Fixing Her Broken Butterfly

By GLENN MINNICH

If my daughter, Michelle, had gills, she would be a great butterflyer. However, she is a 15-year old age group swimmer who, from the time she first learned butterfly, at the age of 9, has known only the experience of extreme Butterstruggle. Her stroke would break down completely every time she attempted a breath...and who can swim without breathing? Repeated attempts to correct her stroke via local stroke clinics, group lessons, and private lessons were unsuccessful. Watching her swim butterfly was just as painful for her family as swimming it was for her.

While desperately searching for a solution, I found the Total Immersion website and read a Total Swim article describing their philosophy about Summer League swimming. I was impressed by the Zen-like quality of the message: focus on stroke length; neutral head position; swim quietly; never practice struggle. Knowing little about TI, I asked a few respected swim parents for their opinions. Each was enthusiastic about the TI method, and recommended Michelle attend a TI Workshop.

Unfortunately, no 4-Stroke Workshops were scheduled near our home during her summer vacation. However, when we read about the Swim Studio in New Paltz, the prospect of having a coach in the water, as well as the video recording and analysis seemed like the most promising way to correct Michelle’s butterfly, and increase her efficiency in the other strokes. The Design Your Class section on the TI website seemed to best fit Michelle’s needs. I called the Swim Studio and Angela Dorris helped us schedule five 90-minute sessions over two days. Two sessions would be devoted to butterfly, two sessions to the long axis strokes, and the final session to whatever the coaches felt most beneficial.

We flew to Stewart Airport in the Hudson Valley on a Sunday evening, and drove to the Studio Monday morning. Upon entering the parking lot, Michelle shot me a quizzical expression, somewhat apprehensive, somewhat alarmed. The Studio is located in a strip mall behind a Laundromat. Who would have expected a swim facility with a global reputation in such unassuming circum-stances? I assured her that the interior mattered more than its humble exterior.

Upon entering the studio, Angela and Fiona Laughlin greeted us. The first session would be devoted to long axis work, and Fiona asked Michelle to change into her swimsuit and warm up in one of the two Endless Pools. Then Terry arrived, and explained to us how they would measure Michelle’s stroke efficiency by recording her stroke on video, while timing her stroke rate at a controlled current speed.

Indeed, in contrast to its unremarkable location, I saw that the Studio was a cutting-edge laboratory for observing, analyzing and learning stroke technique.
The Endless Pool is a “flume” tank in which the swimmer stays in place in an adjustable current. Mirrors on the floor provide visual cues, while a video recording system and television monitors allow the swimmer’s stroke to be recorded both over and underwater, analyzed, and fed back to the swimmer – a closed-loop system for improvement!

Measuring Michelle’s efficiency quickly corrected my assumption that freestyle is a simple stroke. Slow motion and stop-action video, along with Terry’s analysis, revealed the great complexity of the many components that need to be synchronized to achieve true efficiency. Michelle is tall and strong and had become accustomed to relying on her strength to power through the water. Terry showed us how much extra work she was creating and the mechanical advantages she was missing by keeping both shoulders in the water and using her arms to lever her body through the water. Her style also left her vulnerable to the shoulder injuries that are so common among age group swimmers.

For the remainder of the session, Fiona and Terry addressed Michelle’s balance and core rotation. At first, Michelle was apprehensive about Fiona’s presence in the pool. After one hands-on correction, Michelle remarked, “I’ve never had a coach next to me while I swam, and I’m not used to having someone touch and adjust me.” But she relaxed as the session progressed, and video playback revealed how rapidly her stroke was being transformed.

The remainder of the first session, and much of the second session was devoted to improving Michelle’s self-awareness throughout freestyle drills. It sounds odd for a swimmer who thought she “knew” freestyle, but it took two and a half hours of instruction to relearn it: to rotate the core; to slip her arm into a small sleeve in the water, to use the arms as an anchor rather than a lever and to swim with her body rather than drag it through the water. When measured a second time, Michelle’s efficiency had improved 50 percent from the initial Stroke Length test taken just a few hours earlier!

With thirty minutes left on the first day, Terry casually asked, “Well, why don’t we get started on your butterfly?” What had been a relaxed, happy swimmer became a tense, unhappy swimmer. Although the main purpose of our trip was to correct her butterfly, Michelle was reluctant to have Terry and Fiona see even a single stroke of her butterstruggle. After a little prodding, Michelle swam a few strokes. Terry recorded them on video, then played back and isolated her stroke frame-by-frame. He showed us that Michelle was using her arms to muscle herself through the water, then breathing as her hands exited the water at the end of her stroke. “This is easily correctable,” he said. “Michelle, keep your arms at 10:00 and 2:00 o’clock, while pressing your chest rhythmically and gently.” As she practiced, I was amazed to see a small wave of water flow from the top of her head to her feet as she rhythmically pressed her chest. She was learning to use the water – rather than her own power – to make her body undulate.

Once she grasped the sense of gentle rhythm, Terry had her practice just holding her hands where they were anchored, while sliding her chest over them, instead of pulling them back. A few minutes later he instructed her to “add a ‘sneaky’ breath as soon as you anchor your hands.” She did so, and immediately stood up with a stunned, delighted expression. She had done it! I clapped my hands and whooped with delight: Six years of butterstruggle frustration erased by remarkably simple means in just 30 minutes of TI instruction! Michelle was so giddy over being able to swim with a seamlessly-integrated breath that, though she had already been in the water for three hours that day, she didn’t want to stop. She continued practicing her new Butterfly style for another ten minutes.

Michelle spent her second day at the Studio improving her butterfly, breaststroke, and backstroke. The final session was a “practical exam”, where Michelle worked on all four strokes, concentrating on holding her streamline and moving quickly to reestablish her streamline.

The time and money spent traveling from Virginia to New Paltz was worth every second and penny. Watching my daughter’s face light up after she “got” her butterfly paid for the trip. My only regret is not finding out about Total Immersion sooner.

Michelle Minnich is a 15-year-old age group swimmer from Fredericksburg, Virginia. In the two weeks since returning from her TI Swim Studio sessions, Michelle cut 3.5 seconds off her 50-meter butterfly time, and swims each of the four strokes with more grace and fluidity. When not in the pool or driving her parents to distraction, she is an All-District musician, equestrian, and honors student. Glenn Minnich is a software engineer who enjoys lifting weights and running.

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