Teaching Fly Kick to Young Athletes.

By John Leonard

1. Demonstration – live – with children of their own age.
   Option two – slightly older children.
   Option three – show on video.
2. Resist the temptation to talk too much.
   Show. Maybe just “keep your feet together and kick from your hips”
3. Do NOT learn to kick “on the wall”. Why?
4. Start with prone position in the water.
5. Press the chest, lift the hips.
6. At the surface first, then underwater.
7. Work on the sides. L, R, front, back.
8. 360 kick – 2-3-4 kicks in each position.
9. Provide opportunities to feel water on the whole leg, feet.
10. “Experiment” with degree of knee bend.
11. Focus athletes on kicking up and down. Importance of fly kick on the back.
12. Right from the start, concentrate on head down, back of head in line with the spine in good streamline.
13. Work on “quickness” of hips and legs. No deadspots.
14. Use fins, use small kickboards, use team kickboards. Why?\
15. Don’t START with fins. Finish with fins. Then on and off wit the fins. Alternate and go back and forth.
16. Once kick is legal, then work on increasing distance the child can dolphin kick.
17. Underwater dolphin is a hugely important skill for the advanced swimmer and requires lots of training and considerations of amplitude, etc.