Swim lesson
This morning I met with John for my swim lesson. It went well and was pretty encouraging. He identified a few places where I need work right away, but he seemed happy with my general form and skills, especially given the fact that I’ve never had any formal training. The two primary issues he identified and we worked on today were the angle at which my hand enters the water and my weak (nearly non-existent) kick.
He noticed that my hand and arm enter the water very high and flat. As I understand it (and I’m still not totally clear), I lose some portion of my potential power by starting in the water up so high. I guess what happens is that if my arm/hand enter high, I have to spend the first part of my stroke pushing “down” instead of pulling “back” and getting forward propulsion. When my arm goes into the water already pointing and going down, I can start the pull sooner and stronger. He had me doing a drill where I swam one length with my normal “high arm” stroke and on the return length my arm entered the water at an exaggeratedly steep angle down. The goal is to start to feel the difference between the two and work towards finding a middle ground.
Next we tried working on my kick. I did some kicking drills and he said that my kick alone is actually pretty good. Then, we tried putting it together with my stroke. I was supposed to get a good kick with the opposite leg on each pull. I absolutely could not get into the rhythm of kicking with my pulls. I’ll work a lot on my kick during each swim session going forward for a while.
It was good to have someone watch me swim and encouraging that his reaction was generally positive. This gives me good things to work on and think about during my upcoming swim training. I’ve already been in the pool three times this week (including the lesson today) and I’m back in tomorrow for a longer (3,400 yard) swim.
Swim lesson – January 18