Butterfly hand movement

Hey people, and welcome back to another one of my swimming blogs. As usual, we're going to continue on this week's topic; the butterfly style. But this time, we're going to talk about the hand movement in butterfly. Now even though I personally had a rough history with the butterfly style (as mentioned in my previous post, if you read it), ESPECIALLY with the hands, I'm going to try my best to teach you how to perform the hand movement.

As usual, here's the link for the swimming tutorial video. And, as usual, I suggest you to watch it if you want to make sense of the rest of the blog starting from the next paragraph, but then again, you're also free to just read the post without watching the video beforehand/while reading this post, but you may not understand the post as well as those other people out there who DO watch the video, since the video is to be used in combination with the post. Just saying.

And so, as shown in the video, imagine your body as a boat. Now, imagine your arms as the paddles that row the boat and propel it forward. That's just how important your hands are to the butterfly style. It's your main source of propulsion through the water (of course, there's the feet, but they don't push you forward with as much strength as the hands do).

When swimming butterfly, here's a basic step-by-step guide to moving your hands through the water (note: this is how I TRY to perform the hand movement according to instructions from my trainer, and you know that my skill in butterfly is as skillful as a cat trying to scuba dive. Then again, it's better than nothing, but don't count on it too much)

JASON'S (AS FAR AS HE UNDERSTANDS) BASIC GUIDE TO PERFORMING THE HAND MOVEMENT IN THE BUTTERFLY STYLE

1. “Pull” your hands in such a way that makes a “keyhole” shape (at least that's what the coach told me) into your chest area.
2. Straighten your arms from its bended position on your chest and pull it to the back until it reaches the water's surface.
3. Now, with your arms straightened out and on the surface of the water, make your arms soar through the air back to its original position (AKA the hand position in step 1). Note that this step was the most difficult for me to attempt, and probably will be for you too. Then again, maybe it's just me. Basically, I hope that you didn't have the same hardships as I did while attempting this step.
4. Go back to step 1 and repeat over and over until you are prompted to stop either by the trainer (in swimming practice) or the finish line (in competitions).

And voilà! You now officially know how to perform the hand movement for the butterfly style! I probably should have told you this earlier, but remember when I said that my “guide to performing the butterfly hand movement” wasn't very reliable? You can take the trust in the guide up a notch or two, because it's supported by the video that is about the same topic.

So that's another post about swimming done. Join me next time for more tips on how to swim. But until then, goodbye and see you until the next post!