Swimming with one arm is a common drill, but there are some modifications that you can make to spice up your life and work on your form more efficiently. The most common version of this drill is to have one arm out in front with the other doing the pulling for 25 or 50m. Often people tend to flatten out on top of the water when they do this. It is important to think about being on your side instead of being a surf board. Holding on to the bottom of a kick board with your non-pulling arm, can help you stay on your side (and give you a nice scapula/shoulder muscle stretch too). It also makes the whole kicking and breathing thing easier if you are a beginner – you can actually focus on your form instead of not drowning. Think about having that pulling hand enter the water first, fingers towards the black line and not allowing your forearm to hit the surface of the water before your hand does. Having good shoulder rotation and recovering with your arm up your side instead of way out over the water helps this.
Another, more advanced, variation is to ditch the board completely and have your non-swimming arm at your side. You will naturally breathe to the side of the nonworking arm and it will make you hyper aware of your roll and body position. Concentrate on the catch, initiating body rotation with the core muscles. You can do boring old 25 or 50m one arm drill sets with normal swim in between (to actually apply what you are drilling to your full stroke), or you can be creative and mix drill into longer steady sets like say this: 5 x 200m on your goal time as 50m drill 150m swim.

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