Discover your life aquatic

Second Week - Home Study

This week we have covered a number of fundamentals in further detail:

• streamliune and maintaining streamline as we turn our heads for air.
• the first major part of the freestyle stroke itself: recovery, aim, entry and extension, and rotation into streamline.
• most importantly, discovery tools for working out on your own what produces better results, is more efficient, and yields new consequences and information about our interaction with our body and the water
• many of you have seen how developing your BodySense (sense of various parts of your body) is key to being able to achieve the changes in your posture, stroke mechanics and balance that you want to achieve

This week's homestudy will be as simple as possible, the kind of general practice we recommend as you work on developing more body awareness and comfort in the water with these new skills.

Our greatest piece of advice is to patiently remain in the moment of whatever you are practicing. Instead of leaping ahead mentally to the end result, become attentive to the fundamental posture, motion, and each variance that we have worked at refining. This will yield sensational results if it becomes a familiar process to you.

We have mentioned that swimming slowly (which is what you are doing now) is a rare skill and is the key for becoming a great swimmer. The mental focus, opportunity for discovery of what is right for you, and potential for making a breakthrough, will pay off to discovering you have the foundation and tools for a swift, efficient, and comfortable stroke. 

The more you focus on each moment, the more you will succeed in solving future problems by getting to know the fundamentals inside out.

Keep it up!

How to Practice Dry Land

Slow switches: Spend time in front of a mirror for a few minutes, and then move away or close your eyes and try to replicate what you saw in the mirror. Focus on achieving a streamline and then each step of the recovery, aiming to 45 degrees and then the entry phase of the arm motion. Discover what happens when you change your streamline position, speed of movement, tension or focus on a step-by-step process. Seek to understand why we recommend this step-by-step progression. If you have questions about the steps or our reasoning, send us an email (we like those kind of questions!).

How to Practice in the Pool

1. Streamline position and breathing skills: 10-15 minutes

Review the session notes from this week to refresh your mind of the various focus points for each of the postures/motions that are listed below.

• Streamline without breathing
• Streamline with head turn (and nose clip)
• Streamline with exhale from nose
• Streamline with head turn and exhaling through the mouth as you reach the surface.

2. Stroke mechanics: (with fins for 10-15 minutes, then the same without, or switch back and forth more often for a different discovery process)

Review the session notes from this week to refresh your mind of the various focus points for each of the postures/motions that are listed below.

Note: At this stage, please make sure that you pause to check your streamline position between arm motions and/or switch motions. Pause long enough to be sure! Remember that if you keep going, you may not be aware that your streamline is not as stable as it could be. So, pause long enough to adjust to a perfect streamline posture or simpy stop and take a few moments to reset your focus.

Holding streamline posture during recovery motion: 5-10 minutes

• Arm recovery (elbow lead)
• Arm recovery + aim forearm to roughly 45 degrees
• Arm recovery + aim forearm to roughly 45 degrees + entry (down and forward, no switch to the other side yet)
• All three steps, slowly and fluidly, no switch, hold streamline

Switches (no breath): 10-15 minutes

• Arm recovery + aim forearm to roughly 45 degrees + entry/switch to streamline on the other side. How fast and consistently can you achieve perfect streamline after switching? 
• Aim entering hand down to where it should end up so that you are in glide as quickly as possible (but don't rush)
• Add a sense of sending your body forward (crisp switching motion)
• Repeat and remove tension from arms and neck
• All three steps, slowly and fluidly with switch to the other side. Do you move into streamline after switch?