All about open turns

For some of you, this is something you can do in your sleep.  For others, this is a whole new ball game we're talking about here.  The majority of y'all probably fall somewhere in between the two extremes.  This post is aimed at all but that first category.

As a swimmer, there are only two categories of turns we need to worry about, open turns and flip turns.  Y'all all know what a flip turn is, since I'm pretty sure I've seen everyone do at least one in practice, either on your own or during the flip turn clinic we had a few weeks ago.  An open turn, if you're not familiar with the terminology, is simply any turn that isn't a flip turn.  You can only do a legal flip turn in backstroke and freestyle.  Here's a list of all the possible transitions on the wall and what type of turn is legal:

• Butterfly to butterfly: You can only do an open turn
• Butterfly to backstroke: You can only do an open turn
• Backstroke to backstroke: You can do either a flip turn or an open turn
• Backstroke to breaststroke: You can only do an open turn
• Breaststroke to breaststroke: You can only do an open turn
• Breaststroke to freestyle: You can only do an open turn
• Freestyle to freestyle: You can do either a flip turn or an open turn

So, now that we know what category of turns are legal for each transition on the wall, what does that actually mean when we're making those transitions?

Here's a quick primer (I'll go into detail further down the post):

Butterfly and breastroke turns: If both arms are moving at the same time, then both hands have to touch the wall at the same time.  You can stagger your hands with one higher than the other, or have them touch at the same level, but the have to touch at the same time.  You come into the wall on your stomach and leave the wall on your stomach (more detail on that in a bit).  No flipping over onto your back, no one hand touches.

Freestyle and backstroke turns: If you're not doing a flip turn, then you do a one hand touch when you aren't swimming a stroke that moves both arms at the same time.  In backstroke, you come into the wall on your back and leave on your back.  For freestyle, come into and leave the wall on your stomach.  No two hand touches on back and no flipping over onto your stomach unless you're doing a flip turn.

All right, so now that we have the basics down, how about some more detail on the turns?  I'll cover each open turn--for the purposes of this post, I'm assuming everyone is doing free/back flip turns, so I will only cover the turns for fly, back-breast, and breast.

Fly to fly

1. On your last stroke coming into the wall, make sure that both hands touch at the same time.  One hand can be higher than the other, but no matter their placement on the wall, both must touch at the same time.  
2. As soon as both have made contact, whip your legs up towards your chest, curling into a ball.  
3. As you draw your legs up, drop one arm back behind you in the water.  
4. Whichever arm you drop, turn to that side as your legs continue to make progress towards the wall.  By the time your feet hit the wall, you want to be turned over almost vertical on whichever side you turned to.  (I drop my left arm and rotate to my left side when I do open turns)
5. As your feet make contact, let go with the top arm and  extend into streamline.  
6. When you start to push off the wall, you want to be vertical on your side in streamline position.
7. From your side, take at least 3-5 dolphin kicks to rotate to your stomach and take the breakout stroke.

Check out this video for a look at the turn in practice, and see if you can follow each step in the turn.

Fly to back

1. On your last stroke coming into the wall, make sure that both hands touch at the same time.  One hand can be higher than the other, but no matter their placement on the wall, both must touch at the same time.  
2. As soon as both have made contact, whip your legs up towards your chest, curling into a ball.  
3. As you draw your legs up, drop one arm back behind you in the water.  
4. Whichever arm you drop, turn towards that side as your legs continue to travel towards the wall.  Unlike the fly to fly turn, though, you don't want to turn vertical on your side.
5. By the time your feet make contact with the wall, you want to still be mostly on your back, with one arm extended out towards streamline position.
6. As your feet make contact, let go with that top hand and extend into streamline, still being either flat on your back, or mostly flat on your back.
7. As you push off the wall, take at least 3-5 dolphin kicks to work your way to the surface before switching to flutter kicks and starting the pull.

Check out this video for a look at the fly to back turn in action, and see if you can follow each step in the turn (just the first :25 or so of the video, don't worry about the rest of it).

Back to breast

1. On your last stroke coming into the wall, rotate towards your side.  Make sure you do not pass the vertical position on your side leaning towards your stomach.
2. As soon as your hand makes contact, curl your legs up towards your chest and rotate them sideways towards the wall.
3. As your legs near the wall, start extending the bottom arm out towards streamline position.
4. When you feet make contact, extend the top arm into streamline position as you start to push off the wall on your side.
5. As you push off the wall, rotate from your side onto your stomach and do the breaststroke underwater pullout of one full pull and one kick.
6. You should extend up to the surface with that kick and arms recovery from the underwater pullout; once up, proceed to swim breaststroke like normal.

Check out this video for a look at the basic back to breast turn in action, and see if you can follow each step in the turn.

Breast to breast and breast to free

1. On your last stroke coming into the wall, make sure that both hands touch at the same time. One hand can be higher than the other, but no matter their placement on the wall, both must touch at the same time.  
2. As soon as both have made contact, whip your legs up towards your chest, curling into a ball.  
3. As you draw your legs up, drop one arm back behind you in the water.  
4. Whichever arm you drop, turn to that side as your legs continue to make progress towards the wall.  By the time your feet hit the wall, you want to be turned over almost vertical on whichever side you turned to. 
5. As your feet make contact, let go with the top arm and  extend into streamline.  
6. When you start to push off the wall, you want to be vertical on your side in streamline position.
7. On breast to breast, from your side, rotate from your side onto your stomach and do the breaststroke underwater pullout of one full pull and one kick to the surface.
8. On breast to free, from your side, take at least 3-5 dolphin kicks to rotate to your stomach and initiate the first stroke.

Check out these two videos for the two turns and see if you can follow each step in the turns (first video is breast to breast and the second is breast to free).