Conf: Freestyle
From: Jim Sanders

I swam two glorious meditative miles today. While traversing the pool, I tried a couple things...

1) Swimming with eyes closed... OMG!!! Talk about intense and (pardon the pun) eye opening, the longer I went (never more than 16 strokes...wall avoidance) the more I noticed things I had not before – temperature difference between above and below the surface...water flowing along my arms as I extended them toward catch... water between my relaxed fingers as I “sampled the water” in preparation for catch... the sound of a good stroke – or a marginally less good one – the sound of a foot breaking the surface... simply amazing.

2) After swimming for a bit with fists closed, I extended the index finger as Terry has suggested...wow. Yes, you can catch and pull with only one finger. And yes you do lose that grip if you force the stroke. It was incredible to feel the catch of just one finger.

As I swim, it is difficult for me to do anything but live in the moment of each stroke. I find it next to impossible to think of anything not happening at that moment. Consequently, for me, a two mile swim is two miles of intense communication with virtually all of my body. It doesn't get much better than that.

I have no desire to compete, nor any particular desire to swim faster. My only goal is a perfect stroke, much like a grail quest, I suppose. Terry has written that fitness is something that happens while you practice. I suspect that speed is something that happens when you are not looking for it, sometimes unexpectedly, while we are listening to our strokes, feeling the water between our fingers or doing a one finger catch. So, though speed is not a goal, it feels as if achieving “communion with the water” might make me faster anyway.
Thank you,
Jim

seek not, find.
try not, do.
know not, learn.
be not, be.

From: Richard Skerrett

Actually it is possible to be in both camps. Competing brings you into contact with like-minded people, which is far more important than the actual racing. One can enjoy the experience of racing while coming last. In Masters swimming, winning is not necessarily what it's all about. The person you are really racing against is yourself.

Admittedly there are very competitive people everywhere and you will find them in swimming too. But for them the excitement and nerves before the meet, the thrill of winning or the pang of losing are an integral part of the experience. Without it they would not feel alive.

There's room for all sorts.

From: Brian Vande Krol

I don't race at swimming, but I do triathlons. The swim leg is just what you have to do to get to the bike, which, for me, is where the race really begins.
I'd like to swim faster, but the most important thing for me is to emerge from the water fresh and ready to race on land. I could probably go two to four 4 minutes faster in my 1500M and 1.2 mile swims, but it would come at the expense of the bike and run legs.

For me, speed is an indication of how well I am moving through the water. Given a constant effort level, I swim faster if I swim better. And swimming better has become my dream. My goals are to continue to bring my times down in my races without "blowing up". Meeting my goals is indication of progress toward my dream.

As Richard mentioned, there's room for all. My dream is to become a graceful, effective, swimmer. Racing goals will help me get there. And there are other routes to the same place.

From: Terry Laughlin

I'm in both camps as well, swimming as much for the moment-by-moment pleasure of graceful movement, as well as for the “thrill of victory.” I’m convinced that the kind of swimming Jim describes - "communion with the water" – is both the most satisfying and effective way of swimming. It will teach you to swim better and faster if simply learning to swim is your goal. It will move you steadily toward the happily-unattainable goal of the "perfect stroke" if being a Kaizen Swimmer is your goal.

And it can even help you set a national Masters record at 55 as I did last year – something that in my youth, or even my 40s would have been inconceivable – if that happens to be your goal.

For me the key to being able to achieve the inconceivable was learning to be so purely in the moment, as Jim describes, that I could become aware of the vast range of sensations available when one's body is moving through such a dense medium. And to understand that exploring these sensations made a material difference in how I swam.

I spend 98 percent of my swimming time mainly doing that – even when training for races. Yet the simple fact of filling out an entry form always transforms my practices into something far more intense – even joyful – than what I experience when purely exploring the "art" of swimming.

It may be hard to conceive of if you have not previously had years of often-frustrating competitive experiences. And by competitive I mean competing with yourself and your own perceived limitations. From age 12 to 22, with rare exceptions, I was continually frustrated by feeling I was falling short of my capabilities. I sometimes say I had a true heart, but an uncooperative body. I tried so HARD in training and races, but more often than not swam poorly in races.

Since entering my 50s, it's been completely the reverse. It's rare that I don't finish a race with an amazing sense of having used my capabilities fully. And the pleasure that produces can persist for days.

Another aspect of competition that I embrace is embodied in the Latin root of the word compete: com petere means "strive together." I have a number of rivals with whom I strive together. Even as we try to outswim each other in races, we recognize that without the presence of a "worthy rival" we might not reach as deeply into ourselves as we do. Thinking of them as I’m training pushes me to more examined and purposeful efforts – and to taking greater pleasure from every training session.

It's all good.

From: Grant Hall

What you’ve written here speaks eloquently to our fellow competitors. Over the years I have acquired 4 or 5 "worthy rivals" and I value them highly. There is joy just swimming in same race with them regardless of the result. The joy of my own results comes after.

Postscript from Terry Laughlin:

Influenced by Jim's suggestion, here’s a practice I did in April, on a day when I had a lane to myself. I swam the first 2100 yards (of a total 5000-yard practice) with my eyes closed. I did three rounds of 700 yards as follows, as a warmup:

4 x 25 - for feel
4 x 50 - for feel
2 x 100 - for feel
4 x 50 - open eyes and descend my times on the clock

I did one round each as follows:

Round 1 Fists closed
Round 2 Index finger extended
Round 3 Open – but very soft – hand.

As Jim noted, my sensitivity to various aspects of my stroke was greatly heightened.

I chose to give my attention to the following:
1) More relaxation on catch.
2) More leisure as I "sampled" the water.
3) Elbow remaining as close to the surface as possible in the 1st half of the stroke.

By the end of that warmup set, I felt as if I had a more effective catch than I have ever experienced, and maintained that sensation through most of the 2900 yards that followed.

Excerpted from the Total Immersion Discussion Forum.