OW essential Skills for beginners: Turns

So, you’ve mastered sighting, now you need to run around buoys efficiently.

  1. The surf turn: keeping your leading arm (arm nearest the buoy) stretched out, use your outside arm to paddle in short choppy strokes as you turn. You may find it easiest to keep your head lifted as you do this, or you can breathe to the buoy side only - breathing into the buoy helps lead the body round the turn.

  2. Normal swim with wider outside arm pull: swim as normal, breathing only towards the buoy on the approach and the turn. As you turn, pull the outside arm wider than normal and push your hand slightly outwards.

  3. Corkscrew roll: work up to this one in steps….

    1. while swimming in a straight line roll from front to back, take a stroke or two and then back to front - keep your hips up and chin back

    2. practice a complete 360° roll while swimming in a straight line

    3. then try it around a buoy - as your leading arm shoulder slide past the buoy initiate the turn, keep it smooth, hips up and chin back.

  4. Practice all methods as you never know how the conditions in a swim or race may necessitate a change from your normal preference. Start your practices slowly and simply and build complexity and speed as you improve.

  5. ALWAYS - sight off the tun. This means that your first or second stroke after the turn should be a sighting stroke to check where your next turn or obstacle is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgngvnCU4-E&list=PLLx09vSRB32csBaHi48LTUKYavioR4yCJ&index=6&t=0s

Alice Barnes