When your swimmer can do a perfect butterfly float.  And when they can do arms that swing around and go back to the float position.  And when they can move up and down through the water by pressing and releasing the chest, then we put the arms and the body dolphin together.

I do this in two different ways.  

First, we start with a separation drill.  We tell the swimmer to Float…

…then Diamond…Angel…Float…and do a Body Dolphin with arms in front.  

Then we have them float and start all over again:  Float…Diamond…Angel…Float…followed by a Body Dolphin with arms in front.

The next step is to speed it up.  Start each cycle in a float, but don’t hold the float quite so long.

Sometimes you speed things up and you get a good butterfly right away because the better athletes go:  Float…Diamond…Angel…and then they go, well, why not do it right now?   And they lift their hips up right away when they get back to the Float position.  

Other kids get back to Float and they stop, so you might put fins on them to speed things up, and this is just one of the ways you can use tools to help the teaching process.


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Butterfly - Full-Stroke Timing