Kicking from the knee is fine, if you do it right. if you do it wrong, it turns into a bicycle kick, which is terrible.

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In that video, watch his kick under water in slow motion, frame by frame. The one at ~18s is a good view. You will see that the kick initiates by driving his upper leg down and then the lower leg whips after it. You get into trouble when you initiate the kick by bending the knee.

Do you know any instructional materials teaching kicking this way? Looks like a good way to go for me. but sometimes kicking from knee I feel so unnatural and the next day everything is fluid and rhythmical - can't figure out what cause the problem.

Not that I'm aware of, other than making really good friends with your kickboard.

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Do some vertical kicking without sculling or fins. That will straighten (pun intended) your kick out fast.

It depends if you plan to race with wet suit. Knee focused kick would likely make you cramp in one

I've always thought of the kick as a whip-like motion initiated from the hip, traveling in a wave down the leg to the toes.

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I've never tried kicking from knee with kickboard. On Monday I start my rege week - good time to work on kick technique. Will see if I figure out proper way of kicking from knee on isolated drills.

In the first part of the video he kicks from the knee much more than the second. Don't know which method he uses when swimming distance. Two beat kick likely negates downside of kicking from the knee a fair bit vs 6 beat kick. I kick from the knee on my right side a fair bit and only started getting better after new coach for masters this year has us kicking about 40 percent of our distance. Either kicking with a board or kick based drills on our side. It is making me faster.

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Yes, that's my visualization...for this to work though, I have to lift up my entire leg behind my butt (figurative) with am glutes and hamstrings and then start the whip motion from hip through quads. At that point the tibia-foot-toe is like a paddle pushing the water backwards away from me when the whip motion finishes.

When I kick on my back, with my hands over my head, I am still confused on which part of the "kick" is the set up and which part is the power phase. Is the power phase glute and hamstring initiated downward whip or is it hip and quad initiated upward kick. But when you kick on the back, kicking just from the knee = no forward motion (for me).

the upward part is the power phase. It's especially noticeable if you do dolphin kick on your back.

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Thanks.....while this was my intuition, I can't actually know like a "normal person". Due to my disc issues, I have a really pronounced lack of control in the left glute/hamstring/calf and the "downstroke" with that leg feels the hardest out of "down or up" with either leg. It is also why I am so slow on backstroke and why my "set up" in freestyle is affected before the left leg downstroke and why I have leg spasms walking while moving my left leg behind my body. When I move both legs together there is no torsion at the disc, so the power and control is better, but nevertheless in dolphin kick I have to make sure my left leg keeps up on the upstroke with my right leg and does not come up an inch later....at Ontario Provincials, got DQ'd in the 50 fly, because my left leg was not aligned with right on first underwater dolphin kick so rest of meet I kept right big toe on top of left one to use the right one to lift the left one and not let it "lag" (oh the joys of having a disability....hopefully not permanent, let's see about that).

But glad you confirned that the upstroke is power phase for kicking on back and it's just my left leg lacking neural control that makes the downstroke "feel harder". I will think about what you said more doing backstroke. I know my left leg strength and assymetrical force application is a real limitation with backstroke. It shows up the most in that stroke

PS. (the above explanation is why I have been doing so much fly and dolphin....literally it's the only stroke where I feel least physically limited and recently I took up indoor rowing where both legs work together and I have gotten advanced enough in 6 weeks that I am putting out close to my former bike FTP wattages on the erg....now in the queue for a nerve root block injection to see if that can put me over the hump...surgeon does not want to operate on me and wants me to try that route)