From Caveman to [Emerging] Sensitive New-Age Swimmer

By RON BEAR

In the last two months I’ve taken several seconds off my best 50 meters (now at :43) and several points off my best golf score. I‘ve achieved a score of 79 several times with combinations from 29 strokes + 50 seconds to 33 strokes + 46 seconds. The secret is I learned how to swim by feel instead of having to check my watch at the end of the lap to know how I did.

I first read Terry’s description of this knack two years ago. At the time I couldn’t swim freestyle at all and simply aspired to comfort in the most basic drills. About four months ago I started experiencing occasional laps that felt awesome and produced low golf scores. Unfortunately, the next lap wouldn’t feel nearly as good and I couldn’t figure out how to recapture that elusive feeling.

Fortunately I’ve lately realized that “Cave Man Thinking”–a natural inclination to try to apply brute force to a problem that requires finesse–was keeping me from even greater progress. If you’ve ever been guilty of swimming like a cave man then you may benefit from what follows.

Overheard at the weekly CMA meeting …
Ron: Hi. My name is Ron and I’m a caveman.
Group: HI RON!

CMA has a 12-step program that culminates in dining at a fancy restaurant. The goal is to make it through the meal without belching, scratching yourself, or talking with your mouth full.

Since, I don’t have atrocious table manners or a Neanderthal’s view on the place of women in the work place, I only have to go through three steps of the 12-step program. For each I’ll explain how my inner caveman thought about it and then explain how Sensitive New Age Swimmer (SNAS) thinks.

Point 1: Energetic plunge and roll

Caveman way: The caveman thinks of this as smashing the shoulder down and spearing the arm forward. (“Smash” and “spear” are among the few words in the caveman language.) The caveman is quite good at this. It’s his favorite place to add energy. The problem arises when the caveman gets a little tired and needs to use extra arm force due to a sloppy entry. The caveman interprets fatigue and heavy pressure as good – it means he’s working hard.

SNAS way: I realize the point is to swim faster, not to work hard, and understand the spearing arm should enter as effortlessly as possible regardless of how fast I’m going. If I feel resistance or force, one of four adjustments helps me retain my nearly effortless Mail Slot entry.

a) As I get tired I tend to drop my elbow a little. High elbow marionette-arm fixes that.
b) Sometimes I fail to roll enough to get my shoulder in position for a clean insertion. Concentrate on rolling.
c) When the resistance is mostly on the hand, a slight depressing of the hand is helpful.
d) If all else fails and I just CAN’T seem to regain a smooth entry I just back off. (The caveman HATES this option. He calls me a wuss and says to stop acting like a baby)

Point 2: Pull as hard as possible

Caveman way: The caveman wants to pull with as much force as possible. He then loses his grip on the water and his hand slides back with little resistance. This is classic churning. I don’t know the real numbers, but there is clearly some upper limit for “as hard as possible”. If 30 pounds is the number then a 35-pound pull will produce a brief force spike, immediately followed by slipping water with only 15 pounds of resistance.

SNAS way: Terry says your hand should just hold your place in the water. I was able to imprint this at first only by pulling at nearly zero force. I softened my hand and eased it back. Knowing how that feels, that sensation is what I concentrate on. If I pull too hard I feel turbulence – it makes my fingers wiggle. When I concentrate on light, steady pressure I get a low SPL at 30 pounds instead of a higher number at 15 pounds…and the clock shows a faster time.

Point 3: Drive the hips

Caveman way: This is a caveman no-brainer. Drive the hips and feel yourself surge forward. Drive ‘em faster and surge faster. Oops. Caveman is driving his hips like crazy but there’s heavy turbulence out front. Caveman wants to ignore that and generate enough force to power through his bow waves.

SNAS way: My new paradigm is that hip drive is a luxury I can afford only if everything else feels smooth. The moment I feel something out of tune I put the hips on auto-pilot and focus on precision. Last night I was flying (for me) and smooth and suddenly I wasn’t smooth anymore. I put EVERYTHING else on auto and concentrated on minimizing front end turbulence. It took about three strokes to get my head back in line. After all the skating I have done I thought I was immune to lifting my head, but that’s exactly what I found myself doing. I rapidly regained my flow state and completed the 50 meters in 44 seconds.

Conclusion
That last experience epitomizes my new SNAS persona. I used to have to hold onto whatever I was experimenting with until the lap was complete and I could check strokes and time and decide how I’d swum. Now, swimming by feel, I can make on-the-fly corrections at any moment.

Ron Bear
Student of Swimming

Ron is an avionics engineer on the F15 Eagle at beautiful Eglin AFB Florida. He gets to work on the coolest upgrades on the coolest aircraft which certainly makes his job (you can see this one coming) the coolest. Two years ago he got into triathlons and had to learn to swim freestyle so he could have fun running and biking. Now TI Swimming is his favorite part of triathlon.

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