.

Why Do It:
When you swim butterfly, it's sometimes hard to move your body like a dolphin and still keep your energy moving FORWARD, rather than up and down. And when your arms get tired, it's even harder to keep from diving too deep and having to climb back up to the surface for the next stroke. Head-Lead Body Dolphin takes your arms out of the equation and lets you focus totally on your core body. Add fins-and it's even EASIER to focus on your body. Head-Lead Body Dolphin helps you solve the puzzle of how to move up and down and STILL send everything forward.

How To Do It:
1. Start with your hands at your sides. Press in on your chest and then release your chest. As you press in with your chest, your hips will come up. Try not to kick too much from your knees; just let the legs flow with the rhythm of your body.

2. Repeat the press and release until you feel you are flowing through the water.

3. In the learning stage, don't worry about breathing. Do several body dolphins and when you need some air, just stop. Your primary focus is on setting up a steady, flowing rhythm with your body.

4. Once you can maintain a steady rhythm right near the surface, add a breath every 4 dolphins. Try to fit in the breath without disturbing your rhythm. When you can breathe every 4 dolphins, try every 3 or every 2. Keep the breaths within your rhythm.

How To Do It Really Well (the Fine Points):
1. Try to initiate each body dolphin from your sternum rather than from the knees.

2. Imagine that you are skimming along, just over and just under the surface of the water. Notice that Misty's head travels in a fairly straight path, right at the water line.

3. Send your body through one hole in the water. Notice how Misty presses in with her chest, and how everything else - torso, hips, thighs, knees, and fins - simply follows along the same line. Everything flows through the same hole in the water.

4. Describe a sine wave with your body, but keep everything moving FORWARD.

Responses

Sybille	Responded Mar 14, 2005 05:29PM Beautiful video of this DOTW (as you've said - pure poetry). Although I'm not doing butterfly, it encouraged me to try on this weekend with the dolphin kick I wasn't able to do at all so far - our teacher told us to imagine moving like Ariel the little mermaid, but having Misty and this drill in mind is a much bigger inspiration for me :).
Glenn Mills	Responded Mar 14, 2005 05:35PM Why do I feel the need to yell "YOU CAN DO IT WATERBOY!" :) Guess ya had to see the movie. I'll try to answer Waterboys questions as numbered: 1) Yes, she's got a flexible body. I don't know if there is another swimmer of similar caliber with less flexibility. Not too many Olympic Champs out there. 2) Actually, the drill isn't so much about the kick, as it's about how the body moves through the water. The kick is the RESULT, not the means. 3) I think question 2 explains why you feel bigger fins give you too much propulsion... let the legs flow behind, or follow, any fin will give you some press forward, but if you feel a surge, you definately are kicking a bit too much. Trust me, after working with Misty, I'm jealous too... I feel like a slug compared to the way she does these things, but keep her images in your head, and at least you'll FEEl Mistyish! Thanks too Sybille... That's why we try to use the best athletes possible to help us all visualize what we're all trying to feel like.
Barbara Hummel	Responded Mar 16, 2005 10:26AM Hi, Sybille Keep trying! And try it with regular fins (not Zooner-like fins) if you are having trouble. I actually go backwards on this drill if I'm not wearing fins. Also, experiment with how fast you move your torso -- how fast you do the dolphin movement. Everyone has to find their own best rhythm, based on height, weight, flexibility, etc. Usually, a little "lazier" rhythm is better during the learning stage.
Sybille	Responded Mar 16, 2005 03:55PM Barbara, you let me feel like superwoman ;). I still don't have fins, therefore I tried to move this way without. On Sunday, there was only litte progress - still not really moving forward, but I've started to get a feeling how the move should be. Yesterday our pool was more than crowded, therefore I escaped to the shallow and short pool used for teaching and spent some time working on the drill there. Finally, I was able to move from one end of the pool to the other and went home smiling. Of course it's miles away from the way Misty is moving, but it's a beginning and of course I will go on trying. And it's fun - I should really order some fins now :).
Raymond	Responded Mar 21, 2005 01:36AM Hi there, Barbara. I am very interested to know why you said that "... try it with regular fins (not Zoomer-like fins)". Do you suggest using fins w/ LONG blade? Thank you very much for your clarification.
Barbara Hummel	Responded Mar 21, 2005 09:27AM Hi, Raymond By "regular" fins I mean the type that is in between Zoomers and the really long fins used in SCUBA and snorkeling. There are many brands of "regular" fins: TYR, Speedo, Kiefer are just a few. The Zura Alpha Fin also falls in this category. For people just learning the body-dolphin motion, I find that the "regular" fin does a better job than Zoomers of telegraphing or magnifying the torso motion all the way down through the legs and feet. Hope this helps.
Don	Responded Oct 01, 2011 01:58PM I'm a mid 40's triathlete turned Master's geek. Loving it! Fly is a new challenge and I'm all about soaking up the process. As I tried this at a few workouts the past week I was challenged to not feel like a board. I finally relinquished this morning to making myself like a cooked noodle sans a tiny bit of tension in my core. Worked like a charm. Is the fly stroke truly supposed to feel that loosey goosey? As a test I ran a few lengths w/o fins and while not as fast it's certainly much faster than my previous attempts using fins, but tensed up.
Sheila	Responded Oct 01, 2011 04:30PM Interesting observations, Don. I'm a late-40s triathlete turned Masters swimmer. Can't call myself a Masters geek, unfortunately. Fly is *definitely* a challenge. I think tomorrow I will try a few lengths of fly and try to observe if I'm tensing up or not on the body. I don't even know. Frankly, fly is such a challenge for me that just doing a 2-beat kick (which I finally am able to manage the last few months) and getting my arms around to the front for the stroke is hard enough and takes so much tough. Well, I try to press my chest down, too, as my hands catch out in front. Learning most of this stuff from this fabulous swimming site.
Sheila	Responded Oct 10, 2011 05:52PM So, I have a question... I've done this drill three times now since Oct. 2nd. Did it in a couple of self-coached workouts, including this past Saturday (a couple of days ago). But this morning coach wanted me to do dolphin kick with a kickboard, and that just really doesn't let my body move the way I would like on a dolphin kick (he even said my dolphin kick was looking better! I didn't feel good about it at all). So I showed him this drill and he said I could do this instead. But I'm re-watching the video right now, and Misty is very close to the surface of the water with her hips coming out. I was doing it significantly under the water today. Also, today I did it without fins (the other times with). Is it important that when I do this drill I am near the surface and hips coming out of the water? Or is doing it well below the top of the water OK? I think it is OK, but wanted to check.
Barbara Hummel	Responded Oct 11, 2011 12:28PM I think it's useful to do it both ways. When you do it right at the surface (like Misty), you're practicing the actual stroke...feeling the things you want to feel when you SWIM butterfly. When you do it under the surface, and your body is totally surrounded by water, you can sometimes get a better feel for how your body moves in the water, and how your forward progress is affected by things such as streamline, head position, hip and knee action. I usually save the under water action for limited distances and for times when I feel like I can really tune in and focus on what I'm feeling.
Sheila	Responded Oct 11, 2011 10:05PM Thanks for the comments, Barbara. I guess part of the reason I'm tending to do it much below the surface, is because I sort of feel like I need the weight of the water around me to get my body moving the right way. It's like I'm leveraging myself against it. When I'm at the surface, I don't have anything to push against. I want to "complain" that I'm too light and small, but I know that kids are even smaller and they can probably do this just fine, so there's goes that excuse. I will see about working in the surface method sometimes as well.

Please login or signup to leave a comment.

Butterfly - Head Lead Body Dolphin with Fins

Responses

The Pool

Videos-Evals

Drills

Products

Practices

More

Underwater Tag Cloud

Who is GoSwim?

Want More GoSwim?