Open water sighting in Swimming

Reviewer This is the sighting video I'd hand a first-time open-water swimmer - technique, timing, and the common mistake, all in one.

Moderator The entire video is sighting technique from start to finish - nothing else competes for time.

Reviewer Best technical depth in the group -- bow wave timing, neck tension, the works.

Moderator All about sighting technique -- practicing it in a pool, with and without a breath attached, minimizing head lift to the goggle line, managing neck tension. Doesn't wander from the topic even with the channel-plug at the top.

Reviewer Top-tier teaching -- technique, rationale, and race-day tips from someone who's actually won at this.

Moderator Entire video, start to finish, is Keri-anne Payne teaching sighting technique -- how she integrates it with breathing, an alternate 'water polo' style for chop, landmark selection, even goggle tint choice for race-day visibility. Nothing else competes for screen time.

Reviewer The landmark-lineup trick alone makes this worth watching.

Moderator Defines sighting from first principles and covers technique, timing options, and target selection. Squarely, comprehensively on topic.

Reviewer Best one here — root cause, named drills, and a race-week backup plan.

Moderator Diagnoses why swimmers drift off course (stroke asymmetry) and gives corrections plus named drills. Squarely, thoroughly on topic.

Reviewer Technique, timing, and the goggle advice nobody else mentions — genuinely race-ready.

Moderator Comprehensive and squarely about sighting from every angle — technique variations, when to use each, and the gear side of sighting (goggles). All of it is on-topic.

Reviewer Best all-round sighting breakdown here — head position, timing, frequency, and picking the right landmark. Teach this one.

Moderator Completely on-topic — head position (low, eyes just above the surface), the crocodile-eyes cue, timing the sight into the breath turn, a stroke-count range that adjusts as you close in on the target, and picking fixed landmarks over moving ones. This is the sighting technique, fully covered.

Reviewer Complete package — safety, technique, and how to actually practice it.

Moderator Five tips, every one about open water sighting and swimming straight — venue safety, markers, an observer, sighting frequency, group practice. Squarely on topic.

Reviewer The warning about blindly following feet in a group is the kind of thing that actually saves you time in a race.

Moderator Comprehensive two-coach breakdown of sighting — body position rationale, technique, timing, and race tactics. All of it is squarely about this skill.

Reviewer Three real techniques, told straight, with the actual failure mode of each named honestly.

Moderator Entirely dedicated to how and when to sight in open water — body position goal, then three distinct sighting methods. No digression.

Reviewer Fixes a mistake most self-taught open water swimmers don't even know they're making.

Moderator Directly about sighting: what head position to return to after lifting to sight, the 0-45 degree range, and how it connects to the sight-and-breathe method from a companion video. Entirely on-topic.

Reviewer The exhale-is-your-sight cue is the kind of thing that actually changes how you swim.

Moderator Squarely about sighting — and specifically about integrating it seamlessly into an existing freestyle stroke rather than treating it as a separate movement. Entirely on-topic.

Reviewer Precise and correct — this is how you actually fold sighting into your stroke.

Moderator Entirely about integrating sighting into the stroke without breaking rhythm — exactly the sub-skill, described with real mechanical precision (press-lift timed to arm recovery).

Reviewer Leads with the actual principle behind sighting, not just the mechanics — that's what makes this one land.

Moderator Entirely dedicated to sighting technique — the efficiency principle plus three distinct ways to fit a sight into your stroke. On-topic throughout.

Reviewer Three real options for three real conditions, no fluff.

Moderator Squarely about sighting technique in open water: three named methods (crocodile, water polo, breaststroke) selected by chop conditions, plus a body-position safety note. Nothing else is covered.

Reviewer Clean, efficient sighting technique — crocodile eyes tied right into your breath. Teach this to anyone starting open water.

Moderator This is exactly open water sighting — pick a fixed landmark, sight on a set stroke count (six to eight), lift with 'crocodile eyes' so the mouth stays under, then time it into the breath turn. Every part of this is the sighting technique itself, nothing else.

Reviewer Short, correct, and gives you a frequency rule you can actually use.

Moderator Entirely dedicated to sighting -- defines the purpose, gives the alligator-lift cue, and scales sighting frequency to swimmer experience. Nothing else in the video competes for the topic.

Reviewer The scan-left-and-right tip alone is worth it — the buoy's rarely dead ahead.

Moderator Squarely about sighting technique — explicitly framed as 'the finer points,' covers head position (alligator eyes), rough-water adjustments, and scanning for the buoy rather than assuming it's dead ahead. Entirely on-topic.

Reviewer Good fix for the bounce a lot of swimmers get from combining sight and breath — just needs the video to fully land.

Moderator Frame-by-frame technical analysis of sighting timing relative to the stroke cycle — entirely on the mechanics of this skill.

Reviewer Gives you a method and a way to test if you're doing it right - that's coaching.

Moderator Opens with mindset framing which is tangential, but the bulk of the content is squarely sighting mechanics: the sight-and-breathe rolling method, a benchmark test against 100 times, and course recon for landmarks. That's the core of the sub-skill.

Reviewer Good, quick sighting technique that keeps your speed up — solid starter cue.

Moderator Squarely sighting technique — crocodile eyes instead of a full head lift, a stroke count to sight on (six to ten), and folding it into the normal breath turn so you don't lose speed. All of it is the sighting skill, nothing extra.

Reviewer Clear and correct, just the trimmed-down version of a better full video.

Moderator Same speaker, same script as the longer Keri-anne Payne video, just a shorter cut that stops after the core breathing-integrated sighting method. Still entirely about sighting for the whole runtime.

Reviewer Nails the single most important cue for sighting — eyes up, not the whole head. Simple and correct.

Moderator Title 'Mastering Sighting in Open Water Swimming' plus a description centered entirely on how to execute the sight (lifting eyes, scanning the horizon, maintaining alignment) — this is squarely, unambiguously about the named skill with nothing split off into another topic.

Reviewer Good, correct basics — just don't expect much depth in a clip this short.

Moderator Squarely and entirely about sighting — defines the skill, gives two valid technique variants (sight-then-breathe or breathe-then-sight), frequency guidance, and a choppy-water adjustment (water polo head-up style). Nothing but the sub-skill here.

Reviewer Useful tips, but one of the five is really just a goggle ad.

Moderator All five tips are squarely about open water sighting — the fallback breaststroke option, timing, what to sight on, how far to lift your head. On topic throughout.

Reviewer Good neck-friendly option for relaxed swims, honestly framed as just one of several methods.

Moderator Entirely focused on one specific sighting method — separating the breath and the sight into different stroke cycles. Stays on topic throughout.

Reviewer Great tactical trick for small/hard-to-see buoys, but it's not teaching you the stroke mechanics.

Moderator Uses a head-camera to show exactly what you see while sighting in a real open water swim — squarely about the practical, visual side of sighting.

Reviewer Simple, correct, and gives you something to actually practice.

Moderator Named drill ('alligator eyes' -- two quick looks, then a normal side breath) that's specifically a sighting technique, with the reasoning tied directly to staying low and not swallowing water. On topic the whole way through.

Reviewer Good drills, but there's a sales pitch parked in the middle of it.

Moderator Pool drills (closed-eye drill, cone drill) transferring to open water sighting, plus dealing with chop and crowded starts obscuring the buoy. Squarely on topic with named, practical drills.

Reviewer Gets the core idea right — sight without wrecking your rhythm — useful framing even if short.

Moderator Title and caption are squarely about sighting technique in open water — exactly the named skill, no ambiguity. 'Lead Sighting is a vital skill for open water swimming... see where you're going without losing your rhythm' is textbook framing for this exact topic. As on-target as a caption gets without a transcript to confirm further.

Moderator Fran Crippen on sighting in a race: come up to find the next turn buoy, confirm you're swimming in line, and don't use a fixed number of strokes between sights because it depends on the race and the conditions. Squarely about sighting.

Reviewer Credible advice from an elite open-water racer, but it's brief.

Reviewer Good motivation and a smart drill idea, thin on the how-to.

Moderator Podcast chat between two coaches specifically about open water sighting: cost of poor sighting in a real race, why it matters strategically, and a concrete pool drill comparing hundred times with and without sighting. It's a conversation, not a tutorial, so it wanders, but the whole segment stays on sighting.

Reviewer What it says about sighting is solid and comes from someone who clearly coaches this for a living.

Moderator Sighting is one tool among several here - goggles, stroke symmetry, single-arm drills, a 'sixth sense' eyes-closed drill, and drafting all get their own space. Sighting itself gets maybe a quarter of the runtime.

Reviewer The sighting portion itself is solid, practical guidance.

Moderator About half the video is buoy-turn technique (sharp turn, backstroke corkscrew) and the other half is sighting (rough vs calm water head position, frequency: 6-8 strokes calm, 3-4 choppy). Sighting is a real, substantial topic here, but it's sharing the video with a separate skill rather than being the sole focus.

Reviewer Good instinct being taught, but it needs the video more than most.

Moderator Demonstration-led breakdown of not combining the sight and the breath, and keeping the head lift brief — correct core content, on topic, though it's mostly 'watch him do it' with thin narration.

Reviewer If the caption reflects what's actually taught, this is a genuinely useful tip on sighting frequency — but I couldn't confirm it from the audio.

Moderator The transcript here is useless — it's just song lyrics from whatever track is playing under the video, not narration, so I'm leaning on the title and caption instead. Those are specific and on-topic: 'different ways to sight,' plus a real coaching point about not over-sighting every two strokes and repositioning your head between sights. That reads like genuine sighting content, but I can't verify it against actual spoken instruction, so I'm not giving it full marks.

Reviewer Fine as a first look at what sighting is, but too short to coach the technique.

Moderator Short clip that defines open-water sighting: briefly lifting your eyes above the surface to check your direction. Right topic, but at 14 seconds it sets out the idea rather than coaching the mechanics.

Reviewer Good if you want a sighting-focused session to swim, but the actual teaching is a single repeated cue.

Moderator Same format as the other Cambridge Swimming Company session in this batch, but this one is titled and structured specifically around sighting (not split with buoy turns), with sighting drills built into both the drill set and the main set. Still mostly workout structure rather than technique teaching, but more concentrated on the actual sub-skill.