Smooth Swimmin'

Just a couple quick notes to serve as a reminder to me in the future.

At masters tonight, I had one of those days where my balance is really good. (for me anyhow). I had decided that I would slow my pace down and really work on holding form as well. The longest we did was 200 and I was pleased with how I paced them.
I had a tendency to open up my kick wide when I rotate. Not necessary. Need to keep a tighter kick.
Also have to work on keeping my thumb in. I have a tendency to leave it out wide.
Need to drive my left hand further ahead and get that shoulder down, that is likely the reason I drift left. I'm not getting as deep with my left side, even when bilateral breathing.

Drills: Kick 6 and switch. When my right shoulder is up. It's not up as far as it needs to be. I'm tipped forward on my stomach on this side. Need to work on that.

Fingertip Drag: Got some good instruction on this drill. She told us to make sure we didn't drop our hand into the water until it's way out in front near the catch. By doing this it's going to make you rotate that hip in order for you to reach your hand that far out in front of you. Makes perfect sense. I got the feel for this right away. The extra bit of instruction for this drill has made this a much more effective drill for me.

Modified Catch up drill: You don't start your pull until your recovery hand is in front of your head. Basically this gets you into Front Quadrant swimming. Again, I think I have a good feel for this. At least I did tonight. I need to think about swimming this way more often, it feels much more smooth than my "normal" stroke.

Apologies for the boring post. As I said. Good reference post for me.

Oh, we did 2 starts off the blocks. 25m swim. Genine beat me both times. :-)