While the book will not be available for order until Jan, 30, you can read a fairly detailed description, see sample pages, and download an excerpt now at this link.

From now until launch date–and probably for some time thereafter–I’ll post a short blog most days with an excerpt. Each will feature one of the many informative lists of thoughts or principles or actions I’ve included in the book.

This first list is excerpted from the Introduction.

Total Immersion’s ultra-efficient Freestyle is distinguished by these characteristics:

1. It’s immediately and universally recognizable as a standard ‘form’—like yoga asanas. Every ‘signature’ element in TI Freestyle—from the neutral head position, extended bodyline, and symmetrical arm recovery to the 2-Beat Kick—is there for a compelling reason, which the chapters that follow will explain.
2. It treats the human body as a system in which all parts are intricately inter-related—and thus the actions of all body parts should be seamlessly synchronized.
3. It’s not ‘naturally occurring.’ Only a tiny number of elites swim this way by innate instinct. For everyone else, TI Freestyle is an learned skill and an intentional action.
4. However, the striking similarity in form attained by countless thousands of TI enthusiasts worldwide shows that it’s a stroke anyone can learn (including Dr.Paul Lurie who took his first lesson at age 94). It doesn’t require youth, athleticism, or special gifts.
5. A striking number of those who learn it become passionately curious and improvement-oriented (Kaizen) about swimming.

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The New York Times Magazine just published an article about Langer’s work What If Age Is Nothing But a Mindset This excerpt from that article describes mindfulness in a way that applies exceptionally well to improvement-oriented swimming practice.

“If people could learn to be mindful and always perceive the choices available to them, Langer says, they would fulfill their potential and improve their health. Langer’s technique of achieving a state of mindfulness is different from the one often utilized in Eastern “mindfulness meditation” — nonjudgmental awareness of the thoughts and feelings drifting through your mind — that is everywhere today.

“Her emphasis is on noticing moment-to-moment changes around you, from the differences in the face of your spouse across the breakfast table to the variability of your asthma symptoms.”

When we are “actively making new distinctions, rather than relying on habitual” categorizations, we’re alive; and when we’re alive, we can improve.

A key goal of TI Focal Point Practice is precisely as Langer defines it–to replace habitual perception by pursuing new distinctions.

For instance, the first step in improving Balance is to get the head into an aligned and buoyancy-neutral (‘weightless’) position. But muscle memory can impede this change. To make the change we need to be able to make finer distinctions between when the head is slightly elevated, exactly in equilibrium, or slightly depressed.

Or as Langer says, “actively making new distinctions.”

We do that in TI practice by combining three kinds of focus–internal, external, and visualization.

For head position these are

Internal: Release your head’s weight by relaxing neck and upper back muscles.

External: Feel the water’s density as a ‘pillow’ cushioning the weight of your head.

Visualization: Visualize a laser projecting forward from your head-spine line.

And by using Focal Points like these, you should be able to achieve head position as aligned as this.

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Most people treat the recovery portion of the crawl stroke as incidental. Since it’s not involved in propulsion, they figure, it serves only to get the arm back to where it can resume pushing water back—the part they consider all-important.

But Total Immersion—virtually alone in the swim world—considers the recovery phase consequential. We know  that small errors in recovery can create large problems elsewhere–increasing drag and reducing propulsion.

The Rag Doll (aka Marionette) Recovery—the name we initially gave the focal point for suspending a fully relaxed forearm from the elbow during recovery—is one of three essential elements of an efficient recovery. (Swinging the elbow away on exit—not lifting it—and cleanly entering hand before forearm are the others.)

Origins

Like  Balance, Streamlining and most TI technique fundamentals, the Rag Doll Recovery emerged from a problem-solving process.

In Oct 2004, I ruptured the biceps tendon in my right shoulder while lifting weights. It was an almost crippling injury. Normally undemanding actions –like donning a seat belt, or pouring water from a kettle–were too painful to perform with my right arm.

Despite this, I continued swimming. My health insurer required five months of therapy before approving surgery, and I knew that I was likely to regain strength and function more quickly post-surgery if I remained active.

Three Techniques for Pain-Free Swimming

Within a week or two following the injury, I began seeking stroke modifications that would allow me to swim with minimal pain. I discovered that I could minimize discomfort by doing the following:

• ‘Turning off’ arm muscles as I lifted it from the water–relying on a highly-mobile shoulder blade to bring the arm forward.
• Dropping my hand in earlier and steeper on entry.
• Letting my arm sink until my shoulder was in a highly stable position, and I felt natural—even effortless–leverage, before applying pressure.

To my great surprise I was soon swimming pain-free. Then, within weeks, I was stunned to find myself  swimming slightly faster than before the injury.

Even with my right biceps detached from my shoulder—and despite still being unable to pour tea without searing pain!

I was so struck by the advantage I seemed to have gained through pain-avoidance that these three modifications eventually became standard TI crawl techniques. You know them today as the Rag Doll (or Marionette) Recovery, Mail Slot Entry, and Patient Catch.

Why It Works

Though the Rag Doll Recovery emerged as a workaround to a painful injury, I was intensely curious why this combination of technique adjustments allowed me to swim faster with what would have been a disabling injury for the vast majority of swimmers.

Thinking about anatomy, physics, and stroke mechanics, I recognized several critical advantages in the Rag Doll Recovery:

1. It provided a rest break for arm muscles that had work to do during propulsion–maintaining a firm hold on the water. Turning off muscles when they’re not needed saves energy and eliminates a common source of muscle fatigue.
2. Suspending a relaxed forearm from the elbow during recovery—instead of swinging it stiffly through the air eliminates ballistic forces that would destabilize the core or divert momentum sideways. (This evolved into a core TI efficiency principle: Any body part which leaves the water should move in the direction of travel.)
3. It moves the hand from exit to entry by the shortest possible path. This enables higher strokes rates with no loss of length. I.E. You swim faster efficiently.

How I’ve Used It

In the years since I made the Rag Doll Recovery a core element of technique, I’ve discovered it provides distinct advantages in several challenging situations:

1. Because my arms never tire, I’ve been able to swim great distances—8+ hours in the Manhattan Island Marathon and nearly 12 hours in the Tampa Bay Marathon—on quite moderate training and with minimal fatigue.
2. A compact recovery lets me swim in undisturbed comfort and control in the congested conditions of pack swimming in open water
3. Because my forearm is so relaxed, my core remains stable in rough water. My forearm yields when waves or chop hit it, instead of communicating the impact to my core body.

But even more important, these techniques are so biomechanically sound that it’s been nearly 10 years since I experienced any swimming-related shoulder pain.

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My latest event, the Little Red Lighthouse Swim on Sept 20 was no exception. I entered as an afterthought after my long-time swim buddy Dave Barra agreed to swim the entire distance side-by-side (and occasionally stroke-for-stroke) with me. I’ll list just a few of the reasons I experienced happiness during this swim.

Dave Barra

Dave and I have swum over a hundred miles together in open water—many of them synchronizing our strokes. In March 2010, we swam 10 miles across Maui Channel, swimming every stroke in synch. Swimming in synch with Dave has always made me happy. Reason #1.

The Little Red Lighthouse Swim Course

The swim started at Pier 95 on the Hudson River, at 56^th St and traveled 7.8 miles north, passing under the George Washington Bridge at around 6.3 miles. Swimming under bridges that most people only get to drive over has always made me happy. Reason #2.

Swimmingg under the GW–going south!

Our wave started at 3:15 pm (timed to coincide with flood tide–the Hudson flows both ways) and finished at 6:10pm. It was brilliantly sunny the entire swim with the sun setting over New Jersey near the end.

Swimming on Dave’s left , every 6th stroke as I breathed to the right, I saw the sun glinting off Dave’s blue-tinted goggle lenses. That glimpse of sun glint about every 6 seconds made me very happy. I literally had a smile on my face for nearly the entire 2 hours and 51 minutes it took us to reach the finish. Reason #3.

Ski goggles . . . but you get the idea.

The water was quite choppy for the final half but I was able to maintain a weightless head even in the chop. That felt fantastic. Reason #4.

It was the last day of summer. What better way to celebrate the end of summer than swimming in open water with 300 fellow enthusiasts. Reason #5.

The post-race awards took place, after sunset, against a backdrop of the beautifully lit ‘George’ (as traffic reporters refer to the bridge) a sight I’ll long recall with pleasure. Reason #6.

My 2014 open water season has one more event, the New York Aquarium 5K this Saturday, Sept 27 at Coney Island. A day later I leave for Martha’s Vineyard for a week of early fall swimming in Vineyard Sound and various kettle ponds. Almost too much happiness to contemplate.

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Marilyn’s  is among the most uplifting of all TI Stories. What better time to tell it than the 60th anniversary of her historic swim?

In January  my friend Dr. Paul Lurie–at age 96, a Kaizen (constantly improving) TI swimmer–called to alert me that, one of his neighbors at Woodland Pond, a senior residence 10 minutes from my home in New Paltz NY, was a ‘swimming legend.’ I immediately googled Marilyn Bell (now DiLascio) and learned of her exploits. Paul said that Marilyn–now 76–shared the pool with him each morning. However, as Paul swam his customary 20 lengths, Marilyn was limited to ‘aqua exercise.’

Since age 60, a degenerative spinal condition had caused painful back spasms whenever she attempted front crawl. It pained Paul that a legendary swimmer could no longer do what had brought her such distinction, but he felt if anything could help her get her mojo back, TI could.

Reading about Marilyn on-line, I learned that after swimming Lake Ontario, in 1955 she became the youngest person to swim the English Channel, and in 1956 the first woman to cross the Strait of  Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles WA to Vancouver Island, British Columbia (9 hours in 47F water temperatures!)

Marilyn hung up her suit at age 18 but her fame endured. Babies, public parks, and a ferry were named after her. A quarter-century later, Canadians still considered her a sporting icon on a par with hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky.

At 19 Marilyn moved to New Jersey to marry Jim DiLascio, who she’d met when he was among her safety escorts as she swam the Atlantic City Marathon. Together they raised four children—all swimmers—in Willingboro NJ, where Marilyn taught elementary school and Joe worked in state government.

After Marilyn was widowed, she moved to Woodland Pond, to be near one of her daughters (as Paul had  after retiring at 93 as an emeritus professor at Albany Medical College). They soon bonded over their shared love of swimming.  Within days of Paul’s entreaty, I met them at the Woodland Ponds pool

When I asked Marilyn to try a length of freestyle, she displayed classic 1950s form –head high, hips locked, legs churning. I was fairly sure that form was causing her back spasms and that technique improvements would enable her to enjoy pain-free swimming. Here, I’ll turn the narrative over to Marilyn:

Paul called me on a Monday evening and said: “Would you be willing to meet with my friend Terry?” Well, how could I say no to Paul Lurie. He wasn’t only a dear friend; I was so inspired by how beautifully he swam and the  enjoyment he got out of it. 

Marilyn, Paul, and Terry at the Minnewaska Distance Swimmers beach.

But, to be honest, I really doubted that I could swim again after so many years.  Then you arrived in the middle of a snowstorm at 6:45 the very next morning.  I thanked you for coming in such awful weather and you answered, “It’s an honor to meet a swimming legend” and I thought “Oh goodness, now I really have to go through with this.”

When you showed me video of my stroke, I could recognize the way I’d been swimming was unhealthy for my back.

The first exercise—Superman—brought back something I hadn’t thought about in 70 years–how wonderful it felt when I first learned to float. I’d completely forgotten that sensation. Superman also taught me to align my head and spine. I immediately felt more comfortable. 

But I struggled with the second drill–the Skate. Extending and streamlining each side of my body  made perfect sense, but I was so used to the old focus on pulling and kicking that I felt like such a klutz. 

I practiced every morning between your visits. I commented to Paul how hard it was to unlearn old habits. But the TI sequence of small and simple skills, plus your advice to focus on just one thing at a time, helped me make progress every day. That was exciting.

And Paul was an invaluable mentor. He has a good eye for TI technique, so he watched me closely and gave feedback. In addition, we filmed each other with my ipad and compared my form with his.

Two aspects of this experience were most rewarding. One was feeling such harmony with the water after years of discomfort,. And for the first time ever I was learning how swimming should feel. Even now, I get goose bumps recalling how sensual  the water felt to my arm the first time I slipped it into the ‘Mail Slot.’ 

Best of all, swimming is now a joyful experience. I always felt elated after completing my long swims, but swimming for pure joy is such an unexpected gift and I understand why Paul was so anxious for me to share this.

My swimming has long been a source of inspiration for people–of persistence and determination. I’m excited and grateful that I might once again provide inspiration, but of a different kind–not about how far or fast you swim, but about learning something new at any age–as Paul did at 93!

Swimming the TI way seems like an anti-aging prescription—not only for physical health, but as a learning challenge to keep your mind and senses sharp and your outlook fresh. You can literally learn something new each day. I’ve learned so much, yet still feel like I’ve only begun. I really want to master the form completely. 

I’ve always lived with a sense of gratitude, because I’ve had such a wonderful life, but this swimming rebirth has come so unexpectedly.

Overlooking Minnewaska and the Catskill Mountains.

On August 18, Marilyn swam in open water for the first time in 27 years, synchronizing strokes with me for 400 meters in Lake Minnewaska. See how beautifully she now swims in this video.

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Watson, who was the top ranked player in the world for 5 consecutive years in the late 70s and early 80s, won 8 majors, including the British Open five times. He nearly won it a sixth time two months short of his 60^th birthday, leading the field by one stroke as he went to the 72^nd hole, then losing by a stroke in a playoff to Stewart Cink.

That a player well into middle age can still compete on even terms with players four decades his junior testifies to the fact that golf is still primarily a game of skill—though Watson’s drives today fall nearly 100 yards shy of those of Rory McIlroy, the 25 year old from Northern Ireland who has so thoroughly dominated world golf this summer. Watson compensates with accuracy on approaches and finesse around the greens.

Interviewed on the NPR news show All Things Considered a day after the PGA Championship (the only major that eluded him), Watson said the following:

“The beautiful thing about golf is that you take a ball that’s 1.68 inches in diameter and you hit it with a club which is ill-designed to project a golf ball, and you can make that ball travel 200 yards and end up 6 inches from the flagstick.”

And as many golfers know, the other beautiful thing about golf is that amateurs and even duffers can regularly—and not unrealistically–dream of hitting such a shot. Even well into middle age.

While it’s inconceivable such persons might hit a baseball over the wall in a professional ballpark, or dunk a basketball, or kick a 40-yard field goal—they can and do entertain the possibility of hitting a golf shot that would make a touring pro smile.  What an uplifting sense of possibility.

The even greater beauty of swimming is that a swimmer of any age can achieve fluent form as good as that of the current world record holder.

And not just once in a while, but stroke after stroke after stroke.

For illustration here’s a screen shot from youtube of Sun Yang breathing during his 1500m world record swim last year.

And one of a certain 63 year old TI coach and swimmer from video shot last week.

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A recent article in the New York Times Miles From Her Top Competitors, a Young Star Still Outswims Them  reported that US distance star Katie Ledecky, reigning world and Olympic champion in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyles had recently. lowered  her own world records in both events to 8:11.00 and 15:34.23 respectively. Ledecky is the most spectacular women’s’ distance-swimming talent to appear since Janet Evans a quarter-century ago.

What was surprising about her recent record-breaking was (1) it took place during a period of more demanding training, without the restorative taper usually considered necessary for that sort of performance; and (2) it occurred e at a low-key meet she attended to be with teammates, not at a gathering of elites such as a ‘Grand Prix’ event.

However this article contained one nugget of extraordinarily valuable insight for any improvement-minded swimmer. It was this paragraph:

Ledecky knew only that she was in the middle of a swim that felt Zen-like in its effortlessness. So immersed was she in the pleasure of pulling her body through the water with ease, lap after lap, the time, she said, did not really matter.

This is a superb illustration of two critical principles of swimming your best:

1) Swimming your fastest should  feel fantastic. If  you feel you’re working hard, you’re wasting too much energy to swim your best. If you have to ‘push through pain,’ you’re  swimming inefficiently. Your over-riding experience should be a calm, focused effortlessness.

In 2004, I coached a practice in Austin TX, during which four world record holders were in the pool–Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker,  Neil Walker, and Brendan Hansen. After practice I asked each individually how it felt to swim faster than any human in history.

All described experiences remarkably similar to   Ledecky’s. Peirsol for insurance, said “When I hit the touch pad, IO felt like I could have just kept on going.”

That told me that we should never make it a goal work hard. Working hard in practice simply programs you to work hard–and wastefully– in a race.

Instead, your goal should be to approach every task or set with a clear intention to find the easiest way to complete it. That will ‘program’ you to do the same in a race or time trial . . . and enhance your chances of setting your own personal best.

2) Focus on Process, not Outcomes. Katie said she never thought about the time she might swim. She probably never gave the other swimmers in the pool more than a passing thought. Instead she focused on experiencing maximum sensory pleasure in ther own stroke.

This is another goal all of us can pursue in practice. Before, say, a 100m repeat swim, rather than think about  the time you’d like to swim,  focus on key sensations in your stroke–weightlessness, a sense of ‘moving through the water like an arrow through the air,  and of working with, not against the water.

Once-in-a-generation swimmers like Ledecky possess a sensory awareness  most of us would find difficult to conceive. However any of us can improve our level of sensory awareness by making that a primary goal of practice.

Here’s an irony: In a few months, Katie’s coach,  Bruce Gemmell will stand on a stage at a coaching clinic somewhere. In the audience will be hundreds of coaches ravenous for details about her training–how many meters at what heart rate or pace and rest interval.

How many do you suppose will be at least as curious about how she developed a process-oriented mindset and the instinct to pursue high quality sensory experiences in her training?

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We call it Fast Forward Training. Because it’s forward thinking. And because it improves endurance, speed—and, yes technique too—faster than any other approach to training currently in use.

Fast Forward Training is:

• Deep: Guided by the proven behavioral principles of Deep Practice.
• Personal: Customized for each individual, not one-size-fits-all.
• Targeted: Pursues incremental and immediate improvements in the athlete’s existing capabilities in the skills that win races.
• Specific: Every practice and set includes concrete objectives—and the means for swimmers to empirically track their progress towards them.
• Learnable: Athletes can quickly learn to plan, assess, and adjust their own training. Set any goal . . . and achieve it.

Fast Forward training has been in development for over a decade. Dozens of TI coaches have tested it ourselves, and used it with swimmers we coach directly.  In every instance, Fast Forward has proven superior to any training approaches we had personally used previously, and any methods we had used while coaching others.

In my own case, that includes 50 years of personal experience training and racing, and over 40 years coaching from novices to elites–including dozens of U.S.A., NCAA, and YMCA national champions.

We finally feel prepared to introduce Fast Forward training to larger numbers of swimmers in books, videos, and on-line courses.

I’m excited to announce the ‘World Premier’ of Fast Forward: 12 week Training Program,  available now to a limited number of athletes inside the Total Immersion Swim Academy.

The course is being led by TI Master Coach Suzanne Atkinson, M.D.  Suzanne’s course is designed to prepare swimmers for a lifetime best performance in a distance between 1500 and 2000 meters. For triathletes, that means for an Olympic or Half-Iron distance swim.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Total Immersion Swim Academy, our online swim training center.

To learn more about the course—and a bit about Fast Forward Training—please watch this video chat between Suzanne and me.

In weeks to come, please watch this space for

* Announcements and details on Fast Forward Training;
* Tips on how to try it for yourself
* Excerpts from my coming ebook on Fast Forward Training
* And stories from athletes on their experiences training the Fast Forward Way.

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Johnny’s first purpose was to create a pre-training study video for future TI coach trainees. He used excerpts to also create an artistic view of TI Coach Training.

Beyond the heuristic and artistic merits of this video, Johnny has created something of  inestimable value to anyone interested in swimming with exquisite efficiency and enjoyment. And perhaps even a grace that others might notice and compliment.

Johnny reveals the exacting attention to detail and care we use in constructing what we firmly believe is the World’s Most Efficient Freestyle. (If there’s a way to be even more efficient, we’ll discover and teach it.)

Every detail of this technique contributes something critical to saving energy — but  not one comes naturally or instinctively.

The folks in the pink hats are the trainees. They worked for three days with me and Master Coaches Suzanne Atkinson, Mat Hudson, Tracey Baumann, and Georgie Thomas on the steps involved in teaching these details.

On the fourth day (halfway through the video), we were joined by 20 folks in what hats–TI students–for a 1.0 Effortless Endurance Workshop.

If this video inspires you to wish to swim with the same efficiency and grace, we hope you’ll also be inspired to practice with similar care  and attention.

Doing is even more beautiful than watching.

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1. Nose breathing. Mouth breathing stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which activates when we’re under stress. Nose breathing stimulatesthe parasympathetic nervous system which is calming and therapeutic.
2. Slow your breathing. This relaxes you, increases breathing efficiency, and increases oxygenation at the cellular level. As an exercise, using your watch, time your normal breathing frequency for a minute. The average is about 12. Then see if you can slow breathing to 7 or fewer per minute. (Note: Inhale slowly and fully. Hold for a moment–don’t tense–then let your breath ‘fall’ out. Pause  briefly moment–feeling relaxed–before inhaling again.) Sitting at my desk while writing this just now, I comfortably breathed six times in a minute. Practice this a few times a day for a break from your routine so you can easily recapture it at the pool.
3. Empty your mind. Train your  full awareness on the breath. Let all other thoughts go.  If your mind strays, bring it back.

Once you are physically relaxed, psychically calm, you’re ready to fill the mentally receptive space you’ve created with a thought to accompany your breathing . . . In this case, a stroke thought.

Choose a  Focal Point with which you’re  familiar from practice. With eyes closed or open (but unfocused) imagine yourself swimming. Experience the sensation as vividly as possible.

Visualization is a skill that improves with practice.  The benefit of visualization is that the neural circuits that fire when you’re actually performing the action, also fire when you visualize. The advantage of visualization is that you can mentally rehearse perfection. (Read about a Harvard research study on practicing piano via visualization.)

A few suggestions for visualizing:

• Head Position Visualize yourself stroking with a weightless, neutral, perfectly stable head. Visualize the feeling of connection/alignment between head and spine. Visualize the feeling of head cushioned by the water. Visualize breathing feeling the same level of support and relaxation.
• Lengthening.  Visualize the feeling of each arm extending weightlessly as you stroke, feeling your relaxed hand ‘carving a gentle downward arc and a light forward pull on your shoulder as you reach full extension.
• Lengthen as you Breathe. Combine the two previous sensations: Feel your left arm lengthen–as described–as your head rotates with your body to the right–as described.

NOTE: If you’re new to the practice of visualization,, choose ONE sensation to visualize. In fact, use that one visualization repeatedly, for three or more practices, until you notice real improvement in your ability to maintain the visualization for 30 seconds and to feel it almost as vividly–but hopefully even better–than when actually swimming.

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