Streamline cues: Locked Thumb, Squeezed Ears, Face down

What it is

The streamline body position cued as "Locked Thumb, Squeezed Ears, Face down" — the foundational glide all Level 3 swimmers must execute correctly before any stroke work.

Essentials

• Cue language: "Lock your thumb, squeeze your ears, look down" (or "face down").
• Visual hand motions accompany each cue: hand-on-hand with thumb wrap for lock; hands above head with elbows opening and closing for squeeze; circle around the face pointing to the floor for look down.
• "Begin immediately in streamline" — no pushing off in soldier or Position 11.
• "Streamline first, then do three strokes of freestyle" — explicit separation of glide from stroke.
• Position 11 (arms-extended): look down, keep arms straight, stay on the surface.
• Head in soldier position: chin into spine, no tilt up or down, arms directly over shoulders, hands directly over head.

Progression

1. On the deck: reiterate the three cues with the visual hand motions. "Look down" on the deck means look straight ahead.
2. Short-distance streamline in lanes (two to three swimmers per lane), surface level.
3. Push off the wall on the surface in streamline.
4. Build to pushing off the wall in streamline underwater.
5. SL + Position 11 drill: 5 kicks in Position 11, 1 free arm stroke (other hand stays in 11), 5 more kicks in 11, switch arms.
6. Three body lengths of independent streamline, then return to the starting location.

What goes wrong

• Lifting head to see where they're going: breaks the ear-squeeze and body alignment. Correct by approaching sideways — encourage the swimmer to look at the bottom and give specific actions to produce the desired result, rather than just saying "don't lift."
• Head tilted up or down: creates drag and pops out of the body line. Cue soldier position: chin into spine, no tilt.
• Pushing off in soldier or Position 11 instead of streamline: use the explicit language "Begin immediately in streamline" so beginners don't just push off with their face.
• Instructors going silent: bad habits form. Fix immediately with direct, specific language.
• Not separating streamline from stroke: beginners flail arms in circles. Use "Streamline first, then do three strokes of freestyle."

How you know it worked

Swimmer initiates streamline immediately between wall and first stroke, maintains face-down with ears squeezed and thumb locked for the full glide, and transitions to freestyle only after the streamline is complete.

How you teach it

The three cues are internally focused body commands, which is intentional — they give the swimmer a compact checklist they can run in the water without thinking about hydrodynamics. The visual hand motions make the cue universal and reduce reliance on verbal repetition. On the deck, "look down" means look straight ahead; in the water it means face to the floor. This distinction prevents the tuck that creates drag.

For head-lifting, don't just say "don't lift." Approach the problem sideways: tell the swimmer to look at the bottom, give them an action to produce the desired result. If you see an instructor not giving feedback on head-lifting, they are ignoring the problem — every repetition of the lift is a repetition of the bad habit.

Use positive reinforcement (thumbs up, verbal praise) when you see the correction land, and quick name-plus-command barks for the swimmer who is drifting. Support beginners physically: grab their stacked hands and drag them through the water to give the feeling of the motion and a small speed boost. Keep distances short (three body lengths) and repetition high — two benches five feet apart for back-and-forth streamlines, calling out "five streamlines" or "ten streamlines." The goal is that by the time swimmers are doing full swims, the streamline is automatic and they don't have to think about the minutiae.