Discover your life aquatic

Second Week - Home Study

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

• glide and maintaining glide as we turn our heads for air.
• the first major part of the freestyle stroke itself: recovery, aim, entry and extension, the latter two also as we switch sides.
• 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.

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

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 glide and then each step of the recovery, aiming to 45 degrees and then entry phases of the arm motion. Discover what happens when you change your glide 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. Glide position and breathing skills: (start with fins, then without fins)

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.

• Glide without breathing
• Glide with head turn (nose clip)
• Glide with exhale from nose
• Glide with exhale from nose and mouth (play with timing of mouth exhale to retain buoyancy)

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 glide position between arm motions and/or switch motions. Remember that if you keep going, you may not be aware that your glide is not as stable as it could be. So, pause long enough to adjust to a perfect glide posture or simpy stop and take a few moments to reset your focus.

• 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
• Arm recovery + aim forearm to roughly 45 degrees + entry/switch to glide on the other side. How fast and consistently can you achieve perfect glide after switching? 
• All three steps, slowly and fluidly with switch to the other side. Perfect glide after switch?