JasoninHalifax wrote:
Not really. it is a whip, but for a lot of folks who were taught to keep their knees straight, it isn't a bad thing to reinforce the "looseness"... think of your thigh as the "arm" in a whip motion. that's where you get all the power. if your knees are straight, that power gets lost. but if you can effectively use a knee bend and get that whip going, (with good ankle flexibility) then that puts the top of your foot into a vertical alignment that can push water backwards instead of down.
but if you tend to do a bicycle kick, ignore everything I just said....
Hmm well. I think I'm probably just going to stick with what I'm doing b/c it works and I'm not 100 percent certain I follow, but sort of.....trust me it's ME not you. I can be a moRanS with this unless it's right in front of me in person. When he started with me I didn't have a kick of any kind it was embarrassing.
Kicking was always a mystery to me until my coach told me to 'freaking relax and stop trying to confuse something simpler than a push up'. Once I relaxed it felt like walking down the street more or less, that and my ankles let go of a ton of tension and just worked great. I have pretty doggone flexible ankles now and don't need much knee bend at all to get the top of my foot oriented well.
And thanks for takign the time to explain that I really value your input on all things aqua world!