Good Underwater Arm Action

This is Haydn Woolley of New Zealand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5OVXuHGys

At 1 minute on he shows the action on land. SA will love the shoulder flexibility.

He does a funny leg kick though.

when I first saw his dryland gymnastics I thought it looked ridiculous. Now it looks quite normal to my eyes though a bit extreme.
TI coaches say the catch just happens if you catch late relative to the roll. The high elbow is easier that way, but a pull disconnected/too late to bodyroll cant develop proper power.
99% of swimmers have non optimal arm mechanics, so it certainly dont happens on its own.
Its the most unnatural movement in swimming and takes a lot of practice to make it look normal, or is impossible to achieve anyway for a lot of people.
It looks like the stall in kicking is less in the above watershot, but i dont like it either.
His stroke looks great looking at him swimming away above water though.

the armstroke of this unknown triathlete has a lot of traction. Its simply a big  effective paddle in the water. And driving the upperarm back in the scapular plane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEI77Q-fbTE
But its not so easy to achieve a high strokerate with this paddle. Its swimming in a high gear and you have to be strong enough to rev it up, even if your have the flexibility to imitate the novement.
For most a more rounded scooping movement is a better form to use.

This swim action brings to mind the wonderful Jimmy:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IYuSMumlUk4

Looking back on this I can see so many things that i now understand but didn,t grasp years ago.