How to Swim in a Straight Line: This Drill Will Fix Your Zig-Zag Freestyle

Yes, look how much smoother already she looks folks. Way smoother. Why? Because her core is engaged. Way smoother. I can't wait for you to see the first shot and then that shot. First thing that I want her to try is head lead kicking. So when she's kicking in this drill, when she's swimming this drill, her arms will remain by her side. She's not going to use them. I'm not going to make her do this the whole way. In fact, I'm going to stop her once she gets up to the edge of the shallow end, which is where there's a line, a black line that goes across the pool. And when she breathes, I want her to roll to her back or on her side, get a quick breath and then roll back in. So it's almost like she's swimming without arms. Like a lot of you have watched the Paralympics and you've seen that one phenomenal swimmer from China win that one race without arms. He's incredible. It's easy to swim without arms if you are balanced. She's already balanced. If you're a beginner out there and you're not balanced yet, go watch one of my other beginner videos to learn how to balance yourself in water first. Arms by your side. Head's going to be in the water. You're going to be kicking. Okay. All right. Here you go. Good. No problem. We'll always stop flags. Good. So these flags are where we'll stop. If you ever notice the flags, you can stop there. Okay. All right. Nice job. Now, one of the things you might have noticed is it was kind of hard to stay in a straight line, huh? Go ahead and do the same thing back. And I want you to stretch your body out a little taller as if you're a child being measured at the doctor's office. Good. Beginners out there, make sure you get your chin up when you roll to your back like she does. Okay. And stop. Good. Now, the reason I want you stretching out in the water as tall as you can is because we're trying to see your body's height potential. A body's height potential is greater in the water than it is on land. Because when you're in water, there's almost no gravity. It's fluid and you're horizontal. So your spine can stretch longer. You can be about an inch taller in water than you can be on land. And that's important because the more you stretch your body, the more your core engages. And everybody out there who thinks or hears that they should engage their core, too many of them think that means flex their tummy. It doesn't. It doesn't mean flex here. It means stretch out there. Stretch. Reach for new height. All of a sudden, your tummy gets tight to keep it all together. And that's when it's engaged. Not when you flex it and crunch up when you stretch out. Okay, let's do this again. One more time. Back and forth. Beautiful. Good. Stop here. Good job. Great. Now, also for the beginners out there, she's dismounting no problem with fins. You're standing up in the water, no problem with fins. A lot of people out there trip when they try to stand up with fins. Notice how she twirls to her back and brings her heels down to the bottom first. It's amazing. Excellent. Good. So watch. She's going to dismount after rolling to her back here. Watch. See? She said that she learned all that from me. That's awesome. I like to hear that. That's awesome. I like how she gets to her back first and then dismounts. Awesome. You're staying in a straight line thing. It's hard when there's no line on the bottom of the pool, but it's easier if you're stretching tall. If your focus is to stretch tall, what happens is you become a tighter rope and a tight rope doesn't move side to side very easily. If your spine is too loose and you're not really standing, you're swimming as tall as you can, think about your rope being a little looser. Well, now you can jiggle the slack way more side to side. Tighten up your rope. So the taller you swim, the straighter of a line you'll swim in. Yes. Look how much smoother already she looks, folks. Way smoother. Why? Because her core is engaged. Way smoother. I can't wait for you to see the first shot and then that shot. One drill and she's already way smoother. That's because her core is engaged. So now her balance is better and her body line is better. If you need to learn more about balance and body line, like I said, go watch one of my other videos with a subscriber who's more of a beginner. You'll see me teach that in days two, three, four. Good. Excellent. If you found this video helpful, make sure you splash that like button. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for free. Become a member today. We're going to be increasing the price of the membership soon. Also, go ahead and follow us on the other social medias that are like Instagram and TikTok and all the other ones. Buy some merch. We are keeping one color each year, but every four years, as you just saw, we did our red color version. So if you missed that, sorry, you're gonna have to wait till the LA Olympics in 2028. With that said, thanks for watching. I'm Johnny Rocket and let's get swimming.