Butterfly is a difficult skill. Often swimmers have learned the other 3 competitive strokes before they attempt to learn butterfly.
Important Points for Teaching Butterfly
- Build the stroke
- Like any stroke taught drills and skills are a building block process.
- Start small – break the stroke down into smaller achievable skills.
- Make sure the student has mastered each skill before progressing
- Ensure swimmer can do each skill consistently before moving on
- Teach slowly
- Learning slowly can be frustrating but is well worth the wait as skills are usually good quality if learned slowly and perfected.
- Insist on perfection
- Give feedback on strokes and drills from the beginning. It’s easy to correct any mistakes early on before muscular patterns have been established.
- Perfect practice makes perfect.
- Don’t start teaching butterfly until swimmer is proficient at other strokes- There are many other areas of swimming that can be practiced and perfected before moving on to butterfly
- Butterfly is a tricky stroke to master
Patience is Key
Both instructors and swimmers should be patient. Don’t rush the process. Slow and steady perfection of each skill will result in great butterfly stroke.
We would love to hear your swimming success stories as the result of hard work and persistence. Please share in the comments section below.