**Step #1:  Butterfly Body Position**
Step #1 in teaching any stroke is to teach correct body position.

For butterfly, this means teaching the Butterfly Float – the position you’re in when the arms enter the water.

I want the swimmer’s arms to be straight and positioned directly in front of the shoulders or just a little wider.

If you’re in the water, you can push against the outside of the elbows to straighten the arms.  

Notice how I flatten her hands and position them to float on the surface.  I pitch the thumb side down and turn the hand out just a bit.  

I also position her arms higher than her ears, and position her head in neutral so that she’s looking straight down without tucking her chin.

I go under water to check the position of her chin.  If it’s tucked down, I re-position her head.

Here’s what the swimmer sees in the mirror.

If she’s looking straight down at the mirror, which is where she should be looking, she’ll see that her arms are straight and forward…just outside her shoulders.

She can see her palms in the mirror…they’re almost flat, with the thumb side of the hand pitched down a little.

The fingers are pointed straight ahead or just a little outward.

And, she can see her ears.

Her legs are straight and together.  You can help the swimmer point the toes and then give them a push.

I tell her that when she first learns butterfly arms, she’ll pause in this position after every recovery.


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Butterfly Body Position