Poll: Where were you (first) introduced to the frog kick (mastery not required)?

[Rick Murchison]

I've been doing the frog kick since I was a kid - but I canNOT do it with my gear and fins on!! Mental block? Maybe it's not really the same kick?

Many swimmers think they're frog kicking when they're actually scissor kicking. Don't know if that's the problem without seeing your swimming kick.
What this thread needs is video! Perhaps I'll tackle that project after I get back from the Wildflower Pilgrimage.
Rick

 

[vladimir]

assume that if you were introduced to the frog kick (note: introduced to, not mastered) then you were also introduced to paddle kicks, helicopter turns, back kicks, horizontal trim and good buoyancy control.

I was introduced to the frog kick when I learned to swim breaststroke, so that's not the safest assumption. I would assume most people learn breaststroke long before they learn to scuba dive, as I did, but maybe that's not a safe assumption either.

As an element of scuba diving, my YMCA instructor recommended frog kick and dolphin kick as the most efficient options for underwater propulsion, during the skin-diving-skills portion of the course. But no helicopter turns or back-kicks.

To a skilled swimmer who is neutrally buoyant and moving slowly while diving, the frog kick seems to be the natural default. It was for me, without any thought at all.

I voted Basic Open Water.

 

[CT Sean]

I answered 'self-taught/YouTube' but I never sought out YT to learn what I consider to be a frog-kick. It was the 'self-taught' bit I wanted. I also don't recall ever consciously deciding to do frog kicks.

Same here - I frog-kicked as a snorkeller long before I got certified. At the time I seem to think it seemed like a good alternative to flutter kicking when my legs tired a bit. I didn't even know it was a thing at the time

 

[Crush]

It is not possible to assume that this poll is representative of the diving community. However, isn't it strange that 30% of respondents indicate that they learned the Frog Kick from YouTube or were self-taught 23% indicate learning by "other" and only 16% indicate that they learned in basic OW? This sort of puts things in perspective. Now more than before it seems to me to be unfair to criticize divers who silt up bodies of water if they simply don't know any non-silting kicks...

 

[Quero]

Crush, you're forgetting the role that poor trim plays in silting.

I don't teach non-silting kicks in OW courses as such. I may teach a frog kick to a student who persists in bicycle kicking, but generally most divers slip straight into flutter kicks as a carry over from their normal surface swimming style (most people swim freestyle/crawl). In addition, most new divers are way above the bottom, partly because they are not used to the magnification effect of water and think they're a lot closer, but also because they don't want to crash into things. But even if they're pretty far above the reef with their upper bodies, if they are out of trim with legs dangling down and flap their feet in flutter kicks, they'll silt the place up! So I don't worry too much about non-silting kicks in OW courses--I focus much more on non-silting trim! Even a non-silting frog kick will lift sediment from the sea floor if the diver is leg down rather than horizontal in the water.

 

[Hawkwood]

Just out of curiosity, do we all think the same thing when we are talking about the "frog kick"? I have a suspicion some of us are talking two different things.

Bill

 

[Quero]

Bill, what two things? Can you describe the differences between these two? Somebody else earlier in the thread said that the kick used with breast stroke is not a frog kick; is that what you mean? And Ricky said he thinks people may be confusing scissors and frog kicks; is that what you mean? I'm really curious about this. My frog kick was evaluated during my IANTD courses and seemingly was okay since I didn't get corrected, but who knows if it would pass muster with the DIR crowd? (I don't think I "clench" for example.) Really, really curious....

 

[Crush]

Crush, you're forgetting the role that poor trim plays in silting.

I am not forgetting it, I am simplifying the discussion. I have yet to see someone do a great frog kick with poor trim. My first post in this thread indicated that I am using the frog kick as an example of a range of kicks.

 

[Hawkwood]

Quero,
My wife swims underwater using what I would consider a "classic" frog kick, just like one would do swimming at the surface (breast stroke? I'm not a swimmer).

I swim wiith knees bent up at 90 degrees so I can skim the bottom and avoid silting. I suppose that is what some consider a "modified" frog kick, or what cave and wreck folks would use. Locally when someone talks about frog kicks that is what they mean. Silt in our mountain lakes is a problem, and that kick style is needed.

Bill

 

[Quero]

I understand that you, yourself, are careful to use appropriate kicks for your purpose, but I was responding specifically to this statement of yours

Now more than before it seems to me to be unfair to criticize divers who silt up bodies of water if they simply don't know any non-silting kicks...

IMO the reason so many divers, particularly inexperienced ones, silt an environment is not that they don't know non-silting kicks, but because they are out of trim. Your statement could be rephrased as a logical entailment: frog kicks are non-silting kicks, and divers are not taught frog kicks, therefore divers silt up bodies of water. In other words, I was saying in a gentle way that your statement is an example of faulty logic, and I tried to offer a different logical entailment: diving out of trim near the bottom tends to silt up a body of water and many divers dive out of trim; therefore many divers silt up the water when they are near the bottom.