Pinky

What it is

The arm recovery sequence where the hand exits the water with the thumb up, rotates palm out at the apex, and enters the water with the pinky in Position 11.

Essentials

• Cue: "thumb, hi, pinky"
• Hand leads with the thumb, then rotates to "hi" by twisting out so the palm faces away from the body.
• At Position 11, enter the water with the pinky finger and push down while bending the elbow to clap the palm on the same-side thigh.
• Deck drill cue: "Thumb, Hi, Pinky clap the thighs with palm."
• Every arm stroke travels through Position 11 but does not pause or remain there.
• Underwater: anchor the palm with the elbow and push.

Progression

1. Practice on deck first. Go slow.
2. Start in soldier position.
3. From soldier, raise the hand directly in front of the arm and raise to Position 11.
4. Move one arm at a time.
5. Practice arms on deck: bend elbow and "Thumb, Hi, Pinky clap the thighs with palm."
6. Under-water push: anchor palm with elbow and push.
7. Add hip rotation with the arms (recovering-arm-side hip rotates up; pushing-arm-side rotates down).
8. Focus on long reaching arms and hip rotation only after body line is mastered.

What goes wrong

• Pausing in Position 11: the stroke must travel through, not stop. Any pauses should be minimal and in "soldier" or at the hips.
• Rushing hip rotation before body line: focus on body posture first; add hip and shoulder rotation drills later once basic body line and balance are mastered.

How you know it worked

Long reaching arms return to Position 11 with each stroke, following the thumb–hi–pinky sequence without pausing.

How you teach it

The cue "thumb, hi, pinky" maps to three visible checkpoints: watch the hand exit thumb-up, confirm the palm twists out at the apex (90° to the water), and verify the pinky enters first in Position 11. On deck, the clap-the-thighs drill lets you feel the elbow bend and palm orientation without water resistance, so start there and go slow. Move one arm at a time to keep the learner's attention on the sequence rather than coordination.

Underwater, the initial push is a straight-elbow anchor of the palm; the elbow begins to bend only as mastery increases. This keeps the learner from collapsing the arm early and losing the long-reach that feeds the next recovery.

Feedback priority matters: do not correct hip rotation or arm length until the body line is flat and neutral at the surface. Once that is stable, layer in the rotation cue—recovering-arm-side hip up, pushing-arm-side hip down—so the rotation serves the arm rather than competing with it. The source is explicit that long-reach and hip-rotation feedback come after body-line mastery; introducing them earlier pulls the learner's attention away from the posture that makes the stroke efficient.

In a lesson, this cue slots into the front-crawl arm sequence after the learner can hold a flat body and kick. The deck drill (soldier → raise to 11 → clap) can be a warm-up or a correction station; the in-water version follows once the learner can repeat the sequence slowly in a front float before adding continuous swimming.