Hello, this is the consultation. Today, for those who are still struggling with their kicks, I will share all the detailed and really easy tips that I usually provide during personal lessons. These tips will be helpful for everyone. 

First, the first tip is that while your legs are excellent at kicking, you need to use your core effectively when responding. We talk a lot about the core, but what does that mean? It means that while lying comfortably, you will now practice kicking. For those watching from bed, please try this along with me. Place your hands on your lower abdomen and lift it up. When you do this, your core engages. You need to use your core firmly while lifting. 

When you lie down, your upper body will rise, but your legs will sink. Your face won't sink because you have lungs. From here, while using your core, kick upwards.

Lifting your feet means that when I lift my feet, my whole body floats. Usually, what makes it difficult for us when we swim on our backs is ourselves. We just need to relax and float, but we try too hard to lift our bodies. We either puff out our chests or suck in our bellies. What happens to our face? It sinks back, right? If that happens, only your face will go under, and then water will fill your nose and mouth. There’s no need to forcefully lift yourself. Just lie still, and your body will float with the kicking of your legs. Now, let’s watch the video. As I mentioned, just lie down and let your legs sink. From there, gently lift them little by little until your toes touch the surface of the water. When you go swimming freely, try to relax and think of lifting your feet little by little.

Look, when my feet lift, my whole body lifts as well. It's simple, right? Now, the second tip is to just look up. Many instructors aren't sure how to direct the gaze, but they often say to look slightly down from above. When you do that, your chin gets pulled in. For beginners, when they first try backstroke, they already feel scared and anxious, and then being told to look slightly down makes their chin pull in even more, causing the water to keep splashing into their mouths. Don't think of it as difficult; just look comfortably up. Don't look down from above; that's all wrong. Just look comfortably up. Now, let’s take a look at the chin. If the chin is pulled in like this, and you swim while looking slightly down from above, your mouth gets pulled towards the water, and you'll keep swallowing it. You shouldn't be looking there. This is something that even advanced swimmers need to be aware of.

There are really many people who do it this way. If I have speed, it doesn't matter, but when people who don't have speed do this, they keep going up and down repeatedly. I always tell my members not to pull their chins in. Just look up comfortably. Why pull your chin in? If you look up, you can do it comfortably. Later, we will deal with advanced techniques, but this applies to both beginners and advanced. Just look up. Pulling your chin in is something you do during a sprint; we just need to look up and do it comfortably. The third tip is to lift your arms and lower them to the side. Basically, we do arm rotations for the technique, but forget about that. Just lift your arms up, right above your shoulders. That's all you need to do. What I dislike the most is when people brush against the back while moving. If that happens, what will happen?

When you brush past, your arm goes back like this. It shouldn't go back; it should come to the side. You need to hold it as it is and place it above, using your pinky finger to enter the water. Then, the important thing here is that you shouldn't rotate. The breaststroke should come to the side. You should lift it to the side and lower your pinky finger. Just lower it to the side. I really dislike this breaststroke technique. There are so many people who do it like this. They keep pushing their hands back, trying to lift themselves up. When you do this, you end up bobbing up and down. The reason this shouldn't be done is that if your hands keep pushing back like this, your shoulders will go back, and your range of motion will be pulled back. This is when shoulder injuries happen the most. You absolutely should not do this. First of all, the breaststroke has some basic principles that must be followed.

What I mean is, look at what I'm doing. The body moves steadily, without any up and down motion. It just floats steadily, and that's the best way to do it. You can see that the hands are moving sideways, pulling in that direction. You need to bring it in like this; there's no need to go further back. Just bring it in sideways. I mentioned earlier not to bring it in too close to the ear. If you touch the ear, even if you think you're keeping it straight, the hand will keep going back. There's no need to keep brushing against the ear. Just place it comfortably on your shoulder and lower it sideways slowly. You can see that it's just resting comfortably on the shoulder; there's no need to touch the ear. Just keep it comfortably above. Everyone has different ranges of motion, and some may be older, but if you feel comfortable, that's the best posture. Raise it and lower it. Now, the last tip is really the most important one.

Pull slowly. I mentioned earlier to pull sideways, right? Oh, teacher, I'm going sideways, but it keeps going zigzag. The reason for that is to go straight, and now we're going to pull sideways. From 12 o'clock, like this, to 3 o'clock, where are we going? The water goes sideways, sideways. And from 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock, we go backward. Oh, teacher, for those who say they are going sideways, how do we pull? The moment your hand touches the water, you need to exert force from here. Then go sideways, go sideways. Here, you should completely relax and pull back. The force is used here. Slowly, quickly pull back, and then slowly extend like this, and it will go straight. Now, let's see what happens when it doesn't work. The moment your hand touches the water, you exert force. If you do this, the rain keeps colliding and sticking together. Now, if you look...

As you exert force from above, you can see that you are moving in a zigzag pattern. This is how you continue to move sideways. Now, even when your hand touches the water, just let it go down slowly. Even if it touches, just let it go down slowly. Pay attention to when you use your strength. Look, at the very end, when you bring it back, just give it a gentle push. It's not about using a lot of strength at the end; it's just a slow, gentle push at the end. In my opinion, the basic swimming style is the easiest. All the actions you take to try to swim better or to float better only make it harder for you. Pulling harder, kicking stronger—these actions only make it more difficult for yourself. The comfortable swimming technique, the elegant style, is the one that performs the best. I hope you think about the tips I've shared today and enjoy your swimming!

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