"Ross Bogue" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:In slb%a.4319$S_.3827@fed1read01 DaKitty said:
makes me wonder how familiar you are with total immersion? It almost sounds as if you
misunderstood couple little thing out of the whole concept, and decided it doesn't work???
:-) You're seeing an excerpt from one side of an ongoing battle. May I
catch you up a bit?
Quoted message said:
Larry took Terry's weekend course many years ago. But he's not happy about it. If anything, he's
decided that the only good thing about it was the emphasis placed on balance. He discards all of
Terry's ideas about how to achieve that balance, though, and has developed his own ideas. As
such, he and a couple others have been arguing against most aspects of TI's material for several
years now.
Without taking sides myself (not just now, anyway), I expect that Larry's presentation of TI's
principles won't exactly mesh with Terry's presentation.
Ross
Well, I'm not too interested in the ongoing debate about TI...
I'll make a bet that balance in water depends quite a bit on someone's body build, and that most
people who are beginners and intermediates can benefit from some TI concepts, and other TI concepts
may not work for them at all.
For example, for me, this thing about hips and legs sinking is not a problem at all. I have plenty
of fat there to keep it floating near the surface no matter what my head does. And that will
probably be the case for another 30 pounds worth of time. So whether that aspect of TI works or not,
compared to the rest of it's teachings is really irrelevant to me. Also, I could get on the soapbox,
and start claiming that TI doesn't work because one little aspect of it didn't work for my body
style, and because I didn't understand or properly execute another. Well, that's no proof. It's kind
of like claiming that Ice Cream tastes bad because I don't like the peanut butter flavor.
My biggest problem at the moment is to stop weaving and start rotating, and I noticed that as soon
as I lift my head, I stop rotating (I sort of just forget to rotate), so in my case, keeping my head
down, and chin tucked in helps me remember to rotate, till it becomes second nature.
Kicking with a kickboard, propped up actually hurts my lower back, I think it pulls up too much, and
kicking sideways, and other TI style kicks, I can go forever. I'm told I have very strong legs. Now
if I can only get them to generate some propulsion, rather than just a lot of vortices 😉. I can
imagine that someone whose bum is not a natural flotation device and is actually prone to sinking
would benefit from a different style of kicking, the one that would promote them getting their bum
up closer to the water surface, and therefore streamlining them better.
So, I've adapted the TI to my body style, and I would encourage, if not expect every swimmer to get
to know the concepts, then learn how they apply to their own body. I don't believe there is one
universal fixall, and I also don't believe that when applied properly TI doesn't work.
Actually, I have to look at the book again, I think there are couple of paragraphs in there that
talk about something very similar to what I just said.
One thing that I really like about TI are the sensory practices. Where you can really concentrate
where you're having fiction and where you aren't, what slows you down, what helps you glide. My
problem is that after not even 2 months I'm very far out of shape to be able to hold a good form for
very long. But I do notice the difference in speed and the effort between the times I can hold form,
and when I tire out, and something starts to just hang. (like drop and drag my arms instead of being
more FQ, or start crossing them, or relax my abs and back muscles and start to weave...)
