That's why I gave up swimming as cardio.
Any other exercise when you get tired you can slow down, take a few deep breaths (or quick pants) and continue.
With swimming when you get fatigued you miss a breath on a stroke, which makes it worse, and then you are freaking drowning.
No thanks.
There's a kind of trick to the kicking-vertically-in-place drill, especially when doing dolphin or breaststroke kick. You have to anticipate the slow bob (think of your head's elevation relative to the water as a curve, with the waterline being midway betwixt the apex and nadir - your head will be below the water half the time). Then you time your breathing such that you inhale only at the apex, exhaling slowly the rest of the cycle. Further, every cycle is two dolphin (or one breastroke) kicks, the second more powerful than the first. Thus, the cycle goes: sink, smaller dolphin kick (which slows the descent), (at the nadir) big dolphin kick (which propels one's head above water, breathe, repeat. Or more simply: kick-KICK-breathe. This kicks should eventually be done fast enough that you'll breathe every four kicks.
Trickery will get you nowhere with the Swede, phred. When she does the butterfly-in-place, her head is out of the water and still the entire time--under the water, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, go her legs. It's a bit of a different activity than the regular butterfly, which is as you describe it. She's trying to get me used to the whole-body-undulating feeling that the proper kick requires.
Tripp, I used to feel the same way, and when I was panting and the Swede would say, "Ok, 50 meter warm-down...," I thought she was trying to kill me. Then I realized that floating, and what my arms are doing, are two separate activities, and that the very most important thing is to learn to just float. Once you get that, you can stroke as slowly, and breathe as long, as you need to.
Wait... the propulsion force of a dolphin kick most definitely follows a sine wave (though never negative, of course - that only happens in the vertical drill), and would require (ceteris paribus) that one's head bob. Unless one moves ones hips and legs at one continuous speed. Is that the drill? you, like, do a slow back-and-forth, really just mimicking the dolphin kick? If yes, my mental image of it starts to look pretty sexual.
Do you ever do the dolphin kick on your side drill? That allows for exaggerated movement, too.
You think your image is sexual now, try watching the Swede demonstrate it. Yeesh. But yes, that's it.
On the side: tried it, kept running into the lane line.
try watching the Swede demonstrate it.
Heh heh. Reminds me of the time in charades when my game partner was pantamiming something very alluring and, doggone it, I just couldn't seem to guess the movie.
For the life of me I can't remember the movie, but to this day I remember how she looked.