Nearly every movement that the human arms and legs make are made in 1-1 timing. When walking down the street you might have noticed how the arms swing in a natural rhythm with the pace of the walk. As you break into a jog, the arms begin to move faster to maintain the rhythm. And if you were to break into a full sprint, the arms would pump faster and faster to keep the 1-1 timing so natural to the body. World class sprinters are taught to use this instinct.

Swimming, on the other hand, is done in 1-6 timing. The feet maintain a six beat kick for every arm cycle. This is an extraordinarily difficult movement (try moving one set of fingers short and fast....while moving the fingers on the other hand six times slower). It's nearly impossible to teach this timing at the conscious level....so, we don't try.

The KIDS FIRST/Kick First Learn to Swim System TM requires the student to train one set of muscles (the feet and legs) to move at a short fast rate of speed before we begin training the other major set of muscles (the hands and arms). By isolating and training the feet and legs first, we can ingrain the proper movement before establishing the arms in the stroke. It's much easier this way. The training is occuring at the subconscious level.

When you see your kids "kick, kick, kicking"....please understand what we are teaching. Our kids need to learn to kick themselves across the pool with a short efficient kick before we attempt to establish the arms. To do otherwise literally goes against all our basic human instincts!