learn how to swim butterfly style

I spent a few laps today at Masters Swim class doing the dolphin kick underwater for as long as I could, then coming up for air and proceeding with the butterfly. It’s still totally exhausting (I have to catch my breath after each length) but I feel like I’m getting somewhere. There are moments – a stroke or two – where I feel like I’m in a groove. Then is quickly disappears. But I am making progress and I feel like it’s only a matter of time before my butterfly is both ‘buttah’ and ‘fly’.

Butterfly … I await thee with goggled eyes and a pure heart.

I’m trying to get back on track with masters swimming. Sunny weather and Maktub album work is eating up my mornings at times, but still my biggest swimming draw is the butterfly. I’ve yet to capture the rolling movement of a good butterfly stroke. In all my practicing there have been a few moments for perhaps 2 strokes where it feels right—otherwise I think I’m getting my kick and pull happening at the same time and they’re kind of contradicting each other.

If you’re an expert butterfly swimmer, I’d love to hear about any breakthroughs you had when learning the stroke. Advice is cool, but from what I can tell there’s enough going on in the butterfly stroke that at some point you need to just figure it out on your own. Butterfly stories, analogies, eurekas are appreciated!

My instructor tells me I can do this in weeks. I’m giving myself a year to complete it as it looks hard as hell to do when I watch people swimming the butterfly. Who invented the butterfly? It’s a crazy looking stroke!