@Franz
You can first watch this video and practice the drills. The hand-lead series drills start at 37 minutes in this video. You can check the timestamps.
How to Swim for Adult Beginners https://youtu.be/Rqb3bnna21k
Do all the hand-lead drills from that video. Practice them regularly. This will improve your balance and bodyline in the water. You can wear fins so you don’t have to focus too much on your kicks.
@Zenith
This is amazing, thank you!
Your arm looks like Nessie!
Hunter said:
Your arm looks like Nessie!
I know this is kinda unrelated but… Is that Northwest Cary YMCA? Because that’s where I practice sometimes.
Tully said:
I know this is kinda unrelated but… Is that Northwest Cary YMCA? Because that’s where I practice sometimes.
Ha, it is!
Hi! 
I’m new to this sport but I’m taking some lessons, and my teacher always says that the highest part of your arm (out of the water) should be your elbow. Try to think that you have a string attached to your elbow, and when it’s pulled to its max, your elbow is up in the air. Let the elbow command all the rest. You should be able to “walk” on the water with your fingertips while you’re recovering your arm from water to water again.
English isn’t my mother language. I hope I’m clear and helpful.
Hard to tell, but do you rotate your body fully and keep it tight? This looks like you might be compensating to balance yourself.
If you have a snorkel, use that and see if you still have the same issue.
@Eren
I do rotate fully, but feeling confident and secure on my side is a weakness of mine. So, yes, I could totally see my arm doing that to compensate. I do have a snorkel, and my arm still tends to stray https://youtube.com/shorts/ae7RqmyblJk?si=Q-vit4k9DSybo8fw
Those look like 3D printed paddles that are listed at Thingiverse.
It looks like you’re muscling through your rotation by only using your arm/shoulders. The shoulders and hips need to be in unison, and the hips should be driving your rotation. Your core is one of the most powerful and stabilizing muscles in your body. While swimming, you should always have an engaged core. Go back to the press and roll drill, then build up with 3-6-3: three strokes, six kicks fully on your side, then three strokes. This ensures you are kicking on both sides. But yes, your shoulders and your hips need to be in the same plane. In freestyle and backstroke, since they’re long axis strokes, you want from your knee up to your shoulder to be as tall as possible and to move together.
@Dar
Thank you! And I’d definitely agree with you on that observation… I feel like I am all upper body and my lower half is just hanging around lol. I’m sure it has a lot to do with my core strength, but I also feel at times that my body is bowing… my feet and head are high but everything else is sinking 
.
This is just a still so everything I am saying is merely speculative, but from what I can see, you are not over-rotated; you are out of alignment.
In this picture, your hips look flat, and you are tilting your head back and puffing your chest out to take your breath. If you were over-rotated, that hip would be pronounced on top of the water and it just doesn’t look like that visually. I am saying this because your head is essentially in front of your left hip on that head turn, and if you were over-rotated, that part of your suit covering your right butt cheek wouldn’t be overly visible.
I am surmising that because you are keeping your hips flat and not rotating them with the stroke, you are arching your back and tilting your head back to get your head lifted to breathe.
It is a pretty common problem that I see with lap swimmers.
When you get out of alignment off the axis, you have to sweep your hand outside the shoulder line and down vertically to maintain plane.
Also, based on where you are at in the stroke cycle with your face out of the water, you also breathe too late. Right about here, your face should be moving down into the water.
You need to breathe earlier in the stroke cycle, and I say that with 100% confidence.
@Finnick
Here’s an above-water clip - https://youtu.be/PVqF6c2JYOc?si=kOMpwvddp-TBtrDl
Pretty much agree with everything you have said! I do feel so out of alignment… I feel like I’m working so hard and going nowhere. It’s actually quite painful in my lower back the day after swimming.
This seems like a good one for that drill where you’re holding the kickboard out in front while you rotate and breathe.
I agree with all the comments that you look over-rotated. Only thing to add here is that the way I recently finally conquered my over-rotation tendency is to swim laps where I focused on where my belly button points during my rotation; specifically, I pick an appropriate distance from the centerline on the bottom of the pool that is ~40-degree rotation from center on either side, and pretend there is a laser beam from my belly button to the bottom of the pool and make sure the laser beam doesn’t go too far on either side of center. When I fixed this, it made my rotations feel like a nice rhythmic rocking back and forth, almost like a dance. (Side note: How many feet from center on the bottom of the pool varies based on pool depth. ) (Side note 2: Another way to tackle is to try swimming with what at first feels like a huge under-rotation, but make sure your whole body is still rotating).