11 Eat 11

What it is

A chunking method that breaks breaststroke arms into the two positions 11 and Eat, teaching the choreography (the dance move) first without embellishment or added flare.

Essentials

• The sequence is 11 → Eat → 11. Nothing else. No complicated words, no fancy moves.
• "Eat" should help the head breathe: when arms move forward, face pushes underwater; head raises with "eat" and goes back under on returning to 11.
• For beginners, arms provide very little forward pull — teach the arm motion, not propulsion.
• Elbows stay high. No kicking during the arm-motion phase.
• Beginner cue: 11, Eat, 11. Advanced cue: 11, Eat & Breathe, 11.
• Keep it simple. If you do it too quickly, swimmers get crazy and lazy.

Progression

1. Stand on the deck. Do each movement exactly: 11. Eat. 11. Go slow. With breath. Repeat frequently.
2. Add a breath: change Eat to Eat & Breathe.
3. Isolate the arms in the water, no kick: Streamline, 11, Eat, 11. Stop.
4. Add the breath, no kick: Streamline, 11, Eat & Breathe, 11. Stop.
5. Start with slow pauses between each movement: 11, pause. Eat, pause. 11 pause.
6. 11 Eat & Breathe 11 — chip away at pauses as mastery improves.
7. Streamline and just the arms (no kick), viewing from above while swimmer is in the water.
8. Breaststroke integration: extreme pauses and glides at first; once precise technique is mastered, remove pauses and glides. The kick pushes the hands forward — narrow the gap between the start of the kick pushing and the hands starting to travel forward.

What goes wrong

• Wide sweeping circles, "pizza sauce," or "wax on, wax off" motions — correct to just 11 to eat and back to 11.
• Arms going out into a Y shape — keep the motion contained between 11 and Eat.
• Chicken wings (elbows dip down into the hips) — keep elbows high.
• Doing it too quickly — swimmers get crazy and lazy; slow it down.
• Adding the breath too early — introduce the breath on the sweeping-in phase later, not during the initial introduction.

How you know it worked

Face always stays above water, and 11, Eat, 11 is done correctly (elbows high, no kicking, no Y-shape).

How you teach it

The whole point is to take one chunk out of breaststroke, focus on it in isolation, and then put it back into the whole. You are teaching a dance move, not a stroke. From above, the motion is simply 11 into eat and back to 11 — no breath at first. You are working with beginners and Level 3 swimmers; you do not need swim-team-level skills yet, and you can easily get there by building from 11, eat, 11.

Start on the deck. Do the movements exactly, slowly, with repetition. The "Eat" cue is doing double duty: it is the arm motion AND the breath cue. Connect them so that when the arms sweep forward, the face pushes underwater, and the head raises during "eat" before going back under on the return to 11.

In the water, isolate the arms with no kick. View from above while the swimmer is in the water so you can see the 11-to-Eat-to-11 path clearly. The swimmer is not swimming yet — they are floating after a glide and going through the hand motions. Only later do you add the breath on the sweeping-in phase, and only after that do you reintegrate the kick.

When you do add the kick, the kick pushes the hands forward. The goal is to narrow the gap between the start of the kick pushing and the hands starting to travel forward, so the two actions merge into one continuous stroke.