Teaching a Child the Backstroke in Swimming

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Samantha with Sharks and Minnows Swim School and I want to demonstrate the basics of the backstroke. First you want to make sure that you’re comfortable floating on your back and everything with backstroke and floating is about body position. So you want to make sure that your head is back, that your back is arched and that your toes are down in the water, just like this. You want to lean back slowly until you feel your body start to float up. If you’re having trouble with your feet sinking you want to balance out your center of buoyancy with your arms. So when you put your head back if you feel your feet sinking just slowly raise your arms above your head like this. Once my arms are above my head you’ll start to see my feet rising. When you’re comfortable floating then you can go ahead and add a glide. So for the glide you want to push off the wall with your feet and you want to make sure that it’s a slow and fluid motion. Like this, head back, slowly let go and then gently push off with your feet. Like the freestyle or the front crawl, backstroke also uses a flutter kick. So a flutter kick is an alternating kick motion with floppy feet, your feet just under the surface of the water. Once you’re comfortable with the glide go ahead and add the kick. So again, head back, push off gently and then one foot at a time right under the surface of the water. The more floppier feet the more successful you’ll be at moving through the water. Once you’re kicking now you might want to add your arms. For the backstroke you’re going to do an alternating arm motion and you’re going to start with your arms down by your side. You want to slowly bring one arm up out of the water with your thumb coming out first right next to your ear and then flip and have your pinkie enter the water. So again, thumb out, flip and pinkie in. Once your pinkie is in the water you want to pull the water down to your feet. You can think of like pulling a string, so thumb out, flip, pinkie in and then pull the string all the way down to your feet. So once you’re ready to put it all together we’re going to push off the wall, float first, start your flutter kick and then start moving your arms just like this. Thumb out, flip, pinkie in and pull the string, thumb out, flip, pinkie in and pull the string.

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