Hey RSSers,
As the subject hints, I'm back from a Total Immersion workshop (my boss
asked if I'd learned Spanish while I was there). As it happens, not, but I
am definitely a better swimmer now. It's been a long time since I learned
to swim and it was never a terribly formal thing even then, so I can't
speak to how it was better or different from a more mainstream swim camp.
But, judging it on its own merits, I enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.
There were approximately 18 younger swimmers and 5 adults. Because I'm
strictly a recreational swimmer, I thought that I might be rather the odd
person out at the workshop, but, even though I was the only person who was
adamantly not interested in competing, I didn't feel out of place in the
group w/ 3 of the other adults. Speaking for my experience in our group,
we all got tons of attention. The coaches were simply great - they were
able to target corrections to each of us to our most important problems
w/o nitpicking us to death with lesser things, they were quick to note
improvement so we didn't feel frustrated and they explained not only what
we needed to do, but why we were doing it. Watching the video tape from
the first day really brought home the problems (and strengths) of what we
were doing and I'm genuinely looking forward to getting the video from the
last day so I can see the improvements (and where I still have a long way
to go).
Things I learned:
1. How to do a basically correct freestyle. Since I was small, I've been
doing a variant lifesaving crawl as my freestyle - head rocked through the
water normally from left to right, but then scanned the horizon from right
to left. It's massively inefficient, looks like an infinitely prolonged
drowning and is slower than my breaststroke. I'd *tried* to change this
habit - I knew how the stroke was supposed to go - but I could never do it
on my own. With the way they break things down, so that you start not
doing anything that much resembles the stroke at all, I found it was
fairly easy to build up to something that is at least a reasonable
approximation of freestyle. Even more importantly, I know to go back to
the basic drills if I find myself dropping back into my old habits.
2. How to do body dolphin. This was what I really, really really wanted to
learn and now I can do it. I still need fins to get me across the pool
before closing time, but I figure as long as I'm building up the patterns
in my body, the strengh will come eventually so that I can do it w/o. I
was surprised that this doesn't work the abs as much as I expected. Of
course, as I start doing it w/o the fins, I may find that the abs do more
of the work.
3. How to Butterfly. Ok, it's not the stroke I'd choose to do if I fell
off a boat and had to swim for a distant island (esp. if I fell off not
wearing fins), but I can do a recognizable 'fly. Not only could I not
before, I wasn't even sure I was capable of learning it - thought my
shoulders didn't rotate the right way.
4. Whip kick. I'd been doing a non-symmetrical frog kick. Listening to one
of the coaches explain it to someone else, I had one of those "I get it"
moments and voila', I could do it. Not planning on emphasising it for now
- doing it made my knees hurt, but I'll do throw it in every once in a
while so I remember how - and maybe build up my knees so I can do it more.
Things I wish I'd Brought w/ Me:
1. More pool fitness. Between a bout of the flu, and then an injury to my
arms a few weeks before camp and my work and workout schedule, I'd only
had literally a couple of sessions in the pool for this season. Even
though my trainer has several times commented that I have *really* good
cardio fitness (she's always surprised how hard I can be working and still
keep talking), I still found myself getting winded - I think it takes a
little time for fitness in one area to carry over to another. None of the
drills was individually demanding, and there were pauses to catch one's
breath, but even so by the end of each session I was ready to take a
break. And, on the last day, even though I hadn't swum very much at all
that day, I was flatly tired by the time I was doing the swim for my
swimming golf score. I did a *lot* of skating while I caught my breath on
that one - lowered my stroke count, raised my time, but sometimes that's
the best you can do.
2. Thermal swimwear. Oddly enough I'd been in a discussion on how to stay
warm in the pool here, just before I left for camp. If I'd known then what
I know now I would have ordered a neoprene top and trunks and had them
expressed to me and the hell w/ whether I looked stupid. Some days the
water was reasonably warm and that was great. Other days/sessions I just
felt like we were members of the polar bear club (I asked one of the
coaches and she said there wasn't all that much variation in the water
temperature, so it may have had to do w/ time of day, body metabolism,
etc.). Because we weren't swimming consistently but rather doing a drill
once or twice and then stopping and discussing the next thing, we weren't
generating much heat. And then, getting out of the pool to watch things
from above ~~~~brrrrr!~~~~~~ Out of the entire camp, the only thing I
really dreaded was getting into the water in the morning (and when you
consider that the camp consisted of 2 episodes of taping my 40something
body in a swimsuit, you know the cold must have been bad. :-)
Well, that's about as long as a post to usenet can be and still expect
people to read it. I imagine I'll be asking lots of follow up questions
here and in the TI forum.
Later,
Martha
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