Swimming Update

Yesterday was my second swim session in the endless pool at Swim Shack. I have now completed 3 and a half hours of one to one swim coaching and we have not yet covered any technique associated with propulsion! All the work has been on position, breathing and balance. This is good! It means that I am learning something new. Yesterday I struggled to master the balance and rotation techniques being shown to me. I am shown how the technique should be completed on a big screen. Then I attempt it whilst being filmed......oh dear! the contrast is severe! The mistakes that I am making are pointed out to me, and then I attempt the technique again. And so it goes on, in an iterative manner.

My session this morning was much better and I was progressing. the picture below (the top slide of the cover shot) shows the position that you should be in with correct balance (arms by your side head down):

I believe that without the leading arm obtaining balance is harder! The idea is that you find your balance on your back. then rotate slightly to a semi side-on position with your head remaining locked looking towards the ceiling. then rotate to the position in the picture but maintain balance. That means hips not dropping and maintaining a fluid balanced kick - it is not as easy as you may think! Once you are balanced in the face down position, you rotate back to the semi-side position with your head looking at the ceiling - again, completed in perfect balance. Mastering this technique will be my focus for the next 3 weeks. I then have my third session at Swim Shack. You never know, I may do some swimming soon!

I just want to say that I have completed a self taught Total Immersion course from a video and book. This was way back in 2003 when I was learning to swim more than 2 lengths of freestyle. Since that time I have learnt to swim better! However, I had some negative thoughts about Total Immersion. I now see that the drills that I had learnt by myself were incorrectly learnt by myself! Hence the progress I made was limited. I still believe that I can make gains in my swim speed if I master these basic balance techniques. Having someone teach me the techniques is soooooooooooo different!