There are no medals for a low stroke count.

You only get a medal if you win, place or show. Nobody cares how many strokes you take to get there. So why do swimmers and coaches spend so much time obsessing over stroke count, and why are the low stroke count swimmers so often slow?

There are only two issues that determine how fast you swim: what happens when you're taking a stroke, and what happens

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Three of us competed in the Montauk, NY, Mighty Man Half-Iron relay last weekend. We finished second among men's teams, 25 seconds in front of third place, and way behind a team that should have been called "Freaks of Nature."

There was discussion among us about whether Joe ran down the runner to capture second, replacing the all-or-nothing talking-to-yourself that occurs after the usual

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Thanks to Cynthia Boaz from Truthout for reminding me that in" Gandhian language, the means and the ends are inseparable," because that is the only way to explain what happened at practice today.

Gandhi's point was, "That which is won through violence must be sustained through violence. That which is won through mass civil nonviolent action is more legitimate and more likely to be sustainable

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By Louis Tharp

Swimming is not intuitive. It rewards its practitioner with bursts of speed and infusions of satisfaction when it is studied carefully and its components are respected.

No sport is intuitive. Some people have natural talents which contribute to proficiency, like hand-eye coordination does for baseball or tennis, and this natural talent squirts enthusiasm into the learning and

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By Louis Tharp

While a third of the country was watching and listening to a football game, a muted video helped teach Michael and Joe to swim better.

I love the words that serve me as a coach, but I love more a soundless video and a wet swimmer on deck with eyes glued to a fresh replay of the last 100 yards.

Swim. Watch. Swim better.

My job is to handle the Coach Cam - yes I still use the Coach Cam

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Nobody told us when we were slogging through high school chemistry that the periodic table of elements would grow. It was 92 or 93. Today it's 118.

Whoever said that was a changeable number?

 To Louis Tharp:

I'm frustrated. Everytime I learn something that seems to work well, I have to unlearn it to get better, or that's what I'm told. Swimming can't be learning and then unlearning. If it is then

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By Louis Tharp

Inflexible ankles plus poor kick are not remedied with high hips.

That's like getting gay marriage out of Lawrence v Texas. It might happen, but it'll take a long time and there are easier ways.

Louis,

Can you recommend drills that emphasize high hips? I have inflexible ankles and a poor kick, so I am always looking to increase my efficiency/streamline in order to swim

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By Louis Tharp

This doesn't work for everybody. It has a high frustration quotient. Not as high as understanding quadratic equations, but similar in that there are two unknowns:

1. Whether a person can transfer the benefits of the drill to propulsion in the swim.

2. How much water you'll suck in trying to breathe while doing the drill. (Hint: go into breast stroke.)

3. Whether you'll ever figure out

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By Louis Tharp

Kurt Grote was the walk-on Stanford breast stroker who won gold as part of the 400 meter medley relay team in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He didn't start swimming until he was 15, and only to control his asthma, according to his doctor.

I met him at Stanford a year after the Olympics. I had only been swimming for  a couple years.

One evening he said something like, don't let anyone

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By Louis Tharp

Hi Bill:

Thanks for writing and for over-rotating.Without over-rotators coaches would be forced to work as investment bankers, and after the first hundred million where's the fun?

Question:

Lou, when I first began learning TI, three years ago, the coach emphasized "stacking" the hips and shoulders in drills and whole stroke. Not long after that, I discovered that Terry's emphasis had

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