Breaststroke in ASA stage 4

[Faz2015]

Hi all...

My dd has been an enthusiastic swimmer from a young age. She was moved upto stage 4 - year and half ago and can do all of the stokes very well( even teacher says so) and she is ready for stage 5. But the teacher won't move her to stage 5 because during breast stroke her toes don't point towards her shins properly. My poor dd practices the storke alot and we just did a week of crash course but she can't seem to bend her toes outward enough( she is only 6). My question is, is this issue a development thing or can she improve with more practice? My dd is getting very demotivated by the toe pointing issue... not sure what I can do to help.

Depends what you want from the lessons. My sons were at a swim school where they reached a barrier because of butterfly. It was taught badly and no one could progress beyond a certain stage because of it.

I couldn't care less about the butterfly (I'm an ex competitive swimmer who struggled with it) so I moved them to a swim school where the emphasis is on fun over form. Quite a few of the other parents have done the same.

It's different if your goal is serious swimming, but for my sons I just wanted strength and stamina so they can move onto surfing and rowing with water confidence. Our first swim school fed into a serious swim squad so the approach made sense to me (even if the butterfly coaching was a bit dodgy!)

I want her to have fun and stay motivated... but at the rate we are going she will hate it... I want her to enjoy swimming and be a confident swimmer... she can choose if she wants to take it further once she is older..

If the swim school feeds into a swim squad, they really will want to get it sorted out now. DS spent 15 months getting his breast stroke "legal" for competition, even now it's noticeably his weakest stroke.

I don't think it really needs to be perfect to go up to stage 5, just reasonable. Another swim school would probably agree to assess her and let you know where they would place her.

My dd had to be untaught breaststroke by her competitive swimming squad, she was taught it so poorly by the swim school.

Really, how important are badges and moving groups to you? Really, really consider it. My DC3 was soley taught to swim by our club (because swim school has made such a poor job with DC1 and DC2). He never earns badges. He doesn't jump through levels . They don't teach like that. He's just taught to swim and to enjoy it. No more, no less.

So consider. So what if she doesn't get the badge for another 6 months?
So what if she doesn't move up?
What if she doesn't master her breastoke for ages? Surely she is still developing her skills and water confidence. Maybe when she does crack her screw kick, she'll be already awesome in the other stones so will be much more confident in the next group.

Getting a badge and moving to another group shouldn't be the goal here.

Some children spend a long time in one stage and the. Fly through the next. Dd flew through the stages and then spent ages in her current stage, stage 5 because she needs to develop speed and stamina. Sometimes young children who fly preciously through the stages slow down later.

With breaststroke I suggest you get your daughter to practice the leg movement in land. My children learnt the movement by saying "penguin" (feet turned out), "diamond" (knees bent), "crocodile" (straight legs)' "snap" (legs together). There are some YouTube videos that show how breaststroke legs should be.

Sometimes swimming progress does plateau and at other times they make progress more rapidly.

Compared to ours they are being very detailed. I don't recall ours being that picky when they went stage 4 to 5. As long as they mastered the basics they seemed to go up. Night necessarily the best thing though

Dd's swim school is very picky about breaststroke. She is one of the youngest in her stage 5 class at the age of seven because our swim school insists on other outcomes. Stage 4 is not a universal standard.

I will practice her stroke at home... and let her learn the strokes properly in class... it's better to learn properly first than to unlearn x