How To Swim Butterfly: Hip-Delay Butterfly

Hip-Delay Butterfly is the next drill in the learn how to swim butterfly drill progression. It teaches the movements and the timing for the recovery of the arms above the water in the butterfly stroke. It follows the Stonekipper swimming drill.

You will have pretty much learned all the skills needed to swim butterfly once you have mastered this swimming drill.

Swimming Drill Video

The following video shows the drill.

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Push off the wall in a prone position, with arms extended to the front, hands shoulder width apart, palms down and the head aligned with the spine.
Execute two hand-lead body dolphins.
At the end of the second body dolphin, slide the arms to the corners, catch, pull and push the arms underwater as described in the Stoneskipper swimming drill.
When the arms are at the sides of the body with the palms up, the body will typically have sunk a few inches below the surface. Execute a few (typically 2-3) head-lead body dolphins so that the body can come back up at the water surface.
When the shoulders clear the water at the end of the head-lead body dolphins, recover the arms. Hover them a few inches above the water surface and rotate the shoulders so that when the arms arrive at their initial position, extended to the front, they fall in the water with the palms down.
Restart the cycle.

Be patient with the recovery: it takes some practice to find the right moment when the shoulders clear the water to recover the arms. Typically this is right after the head and chest have been released to the water surface after a pulse.
At the beginning it will take a few body dolphins before the shoulders clear the water and you can recover the arms. When the drill becomes easier, try to target two hand-lead body dolphins before the recovery.
To reduce the number of head-lead body dolphins needed for the shoulders to clear the water, avoid crashing to deep with the chest in the water after the arms have finished the underwater push phase.
Don't try to recover when your shoulders are still under water. The viscosity of the water won't allow this.
Fit in breathing when the arms start to pull underwater, as explained in Stoneskipper.
Recover the arms in a relaxed fashion. In fact you should be able to do the whole drill in a relaxed fashion.

If you still have trouble recovering the arms, it may be that the arms are to close to the sides of the body at the end of the arms' under water push phase. If that's the case, aim to finish the keyhole shape the hands trace in the water with the arms at the sides and about one foot away from the body.
When you do this drill (and when you swim butterfly), try to always keep your body undulations close to the water surface. The deeper you go, the higher you will need to rise out of the water to recover the arms, which can quickly become tiring.