Day 2: Teaching it reinforces it

Today was my first day back in the pool with the Masters swim crew. I warned Ann prior to practice today that I am "Totally Immersed". Since we share a lane I felt she deserved an advance notice that I will be doing things differently. Since she is just returning to the pool after taking 2 months off to recover from injuries she really wants to get back into shape but is willing to spend the first 20 - 30 minutes doing drills.

So today I got to teach her the drills and look at what she is doing. That was a good reinforcement for me. She learned the superman drills through to skating.

She said afterwards she already felt a difference in her stroke because she was thinking about how far she pulls back her hand and if it throws her alignment off.

Today I again primarily focused on making sure my head was hanging and relaxed. It is funny because I would call myself an advanced swimmer and here I am pushing off and floating to learn this very basic skill. The foundations are the foundations right?

I only did 1/2 lengths and 25's. (This is still hard for me but this is my commitment for the next few weeks. Nothing longer than a 25.) I got further in doing some more advanced drills today but still was rolling to my back when i needed to breathe because I feel like that is the only way I can focus on making sure my head is relaxed and in alignment.

Every length had a focus. I didn't switch foci every length but I didn't do more than 3 in a row focusing on the same thing.

At the end I started focusing on making sure my hip led the roll not the recovery of my arm since I tend to recover too quickly and again throw the timing off. So I concentrated on slowing the recovery down and allowing that glide/active streamlining to happen without interupting it with another stroke.

I did about 8 - 10 lengths whole stroke focusing on relaxed head, wide tracks and letting the hip dictate the rhythm. The last 25 I did was a solid 13 strokes. No cheating by an extra long push off or pauses/dead spots in my stroke.