Becoming Kaizen: A Week of Total Immersion

By CHRIS DOUAT

The Fantastic Four: Johnny Weissmuller, Ian Thorpe, Alexandre Popov, Chris Douat. Just kidding. I used to hate Freestyle – just hated it. I liked it about as much as spinach. Here in France we learn breaststroke the way Americans learn front crawl. Thank God. I could at least breathe. I spent 42 years avoiding freestyle. At any cost. I could not breathe with my head in the water.

In the summer 2005, a close friend in Canada, where I’d lived for a time, began learning to swim freestyle so he could do an Ironman. If he can learn freestyle, why not me. I googled ‘dvd freestyle’ and, guess where I end up…. I was trained as an engineer and have my pilot’s license, so all that TI hydrodynamic stuff made sense: airplanes fly better when aerodynamic, shouldn’t a human swim better when streamlined?

I ordered the Freestyle Made Easy DVD and started practicing on my own, in Paris… crowded pools… with other swimmers casting skeptical glances. Luckily I travel regularly to the US and was able to take a Workshop near Washington DC, followed by refreshers sessions all over North America – Calgary, San Francisco, Pennsylvania and New Paltz. I managed to learn freestyle, well enough to swim 4 to 6 Km a week with great pleasure. And I was thrilled to be taking fewer strokes per length than 90 percent of my poolmates. But something still doesn’t feel right. Not stable. Not sure about the arms, the rotation, the head. I keep watching my videos and know I still have much to learn.

October 2007. I receive an email announcement about a Kaizen Camp in Coral Springs and start dreaming about it. I can combine it with a business trip so I register. December comes and here I am, practicing in the great Coral Springs Aquatic Complex with some 20 other TI enthusiasts from all over the world.

This must be one of the best weeks of my life… sun…swim… outdoors… four or five hours per day of personalized coaching. But first I must go through a daunting phase of feeling like I’m starting over, mainly because I’ve spent several years imprinting overrotation, increasing instability and losing power. Terry takes responsibility, telling me TI teaching methods have evolved in the past year to focus more on lateral stability. I struggle to undo this habit until Terry finally tells me to stop trying to rotate altogether. I do and amazingly my body naturally rotates just enough. I can rotate without trying. Then we focus our drill and whole-stroke practice on recovery, hand entry, catch, 2-Beat Kick etc.

But putting all the pieces together is difficult and, as a Type A personality, I feel frustrated. Tuesday afternoon one of the coaches suggests I allow my lead hand to be more “patient” in front of my head. Miraculously, within seconds all the pieces fall together. And a couple of coaches cheer! For me! An amazing feeling: effortless swimming, quiet, fluid, just as if I could keep going forever.

In five days, Terry and his team of coaches managed to dramatically improve my Freestyle, but also my Breaststroke, Backstroke and even teach me a Butterfly that feels like it has real promise. On the concluding weekend, I participated in my first Masters meet, with a half dozen of my fellow campers and most of the coaches. I entered six events and finished each with energy to spare. I even added an extra 50 to the 200-meter Breast, so focused on “threading the needle” that I miscounted laps!

Every coach at the camp was of amazing help and dedication. And the combination of all the tools for learning we received at the camp and the example of the enthusiasm shown by Terry and all the coaches for continuously improving their own swimming, has turned me into a Kaizen Swimmer myself.

Christophe Douat, P.Eng., MS, MBA is a venture capitalist who lives and swims in Paris.

Read this article in French.