Maintain patient hand while taking air

[mcgovernfamily]

Hello,

I have been working with the TI system for the 8-10 months and have been making progress with my swimming. Since I started, I have always felt like I over rotate when taking a breath.

I am able to coordinate my hands/hips when not breathing, however when I have to breath, I over rotate, drop me lead hand and become off-balance. If I could swim in races with a snorkle, I would be all set :)

I f I try to to limit my rotation and twist my head, then I cannot clear my mouth above the water for air.

I am looking for sone insight and/or drills which other people have used to maintain the lead hand while breathing.

[andyinnorway]

firstly this is something most of us do when we are learning, its a very common obstacle.

things that helped me. understanding the difference between rotation from reaching forward and rolling. the reaching forward helps maintain balance as you get a better feeling of support from the water.

Also as you roll to breath, imagine you are gently resting your head sideways on a pillow, this will help your streamline. If you are braking heavily when you breathe caused by increase drag and head lift will make balance difficult.

finally, double check you are not suffering from crossover on your breathing side, i.e. your hand going over the centre line, which can also cause over rotation.

[Butiki]

In addition, relax. For most of us (me included), the first attempts at breathing are marked by haste and panic, creating balance issues.

One specific drill that helped me was the Sweet Spot. Specifically, it was the rotation into Sweet Spot. When rotating to Sweet Spot, we usually resume kicking immediately. Instead of this, try to feel the glide for a couple of seconds, the body just supported by the water with head turned for the breath, and weightless lead arm extended. If you're balanced, this should not be an issue. Basically, it's Sweet Spot without the kick. Depending on how long you can glide in this position, this can only last a couple of seconds until the momentum is lost and you start to sink. Resume kicking then.

The objective is to imprint that relaxed breathing position, weightless lead arm extended, and slowly integrate it into whole-stroke swimming. Works great with 2BK.

[ALMD]

I am learning as well

I found this to help me in rotating to air without losing balance on my lead patient hand.( luckily this one area in drilling in particular, that I did exactly what the instructions told, it just fell in place, and found myself balanced after taking the breath, and ready to take another stroke !! compared to many other points in other drills I struggled with !! )

From what I read from Terry both articles and videos, your opposite shoulder should start rotating as your recovering hand enters the water.

Like was stated , and I always try to remind myself relax, and let the elbow lead first and raise the hand a little and then as you dip it to spear it, rotate your opposite shoulder and pull your hand on that side.

You may wanna drill on land, as you dip your recovering hand, rotate opposite shoulder and maintain ( chin/sternum relation ) keep reminding yourself, dont lift the head, just keep it resting on the water sorta...

Hope this will help

[Mike from NS]

Also ....

Something that was mentioned here a while ago as a suggestion to make the breathing stroke better was to spear a bit more shallow. That is ... if time to breathe to the left has arrived, then spear the right hand not quite as deep as usual. At the time of this discussion, I recall it being mentioned that possibly Shinji and Terry follow this practice --- but that is for either of them to confirm. Today, which was my best day yet in my swim "life", I did this very often and just as consistently I was able to grab an easy comfortable breath.

What made my day great beyond this was the fact that for more than an hour I broke away from my fin dependency - swimming fin free. May be a strange point of achievement for most here; but quite significant to my learning path. I'm leaving yet another plateau! With the fins my SPL was 15 and without the SPL was 19. Much work to do yet !!

Anyway, it all has a lot to do with the patient lead arm.