I have always found one arm drills to be effective in feeling that sensation. Stroke stroke breathe repeat. One side up and other side back. It really improved my catch and is one of the key drills of Slowman's guppy challenge. That's my nickel's worth of advice.

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A false humanity is used to impose its opposite, by people whose cruelty is equalled only by their arrogance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KReTEXiBM

That analogy never clicked for me. I only started figuring out what to do with my arm, when I figured out what to do with my shoulder. If you have Sheila Taormina's book (Swim Speed Secrets), it explains the role of medial rotation. The best I can explain it is you rotate the shoulder in and up in initiating the catch after extension. Again, understanding and focusing on this is what clicked for me and helped not only with arms but also to use bigger muscles in the back and lats when pulling. I also realized how much more flexibility I needed in my shoulder area.

I recently noticed in this video of Clayton Fettell swimming that the the first movement after extension and to initiate the catch comes from the shoulder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5vkQfkhVrc

Have a look at this too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTQpF_mmg44

Cool, I'll check out some of those videos shortly. When I swim, I feel my catch and pull resembles Grant Hacketts which for me doesn't seem like his arms are going over a round barrel. It's like his arm bends at right angles from the elbow, no roundness...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6qIhkuzTx0

Using your analogy and the Swiss ball: reach over the ball with palm facing ball, as closely as you can without making contact with the ball. This is like slicing hand through water into catch position. Once over the ball, make contact and pull the ball towards you. That's your catch - when you make contact and put pressure against the water. Maybe that will clarify the analogy? If you are not used to swimming with EVF and have tendency to over reach or drop elbow, then your corrections should feel 'too deep'.

In the Tower26 podcasts Gerry Rodriguez discusses the EVF and actually what's really important is that you maintain your elbow above your wrist. I'm not a great swimmer, but he talks about why an EVF for your average triathlete is very hard to achieve. It made a lot of sense when listening to it. Actually the thing that has helped me the most in the podcast series so far was the simple saying of 'grip it then rip it' which from memory he got from Luke Bell, who in turn I think got it from someone else. I took from that to stop trying to get overly technical, focus on some simple basics and just grip it then rip it over and over again as much as possible as fast as possible.

Swim a lap to get in and get wet, then hang your arm over a lane rope. Bend it at the elbow, upper arm flat with the water surface, forearm pointing down at the bottom of the pool. That's the feeling you're looking for. Repeat other side. Now the feeling is fresh in your head, swim. Do this every practice until you've got it.

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Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

I agree with this.

Coaches make too much out of trying to conceptualize and mimic an EVF, without realizing that there is NO way to do a great EVF (like the pros) without the arm power and endurance to maintain it.

When you see swimmers with dropped elbows that slip in the water, it is NOT because they are just 'doing it wrong' - it's because they simply don't have the arm power to maintain a good EVF and thus their body naturally seeks out motion that reduces the resistance to their arm as they execute the pull.

This is probably THE most critical aspect of EVF (having the power to actually execute it), far, far and above the knowledge of what it 'should' look like, and is the dominant reason why countless frustrated triathletes mistakenly believe they can just practice the EVF motion with a ball on land and then wonder why it doesn't ever look like that the moment they're in the water.

In fact, if you look at fast-improving youth swimmers that haven't even had any real swim coaching on technique, you'll notice that they naturally adopt better and better EVF as they get faster and faster, even without a coach selectively fixing their form. Same thing happened to me - I don't have remotely a 'pro' EVF, but my EVF is much, much better now at 1:20-5 swim paces than it was at 1:50-2:00 swim paces, and it has nothing to do with me doing any special technique practice. I'd actually say the technical practice (stuff like moving the arm over the ball on ground and using a resistance band on land as a lot of videos show) were completely useless in comparison to actually swimming a lot more, harder, in terms of improving EVF.

I definitely am moving differently through the water, not sure if this would be normal, but my arms, lats, upper shoulders, deltoids etc are all sore. Normally they wouldn't be. I could swim 5kms without getting muscle sore. I swam 4 on friday and then swam yesterday and couldn't make it past 300m with the paddles, because of the soreness in my lats. Good soreness though not injury soreness. I'm going to do a 1km TT soon, as it will be good to compare to a few months ago when I did 13.59. I was swim fit then, whereas now I'm not so much because of a 3 month injury lay off. I've been back swimming a few weeks, but I was doing 4 x 100 as part of my cool down, nice and easy working on my technique and was coming in on 1.22, 1.23/100m, felt like I was swimming 1.40s! So although nowhere near as swimfit as I was, I wouldn't be surprised if I went a fair bit quicker than 13.59. If I got low 13s I'd definitely feel as though I've had a breakthrough with my technique, but I'll reserve judgement until I've done my 1km TT :)