Hi Eric,
<<The loping camp, spear-headed by Dr. Weisenthal, believes that human freestyle swimming is
"punctuated equilibrium".>>
Although I respect Larry's accumen and enthusiasm and don't doubt his experience, he is a bit of an
evangelist. No offense, Larry. I know you understand the scientific method and digest as many
peer-reviewed papers as possible to help make your case. However, I'm not easily swayed by your
evangelical spirit. I'll keep thinking about "loping" and "head lift" and what it was that Janet
Evans taught the rest of us
. . . and I'll continue to coach my own philosophy until convinced by your arguments to believe
differently.
<<The Total Immersion folks, Boomer, Laughlin, Maglischo, think freestyle swimming is about
"equilibrium" at all times.>>
I have great respect for Terry and what he's done with his TI philosophy, Bill Boomer and his unique
observations on balance - both physical and emotional, and Ernie and his ability to have one foot in
the world of the scientist, one foot in the world of the coach, all the while keeping both eyes wide
open and reporting to us about what he sees. And while I've probably learned ten times as much
thinking about everything I've heard and read from these three men compared to the (relatively
speaking) few paragraphs posted by Larry on this newsgroup, I still think, for the most part, I'll
continue to coach my own philosophy, which has been cobbled together after giving a great deal of
thought to the hundreds of coaches I've watched and listened to (not just Terry, Bill and Ernie) and
thousands of athletes I've coached during the last 25 years.
<<The people that try to earn Gold from the water, elite swimmers who dream of becoming World or
Olympic champion, tell us that Larry is right.>>
I would dispute this assertion. This really speaks in part to what we as members of the coaching
community are trying to do. I've coached and taught nationally ranked age groupers, junior national
champions, high school and college All-Americans, and senior national and Olympic Trials
participants. Do any of them qualify as an elite swimmer who dreams of becoming World or Olympic
Champion? Sure. Have any of them "told me" its better to have loped and lost than never to have
loped at all? Nope.
I've also coached a heck of a lot more swimmers who showed up just as often and put in just as much
work as those "elite" swimmers. The vast majority of the swimmers with whom I've worked never made a
national cut. Can you "teach" the truly gifted athletes how to swim better? Can you teach the
less-gifted (the other 99%) how to swim like the gifted? SHOULD you teach a regular swimmer
technique which only a swimmer with unusual flexability or coordination can achieve? Is it better to
ask questions than to answer them? You tell me.
Could you achieve as much success (read improvement) with your swimmers by simply teaching them to
relax more when they swim? Or teaching them to focus more? Being more physically relaxed and more
mentally focused, would your athletes be more inclined to "feel" where to put their hands and feet,
how to hold their head, how much to roll, when and how to lean into the water, etc.? I believe I've
learned more about how to effectively coach swimmers from my martial arts training than from any
coaches clinic or seminar I've ever attended. We coaches quibble over head position and continue to
re-discover principles which have been described before, off and on, at various times during the
last 100 years of organized competitive swimming. Other than loping, of course, which I think is an
absolutely unique discovery . . .
The principles the great martial arts masters teach today have been tested and refined over the past
5000 years. I think I'll go with those principles.
How many competitive swimmers are there in the world who might be interested in learning better
technique and who could probably improve their mechanics with a little coaching? Probably millions.
How many are potentially "elite" swimmers, you know, those who tell us Larry is right? Very few.
This set of all competitive swimmers numbering in the millions, should they be lopers? Or should
they work on keeping their heads as steady as possible? We know none of them are going to be able to
race with a snorkle. We know they have to develop some mechanism for moving their mouths up to the
air which involves moving that head that should probably remain steady.
<<But we have to breath. We have to roll our mouths from directly down in the water to the surface.
So by definition, the freestyle form is "punctuated equilibrium." Lopers embrace that notion and use
it to their best advantage.>>
How about teaching swimmers to minimize that head movement? Could that be to their advantage?
We may some day discover (read "prove"😉 that a certain percentage of swimmers are gifted enough to .
. . lope successfully, achieve an extremely high elbow very early in the stroke cycle, change the
pitch of their hands at just the right time to benefit them more from lift than drag propulsion,
change their tempo throughout their races to reflect, second to second, their energy stores as those
resources are depleted, know instinctively when they're vitamin and mineral deficient and which
vitamins and minerals they need . . . and how will that change what the basics lessons are which the
rest of us (the 99%) need to learn?
Respectfully submitted,
Scott
