I guess you could call that swimming.

Yuck.

Well, my swim consisted of 200y warm up followed by half an hour of being a jackass followed by 200y cool down.

Allow me to explain.  I am trying to make a smaller hole in the water to swim through.  This can only be done by making my body more horizontal and less bendy in the water.  When I saw my legs in the video last week, I finally understood what I was doing.  I seriously bend my knees.  It's as if my lower body is on a bicycle.  Bad.

So, the advice was, "Don't kick."  Great.

What happens when I don't kick?  Well, generally I feel like I'm sinking, drowning, or otherwise not accomplishing the task of swimming.  I tried to do drills without my legs:  during finger drag, my go-to drill, I noticed my knees bending.  My legs were together, yet my knees were bending, bringing my feet closer to my butt.  This caused me to feel like I was dropping my hips (probably because I was) and that made me feel like I was sinking.  So I tried to use the pull buoy while doing my drills.  The main problem here is that when I use pull buoy, I cross my ankles.  When I don't use pull buoy, my legs struggle to stay together and then I bend my knees.

Bleh.

I tried to do a drill that was recommended to another swimmer who scissor kicks.  The drill involves a kickboard between the thighs.  I found I couldn't keep the kickboard in place without crossing my feet.  Again, a problem.

Finally, I decided to just be slow and awkward and swim without kicking.  I found that my legs would try to kick if I felt off balance or sinky.  I also found that my arms were dropping instead of reaching.  My whole body was basically scrunching involuntarily because that's the motion it's used to.  I am a caterpillar in the water.  No wonder I'm not getting any faster.

Better luck next time, I suppose.