Terry enjoying his “illness-free zone” during his bout with cancer 

Any regular readers of our late founder Terry Laughlin’s original blog will remember that even while living with Stage IV metastatic prostate cancer and its attendant complications– including a small stroke, along with chemotherapy and experimental treatment– he chose to use swimming as a vehicle for maintaining a vibrant sense of well-being, despite all the health challenges he faced on a daily basis. In the last two years of his life, he blogged regularly about his journey with cancer and how swimming was an integral part of feeling good and continuing to live a deeply fulfilling life. In addition to his naturally ebullient personality and intrinsic optimism, his choice to approach living with cancer in this way was inspired by one of his longtime students, Dr. Jeanne Safer. Here’s an excerpt from a July 2017 post– “How To Live A Full and Satisfying Life with Cancer”–in which he describes Jeanne’s lessons with him during her cancer treatment, and his own experience of the “illness-free zone” that swimming created:

In 2010-2011, I’d been privileged to witness a remarkable phenomenon when one of my students, Dr. Jeanne Safer, was diagnosed with breast cancer, and then– shortly after being declared cancer-free– received a diagnosis of leukemia, unrelated to the breast cancer. During two years in treatment, Jeanne rarely ever missed our weekly lesson. She would come to our Swim Studio directly from a treatment session. Though she walked in each time looking utterly drained, she would regain energy and vitality during our hour together. Jeanne referred to the pool as her “illness-free zone.”

I experienced the same thing during 18 uninterrupted months of treatments that were often harsher in their effects than the disease. Though I often felt tired or ill, a stunning transformation would occur while taking yoga class or practicing swimming. Especially while in the pool or lake, I would feel vibrant health.

I’d felt a passion for swimming since adopting a kaizen (continuous improvement) ethos in the early 1990s. Now my gratitude for the ability to swim with flow and grace became boundless. I would feel a magical connection to the water with every stroke. I also brought to swimming the habit I’d learned from yoga and qigong, visualizing healing energy flowing through my body with every stroke.

Since my mid-50s, when I’d reached my (age-adjusted) lifetime performance peak, I’d learned to embrace my physical self—with its gradually diminishing capabilities and increasing limitations through my late 50s and early 60s. That process became dramatically concentrated after my diagnosis and the onset of treatment. It seemed as if I experienced 10 or more years of loss of speed and lessening of endurance in just over a year.

Yet my sense of purpose and the pleasure I took from swimming became, if anything, greater. Even as I proceeded to set new “lifetime slowest” marks in my favorite races and repeat times on almost a monthly basis, I never became complacent about trying to eke out the best performance of which I was capable.

• In March 2016, I swam 1650 yards (equivalent of 1500 scm) two minutes slower than I’d ever swum it before, yet in an Adirondack Masters 60-64 record time of 23:10. I described it in this blog as the most satisfying race of my life, because of the absolutely unwavering concentration it demanded.
• In November, despite training just 3000 to 4000 yards per week, I completed two 10K swims on consecutive days in the Red Sea with Total Immersion Israel. Though I tired after 8K on the first, I finished the second with abundant energy. I told those who swam with me that it was the best day of my life.
• In December, I swam 1650 in a time of 26:57, nearly four minutes slower than previously, yet good enough for an Adirondack 65-69 record and equally satisfying because the time was possible only because of several energy-saving adjustments I’d refined as my endurance and strength went south.

Since April, I’ve been in a clinical trial of an experimental treatment from Germany that, at the moment, seems to be working. I’ve had less pain, fewer days feeling ill, and more energy than in many months. I have no time for anxiety, anger over my situation, nor fear of the future. I’m far too preoccupied with taking pleasure from a glorious season of open water swimming, yoga classes, and my work, creating new TI content. In fact, I’ve been more productive, engaged in—and excited by—writing and video production the past year than at any time in the almost 30 years since I started TI. Life is good!

                           Terry and Jeanne during a lesson at the TI Swim Studio in New Paltz

While Terry did not ultimately survive his bout with cancer, it’s remarkable to recognize that his post above was written just 3 months before he died– his sense of self and zest for life remained intact throughout his cancer journey, and swimming gave him the priceless gift of continuing to live with purpose, passion, and joy until the very end of his life. What more could one ask for? (Except more time– but who doesn’t want that?) Over the years, Terry heard innumerable stories from TI swimmers (particularly in response to his cancer blogs right here)– and many just self-taught, through his books and videos– who had also experienced tremendous healing from swimming in the midst of cancer and other serious illnesses. In the spirit of honoring the feeling of well-being that swimming brought Terry, we’d like to share a letter and interview query from his student Jeanne Safer, a psychotherapist and noted author– and Terry’s inspiration to swim through cancer–  inviting TI swimmers who have experienced healing through swimming with cancer to share their stories as she begins work on a new book about preserving identity through cancer. Any readers interested in sharing their story with Jeanne can send replies directly to her email, which she has included below. Thanks… and Happy Laps!

                                                       TI Swimmer Dr. Jeanne Safer 

Dear Fellow TI enthusiasts,

Anyone who has had the privilege of knowing Terry, whether through his writing, his videos, or in person, knows how he felt about being in the water. For him, swimming was a source of delight, transcendence, and, ultimately, emotional healing—an almost ecstatic experience of being supported and free at the same time. I had the enormous honor of being his student for 15 years, almost from the time the Swim Studio first opened in New Paltz (his daughter Carrie was my first coach, and it was she who helped me overcome my phobia of bilateral breathing, to my eternal gratitude, before I began working with her father). I remember early in our relationship, Terry told me about a friend of his with breast cancer and lymphedema, a painful swelling of the arm after mastectomy. She was a passionate open-water swimmer and he mentioned that he had invited her to come and swim in his pool any time she liked, so she could “experience the healing power of the water.”

Little did I know at the time of that conversation that I was destined to experience that healing power myself. I began swimming with Terry at age 57, and was diagnosed with breast cancer at 63 and acute promyelocytic leukemia at 64; it was my extraordinary good fortune that both were curable.

A large part of those cures, in addition to radiation and Tamoxifen for the breast cancer and a year of intravenous arsenic for the leukemia, was my weekly lessons with Terry throughout both illnesses. The physical and emotional delight and the challenges of working on my freestyle and breaststroke the entire time kept me going. I used to come directly from the hospital after chemotherapy to my lessons and always emerged enlivened, as well as enlightened, afterwards. I christened the water my “illness-free zone,” where I was an athlete rather than a patient. I even had a port installed in order to be able to swim, at the recommendation of a TI coach who was an emergency room physician, despite my doctor’s reluctance. It was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

I’ve just gotten a contract to write a book I’ve longed to write since those experiences (this will be my eighth book); the working title is Crazy Once A Day: Preserving Identity Through Cancer. In my own life, I have found that swimming—and particularly TI swimming—is a potent way to maintain and enhance identity through the physical and mental trauma of cancer and its aftermath. I would love to hear from and interview other TI swimmers who have discovered “the healing power of the water” through their own experiences of cancer. I want their stories to inspire other cancer patients and survivors to unleash this remarkable force in their lives. If you want to tell your story and inspire others in the process, email me at jsaferphd@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Jeanne Safer, PhD is a psychotherapist who has been in private practice for over forty-five years, and the author of seven acclaimed and thought-provoking books on neglected psychological issues—the “Taboo Topics” that everybody thinks about but nobody talks about publicly. Her special areas of expertise include siblings with difficult or dysfunctional brothers and sisters, women making choices about motherhood or who have chosen not to have children, adults struggling about whether to forgive people who have betrayed them, and those coping with the death of a parent. She lectures on these and other unusual and compelling topics.

Dr. Safer’s books include I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics (June 2019); The Golden Condom; Cain’s Legacy: Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy and Regret; The Normal One: Life with a Difficult or Damaged Sibling, Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life without Children; Forgiving and Not Forgiving: Why Sometimes It’s Better NOT to Forgive; and Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Changes an Adult’s Life—For the Better. Both The Normal One and Beyond Motherhood were Books for a Better Life Finalists for the year’s best self-improvement books.

Dr. Safer has appeared on television (MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Fox News “Kennedy,” C-SPAN, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and CBS World News Tonight), as a psychological expert on The Montel Williams Show, and on radio (NPR’s Talk of the Nation and The Diane Rehm Show). She has contributed articles to The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, More Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

Dr Safer lives in New York City with her husband, historian and political journalist Richard Brookhiser.

RELATED POSTS: 

Terry Laughlin As a Mentor In and Out of the Water– 1/3/18  

Swim for Health and Vitality: Finding Bright Spots Everywhere– 4/13/17

Zero-Cancer Swimming: The Physical Becomes Metaphysical– 8/5/16

“You Can Change Profoundly At Any Age!”– 5/13/16

VIDEO: How Deep Can Swimming’s Impact Be? [WATCH JEANNE’S INTERVIEW BELOW]

The post READER SUBMISSIONS: Has Swimming Helped You Create an “Illness-Free Zone” During Cancer Treatment? appeared first on Total Immersion.

This post was originally published by Terry Laughlin on May 9, 2011 and is a follow-up companion piece to an Apr. 2011 post from Terry that we published two weeks ago.

In my previous post, Stalled Progress? It’s Not a Plateau– It’s a Crossroads, I described the plateau encountered by most people soon after they begin swimming as the place where you can learn lessons and gain insights that will determine your ultimate level of accomplishment and satisfaction as a swimmer. The greatest danger is to assume you’ve gone as far as you’re capable of.

It happened to me 40 years ago, and it took me another 30 years to discover the way out. I started swimming competitively as a 10th grader and never quite escaped the literal slow lane of my relatively undistinguished high school team. I swam the longest event – 400-yard freestyle at the time – and while I wasn’t winning races, at least my times were improving.

When I began college swimming (in late 1968), the stakes and the training increased sharply. Over the next two years my time for the 1650-yard freestyle improved by almost 3 minutes. But in my third year, it improved by only 4 seconds. Going into my final season I resolved to work harder than ever, prevailing on our coach to offer double workouts twice a week. Even so, that year my 1650 time was 20 seconds slower and I fell out of the top 6 at our conference meet. I concluded I’d reached the limits of my ability and ‘retirement’ from competitive swimming came as a relief.

A quarter-century later, looking for lessons about skill-acquisition to pass on to “adult-onset” swimmers, I read several books about martial arts. The most influential was Mastery, the Keys to Success and Long Term Fulfillment by George Leonard. Leonard was a student of Zen who became an Aikido sensei despite beginning study at the advanced age of 47. Leonard writes that fulfillment comes not from achieving a goal but from choosing a challenge that requires your full devotion — which is precisely how I experience improvement-oriented swimming.

Value the Process
Those who decide to pursue Mastery most often do so as a result of encountering that initially frustrating first plateau. Where others may give up and pursue something else or simply accept ‘this is as good as it’s going to get,’ a fortunate few learn to Love the Plateau. After all, as Leonard writes, “If our life is a good one . . . most of it will be spent on the plateau.”  Therefore we should learn “to value, to enjoy, even to love . . . the long stretch of diligent effort with no seeming progress.”

Loving the plateau doesn’t infer complacency. Rather, it means coming to value the process over the product. In the previous article, I quoted a TI Discussion Forum post from “SG” who had improved in a matter of months from swimming two laps to three miles, then over a few more months improved his time for one mile from 40 to 33 minutes. When his progress stalled he experienced his first frustration — and a measure of doubt over whether he could swim any faster. When doubt intrudes, improvement — and commitment — become doubly hard.

As I responded to SG, if he were to improve to 32, 31 or 30 minutes, the thrill of accomplishment might last for 15 seconds after touching the wall and seeing the magic digits on the pace clock – and then be followed by 15 or more hours of practice before seeing another drop. 

The key to maximizing the body-mind-spirit benefits of swimming lies in applying the following five insights to those hours:

• Passionate Curiosity  “I have no special talents; I am only passionately curious.”– Albert Einstein    Are there aspects of swimming you take for granted, do by rote, or simply because you’ve seen someone else doing it? Do you know the  specific benefit of every technique or training method you practice?

• Pursue Improvement  Make it your goal to improve your swimming – not just to show up, check off an item on your to-do list, or complete a certain yardage total – every time you enter the water. If your goal is to get in 3000 yards, that’s all you’re guaranteed to accomplish. If you make it your goal to spend an hour purposefully focused on improvement, your chances of that get a quantum boost.

• Be Specific  The human brain dislikes generalities and thrives on specifics. So when you set an improvement goal, make it explicit. Is it your head position while breathing . . . seeing fewer bubbles in your stroke . . . imprinting a Mail Slot entry . . . or to keep your SPL below 17 in a set of 200s?

• Measure  “What gets measured gets improved,” goes the saying. When you set out to improve something how will you know you’re going in the right direction? Set up feedback loops to keep you on track.

• Trust  When your improvement curve flattens, it’s critical to understand that when you practice with specific, measurable improvement goals change at the cellular level (i.e. neurons in your brain and nervous system) – while not perceptible – is ongoing. At intervals that incremental change consolidates to produce a thrilling forward leap. Between those leaps, the pleasure of total immersion in practice is its own reward.

Take Your Swimming to the Next Level!

Learn the Habits of Mastery and develop expert-level skills with Total Immersion’s 2.0 Freestyle Mastery Complete Self-Coaching Course. Do you love learning, practicing, and swimming the TI Way? Are you excited about attaining personal mastery in the most efficient and exacting skills available in freestyle? Have you mastered the TI Foundations in prior videos or the Effortless Endurance (formerly Ultra Efficient Freestyle) Self-Coaching Course? If yes, the 2.0 Freestyle Mastery Course is for you.

The post “Love the Plateau” (If You Wish to Break Through!) and 5 Traits of the Mastery Mindset appeared first on Total Immersion.

This post was originally published by Terry Laughlin on Mar. 20, 2012.

Since January [in 2012] I’ve been teaching an Effortless Endurance class series at the Greenwich (CT) YMCA — a series of four 90-minute sessions on Saturday afternoons. Every fourth week we begin another series. I’ve benefited personally from repeatedly leading new students through the TI foundational skills, in being reminded of the common challenges facing adults learning to swim in mid-life.

Learning to control your body in the water is is a big one. Learning to control your mind is even bigger. Inez, a participant in the current series, emailed me to report feeling overwhelmed when she went to the pool yesterday to practice the skills we worked on two days earlier in the second session, during which we focused on a Rag Doll recovery, Mail Slot entry and using the extended arm to Separate Molecules. That’s a lot of thinking and coordination.

I wrote back that– when learning a skill as complex and counter-intuitive as swimming– feeling overwhelmed is normal. I felt it as well, back in 1990, when I first realized my stroke needed a complete makeover after 25 years of swimming the traditional way. I discovered then that I needed to learn a new way to think before I could learn a new way to swim.

Between 1965 and 1972, when I was developing my inefficient stroke habits, I did all my swimming in workouts– i.e. racing teammates for a couple of hours each afternoon. In 1990 I swam mostly alone, practicing the drills and skills I was teaching in TI clinics and camps. (Weekend workshops didn’t begin until 1993.) Learning to be alone with my thoughts, undistracted by teammates, was a new experience.

I began my stroke makeover with a focus on head position, which had been forward-looking for 25 years and millions of strokes. I quickly realized that before I could learn a new way to swim, I would need to learn a new way to think — specifically how to “Think About One Thing” and ignore or dismiss other thoughts.

I thought about little else but head position for three months, and didn’t feel that a neutral head position had become my “new normal” for six months. By then, I’d formed two invaluable new habits:

(1) To swim with a neutral head position.

(2) To always leave the wall with One Clear Thought about technique.

(PS: Inez went on to say that after returning from her “overwhelmed” pool practice, she reviewed the video I’d shot Saturday and posted online, and felt encouraged and calmed by seeing how much her form had improved from a week earlier.)

 Transform Your Stroke!

Learn guaranteed skill-builders with our downloadable Total Immersion Effortless Endurance Self Coaching Course! The drills and skills are illustrated in 15 short videos. Guidance on how to learn and practice each drill effectively, illustrated by clear pictures, are contained in the companion Workbook.

The post Your First Swim Lesson Isn’t How to Stroke– It’s How to Think One Thought appeared first on Total Immersion.

Editorial Note: This post from the old TI Discussion Forum is archived from 2012, but if you’d like to participate in the current TI Discussion Forum, it is now located on Facebook as “Total Immersion Swimming Technique Discussion Group.”

This post was originally published by Terry Laughlin on Feb. 11, 2012.

The TI Discussion Forum had a query from Werner this morning, who I’m guessing is from Germany. Werner wrote:

Hallo,
I’ve been “on the TI train” for 12 months. Thanks to TI and this Forum I was able to complete 1000 meters of continuous freestyle within six months. My anxious question is: Will it hold?

Is it like biking? My grandma didn’t ride a bike for 55 years but was able to do so again, when someone suggested she do so. So how long will my current swimming success hold?

Thanks for sharing your experiences,
Werner

Here’s my reply to Werner:

Welcome to TI and thanks for engaging with other members of this Forum. As you will soon discover, your fellow TI swimmers are a thoughtful, supportive and generous group and will eagerly share the lessons they’ve learned.

The simplest answer to your question is: No, it will not hold. Quite the contrary, it will improve. Continuously. And likely for decades, not just weeks, months or years. The key is to embrace the most important aspect of the TI philosophy and methodology — Kaizen [continuous, life-long improvement].

Here are 5 Core Principles of Kaizen Swimming:

1) Your goal in every pool session is to improve your swimming – not to complete a certain number of meters or raise your heart rate or any of the traditional goals. As I’ve written many times, “My main thought every time I enter the pool is to be a better swimmer when I leave it an hour later.”

2) Improve by finding and fixing weak points. Those will be more obvious — and easier to fix – in the early stages, and more subtle — and require more patience and more strategic thinking later.

3) Love the “plateau.” This will become more important a few months to a year after you start TI, as the improvements take longer to achieve. You’ll spend weeks, and eventually months, practicing without being conscious of any improvement. During these times, maintain faith that change IS taking place — at the level of neurons. After a period of time that change will consolidate and produce a thrilling forward leap.

4) Become passionately curious. Swimming is the most complex, challenging and non-instinctive of all physical skills. This is because it’s an aquatic skill, while humans are terrestrial mammals. If you tirelessly seek to expand your knowledge and understanding, you’ll enjoy swimming much more, make steadier progress, and be able to have great confidence in your choices.

5) Practice is its own reward. Whatever goals have motivated you to begin swimming, strive to progress to a point where those external goals — while remaining sources of motivation — essentially become beside the point. The motivation that brings you to the pool day after day, year after year, decade after decade is the knowledge that your practice is the high point of your day, it leaves you energized mentally and physically for everything else you do, and–over time–produces enduring positive change in body, mind and spirit.

Happy Laps,
Terry

Find more tips like this in the Ultra-Efficient Freestyle Handbook, a richly-illustrated, easy-to-read 140 page guide to understanding freestyle technique in depth. It comes along with 15 downloadable videos and a learning and practice workbook in our Self-Coaching Toolkit.

The post 5 Principles for Continuous Improvement… for Decades! appeared first on Total Immersion.

This week’s post is the final installment in a series of articles we’ve shared this past month on Kaizen Training, all of which have been excerpted from a companion instructional manual that Terry Laughlin created for T.I. workshop attendees, adapted from his 2006 book, “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body.” Terry’s practical guidance in this manual focuses on how T.I. swimmers can strategically develop a Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) Training approach to their swimming practice in the first several weeks or months– and beyond– following a T.I. workshop (or after learning with T.I. self-teaching tools). In this article, we pick up where we left off in last week’s post on “Effective Swimming,” which described how to develop efficient speed through the practice of stroke counting. Now, we add the element of time to our practice– in these sample “Swimming Golf” practice sets–  to demonstrate how to effectively use the pace clock with our stroke counting to advance your development of smart speed. Enjoy… and Happy Laps! 

 SELECTED EXCERPT FROM:

“KAIZEN SWIMMING: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TOTAL IMMERSION WORKSHOP” 

PHASE III: EFFECTIVE SWIMMING–  SWIM FOR TIME

Up to now, we’ve ignored the pace clock– something verging on heresy among swimmers and coaches. But we’ve had good reason:  Allowing you to fully develop swimming as an art has readied you to train for it as a sport, with far greater return for your investment of precious time and energy. With stroke count now ingrained as your most important piece of training data, you can then begin using the pace clock to give you another piece of information to cross-reference with your stroke-count numbers. This will give you the complete swimming-improvement picture. This includes “Swimming Golf” and many creative ways of doing time-oriented sets. Here are several examples to get you started:

SWIMMING GOLF

We introduce the pace clock, but use SPL and perceived effort (heart rate) to measure the “cost” of any speed increases. The easiest way to increase speed isn’t more or harder work; it’s by learning to swim any given speed more economically, freeing the energy to go farther or faster. 

Version 1:  On successive 50s, swim the same time but reduce your stroke count. 

Example:

32 total strokes + 50 seconds = a score of 82

31 total strokes + :50 = 81

30 total strokes + :50 = 80

The goal is to repeat the same time on each 50, but to continue subtracting strokes, until you can’t shave any more from your count without sacrificing speed. Solving it will give you valuable “swimming intelligence.”

Version 2:  On successive 50s, maintain stroke count, but descend your time. 

Example:

30 total strokes + :45 = 75

30 total strokes + :44 = 74

30 total strokes + :43 = 73

To improve your score you need to keep exactly the same stroke length, but take each stroke just a bit faster to shave seconds. You’ll be amazed at how quickly a bit more effort can add a lot more strokes. If those strokes don’t translate into enough speed to lower your total score, you know you’ve been wasteful and can take immediate steps to fix the problem. 

VARIATIONS ON SWIM GOLF 

[Editorial Note: If you do not own Fistgloves, swim with closed fists. To learn more about this tool, click HERE.]

• “Play” golf with fistgloves.  How close can you come to our ungloved score? After several rounds with gloves on, do another round without them. Does your score improve over previous ungloved sets after “educating” your hands? If so, lock in the sensations you got.

• How many ways can you score? After you’ve established your “par,” test how many different stroke counts you can swim at a slightly higher score. If your record score is 77, can you swim a constant score of 80 at 30 and 31 and 32 and 33 and 34 strokes? Which feels easiest? 

• Take your Heart Rate or estimate your Perceived Exertion after a good score. A score of 64 with a HR of 120 is much better than a 64 with a HR of 150. 

There you have it– the final practice tool to start on the path toward Kaizen Swimming. Happy Laps!

Advance beyond the basic T.I. skills with this comprehensive guide on pursuing the kaizen path of swimming to the highest levels of swimming mastery: 

Terry Laughlin’s book– Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body– shows you how!

The post Kaizen Training: Cultivate Smart Speed with “Swimming Golf” Sets appeared first on Total Immersion.

Continuing with the series of articles we’ve shared in the last several weeks, this post– “Phase III: Effective Swimming”– is another excerpt from a companion instructional manual that Terry Laughlin created for T.I. workshop attendees, adapted from his 2006 book, “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body.” Terry’s practical guidance in this manual focuses on how T.I. swimmers can strategically develop a Kaizen Training approach to their swimming practice in the first several weeks or months– and beyond– following a T.I. workshop (or after learning with T.I. self-teaching tools). In this article, Terry breaks down the elements of building smart speed through the practice of stroke counting. Since we know that Stroke Length x Stroke Rate = Velocity (SL x SR= V), stroke counting is an integral practice for learning how to deliberately calibrate one’s swimming speed with awareness and precision. Next week we’ll wrap up the last article in this series, looking at how we can effectively incorporate the pace clock with stroke counting in “Swimming Golf” practice sets. Enjoy… and Happy Laps! 

SELECTED EXCERPT FROM:

“KAIZEN SWIMMING: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TOTAL IMMERSION WORKSHOP” 

PHASE III: EFFECTIVE SWIMMING– INCREASE MASTERY, DISTANCE, AND SPEED

Your goals in this phase are to be able to increase your awareness, control, and coordination to be able to swim farther and faster with the least additional effort. Your specific training goals are:

(1) Develop the ability to choose any stroke-per-length (SPL) and swim effectively.

(2) Develop the ability to increase your speed, without increasing your SPL and while maintaining a sense of relaxation.

(3) Swim near your “red line” [race pace] with control and gradually raise your red line.

(4) Be able to apply everything you do in practice while racing.

TOOLS

20% Drills– focused on stroke timing, patient catch, and trapping water

20% Mindful Swimming– in drill/swim sets and whole-stroke sets

30% Stroke Counting and “Gears”

20% “Swimming Golf” [this type of practice will be shared next week] or Descending Series

10% Distance Development or Speedplay

PRACTICE TIPS

If you’ve been wondering where in Total Immersion “training” happens– those timed sets on the pack clock that other swimmers seem to rely on exclusively– this is it. But with a crucial distinction: the difference between T.I. training and traditional workouts is that T.I. swimmers focus on relaxation, control, and fluency.

You practice Effective Swimming by getting in the habit of:

(a)  Counting your strokes

(b) Comparing your stroke counts at any distance or speed to the best you’ve done at that distance or speed

(c) CHOOSING your stroke count on any repeat or set

Once you reach this point, you’ll be ahead of 99% of all swimmers in the effectiveness of your training.

The motto: “Never Practice Struggle” will help you answer virtually any question that might arise as you progress from learning new skills, to developing those skills into habits, to building fitness in such a way that it reinforces those skills. Never forget that you can reduce energy waste far easier and faster than you can create energy stores. And that it takes only half as long to learn a skill correctly from the start than to correct a bad habit. So Effective Swimming will produce far more “functional fitness” in far less time than traditional workouts.

Here are the basics for getting started:

STROKE COUNTING: FIND YOUR STROKES PER LENGTH (SPL)

If you’re not doing a drill or mindful swimming, count your strokes– every stroke, every lap. This will give you real-time info on your level of efficiency. How much does your count increase when you swim 50s at 40 seconds, rather than 45 seconds? Or when you swim 100-yard repeats, rather than 50s? With than information, you can then begin setting efficiency goals for every length of practice. Those goals are not strictly about taking fewer strokes. They can also include:

1. Reducing the increase that occurs when you swim faster.

2. Reducing the increase that occurs when you swim farther.

One caveat is that you’ll probably find it challenging to keep track of your stroke count and concentrate on a Focal Point at the same time when you initially begin monitoring SPL and doing SPL exercises. As you start out, separate the two activities and use them to provide information that helps each. However, over time, stroke counting will become almost automatic and you’ll use only a little brainpower to keep track of SPL. Then you’ll be able to concentrate on a Focal Point and track your count at the same time. 

HOLD YOUR SPL FARTHER

Once you have awareness of your stroke count range, you can begin to use that knowledge by doing sets that increase your ability to maintain a longer stroke for a greater distance, and develop your aerobic capacity at the same time. You do this with moderate distance repeats (50 to 300 yds/m) in sets of 1000 to 1500 yds/m in an orderly distance-building, efficiency-maintaining progression. Start with shorter repeats at a moderately challenging stroke count, then increase the repeat distance while maintaining the stroke count. When you’ve progressed from 50-yd repeats to 200-300-yd repeats at that stroke count, you can drop your count by one stroke and start the process over again with 50-yd repeats. Your speed on these repeats is less important than a sense of smooth, consistent stroking over longer distances. To train a bit faster, just reduce the repeat distance at the same stroke count for a set– or session– or two. 

CHOOSE YOUR SPL

If you rode your bicycle on a hilly course with only a single gear, your legs would be toast in no time. If you drove your car in only one gear, you’d burn out your engine in a hurry… and limit your speed dramatically. And yet, virtually every swimmer has only one “gear” for swimming– mainly because they swim most of the time with just one stroke count and rate. The next stage of Effective Training is similar to a piano student playing notes, chords, and scales until she becomes deft in striking the right keys every time.

Your next set of exercises is designed to teach you to “play” SPL as easily as a pianist playing scales, and then help you use your developing “gears” to learn how to build speed almost effortlessly. Having established your range of stroke counts (in a 25-yd/m pool, most swimmers should have a range of about four stroke counts; mine ranges from 12-15 SPL), your next goal is to: (1) learn to swim smoothly and effectively at every count in that range; (2) be able to “calibrate” your stroke so you can push off a wall and swim at any count you choose in your range, and (3) increase your speed with far less effort by smoothly increasing your stroke count (and consequently, your rate) to move more freely. 

Here are a few simple exercises you can do to begin that process:

SPL EXERCISE #1

Swim 25+50+75+100. Rest for 3 to 5 yoga breaths after each swim.

Take note of our stroke count on the 25, then without trying to strictly limit your count, just swim at a consistent pace or effort and see what happens to your SPL average on the the other swims. If you took 15 strokes for the 25, how far above 30-45-60 strokes are you on the 50-75-100? Don’t judge yourself; just take note and file the information for future reference.

SPL EXERCISE #2

Swim 100+75+50+25. Rest for 3 to 5 breaths after each swim.

Start with an easy 100. Count your strokes and divide by 4. This number becomes your “N” (benchmark SPL) for the rest of the set. For example, if you took 72 strokes for a 100, your N is 18 SPL (72 divided by 4 lengths). Again, simply note how far below 54-36-18 strokes you are for 75-50-25.

SPL EXERCISE #3

Swim 25+50+75+100.

Repeat Exercise #1, but this time with a specific focal point– e.g. releasing the weight of the head, or slipping through a smaller hole, or swimming more quietly. Just take note of your stroke count; don’t attempt to hit any particular count. This is purely an experiment to see if technique “tweaks” affect your SL, teaching you that you can affect– and ultimately choose your SL.

SPL EXERCISE #4 

Swim 2 rounds of: 25+50+75+100.

1st Round: Swim with Fistgloves.[If you do not own a pair, swim with fists closed.] Just swim at your previous effort, not trying to hit any particular count. How many strokes above your ungloved SPL are?

2nd Round: Remove Fistgloves. [Again, if you do not own a pair, now swim with open hands.] Without trying for a particular count, compare your stroke counts to your previous SPL, to discover how Fistgloves (or closed fists) affect your efficiency.

Next week: The final excerpt in this series of articles on Kaizen Training– Using the pace clock with “Swimming Golf”

Advance beyond the basic T.I. skills with this comprehensive guide on pursuing the kaizen path of swimming to the highest levels of swimming mastery: 

Terry Laughlin’s book– Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body– shows you how!

The post Kaizen Training: Stroke Counting Tips & Practice Sets to Increase Mastery, Distance, and Speed appeared first on Total Immersion.

Over past couple weeks, we’ve shared excerpts from a companion instructional manual that Terry Laughlin created for T.I. workshop attendees, adapted from his 2006 book, “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body.” The purpose of the supplementary material in this manual was to provide practical suggestions to guide T.I. swimmers through the first several weeks or months following a T.I. workshop (or after learning with T.I. self-teaching tools). This week’s post is another excerpt from that manual, focused on the first phase of Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) Training: Energy Conservation. In this article, Terry details the importance of spending time on balance, comfort, and relaxation. From this solid foundation, one can build a stable, fluid, and efficient stroke… and be well-positioned to then cultivate advanced stroke mastery, increase distance, and increase speed. We’ll go in-depth on those latter topics next week, when we’ll share another post in this continuing series of excerpts from Terry’s workshop manual on Kaizen Swimming. Enjoy… and Happy Laps! 

SELECTED EXCERPT FROM:

“KAIZEN SWIMMING: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TOTAL IMMERSION WORKSHOP” 

This part of the Workshop Manual will guide you through the first several weeks or months of training after your T.I. workshop (or after beginning T.I. practice with self-teaching tools). Pages 136-164 of the T.I. book Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body (“ES4EB”) also includes detailed guidance on how to plan a Kaizen Training program for the long term. Here’s an overview of what do in the first few weeks or months of your T.I. practice.

PHASE I: ENERGY CONSERVATION

Every workshop alum (or self-taught T.I. swimmer) should devote at least 10 to 20 hrs of practice to balance, comfort, and relaxation. (Some swimmers have remained at this level for a year or two without stagnating.) Your goals are to eliminate discomfort and tension and develop basic habits of efficient, fluent movement. For many swimmers, drills are essential for this, but whole-stroke can be helpful too. The specific foundations you should form include:

(1) Make breathing routine so it doesn’t distract you while working on other foundations.

(2) Create effortless support or balance by imprinting a neutral head position and the right position on the “track” for your relaxed extended hand.

(3) Make long, “slippery” bodylines a habit by learning to “pierce the water” with your spearing arm and follow the “track” with your bodyline.

(4) Make whole-body propelling movements a habit.

TOOLS

30% Balance Drills to learn balance and imprint sleek bodylines

40% Switch Drills- Focus on minimizing drag and turbulence, and becoming “patient” in trapping water

20% Mindful Swimming (whole stroke with focal points) to transfer awareness gained in drills into whole stroke

10% Stroke Counting to measure your improvements in efficiency and compare the effectiveness of various focal points

PRACTICE TIPS (for more guidance, read pgs. 115-135 of Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body)

Efficient, fluent swimming starts with exploring basic movements and positions with a sense of curiosity– and no sense of urgency. Whenever you feel discomfort during a drill, your natural reaction will be some kind of compensation– craning your neck, sculling, kicking too hard. These unconscious reactions imprint energy-wasting movements on our nervous system. 

Patience in mastering basic skills may be natural to martial artists and dancers, but not to most swimmers. I only came to appreciate its value after a few years of regular yoga practice. The most beneficial goal for your first 10 to 20 hours of pool time following the workshop (or after first working with T.I. self-teaching tools) might be to make mindful, examined movement a habit. Don’t count laps or watch the pace clock; focus purely on sensation and awareness– aiming to reduce effort and increase flow. Your period of concentrated drill practice may last a few weeks for some students, several months for others. Your drill practice will benefit greatly if you follow these guidelines:

• Short repeats. 25s or less for the first week or two, and seldom longer than 50s.

• Short sets. To maintain acute attention, change your focus regularly. Alternate tasks that require intense focus, with less exacting ones.

• Clear focus. Think about doing just one thing well on each length. Break it down finely. (e.g. on Switch Drills, you could divide your focal points into soft arms on recovery, recovering arm deep and slow, leading with your elbow, slicing your hand to your target, and tipping your fingers down.

• Ignore the clock. Use “yoga breaths” to regulate your rest interval between repeats. 3 to 5 breaths should be sufficient. 

* To continue reading about the progression of Kaizen Training, click here for the blog post on “Phase 2: Develop Your Stroke”

Advance beyond the basic T.I. skills with this comprehensive guide on pursuing the kaizen path of swimming to the highest levels of swimming mastery: 

Terry Laughlin’s book– Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body– shows you how!

The post Kaizen Training: Priority #1– Conserve Energy appeared first on Total Immersion.

Last week we shared an excerpt from a companion instructional manual that Terry Laughlin created for T.I. workshop attendees, adapted from his 2006 book, “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body.” The purpose of the supplementary material in this manual was to provide practical suggestions to guide T.I. swimmers through the first several weeks or months following a T.I. workshop (or after learning with T.I. self-teaching tools). Continuing in this vein, this week’s post is another concise excerpt from that manual and is focused on the shift in mindset as you get started with Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) Training, after learning the basics of T.I. fundamentals– and illustrates the contrasting benefits of pursuing a Kaizen Training approach instead of a traditional training approach. In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to share more excerpts from the manual on Kaizen Swimming, including the topics of energy conservation, and increasing mastery, distance, and speed. Enjoy… and Happy Laps!  

 SELECTED EXCERPT FROM:

“KAIZEN SWIMMING: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TOTAL IMMERSION WORKSHOP” 

KAIZEN EQUALS PLEASURE PRINCIPLE

I’ve emphasized that T.I. Swimmers have a very different mindset from most swimmers. Our paradigm for training is no less distinctive. Those training the T.I. way are not only improving steadily, but also enjoying it more than ever. In a few words, we believe in the pursuit of pleasure, rather than pain. This section provides guiding principles for maximizing the value– and enjoyment– of every hour you spend in the pool (or open water).

Expect improvement. Most adult swimmers have become resigned to swimming year after year with little to show for it. A T.I. Swimmer’s goal should be Kaizen (continuous improvement) Swimming. Because swimming offers limitless opportunities for solving the UHSP (Universal Human Swimming Problem) and increasing self-awareness, you could continue gaining in Mastery for decades. I still make exciting advances every year, and still sense almost limitless possibilities for further improvement. The refinements I’m making are fairly subtle, but my capacity for fine distinctions in position and timing has increased steadily. My current focus is on greater relaxation, especially when swimming faster.

CLEAR THINKING

There’s a great deal of “folklore” about swimming technique and training. One goal of T.I. instruction is to replace those misconceptions with clarity on how swimming works and to make that knowledge the basis for effective goal-setting. Since I entered my 50’s, I’ve begun every practice with two conscious intentions. Since I made this my practice– at an age when most swimmers are slowing down– my improvement not only continued, but accelerated. 

Intention #1: My intention in every practice is to swim better than I ever have in my life. Setting the bar that high keenly concentrates one’s mind. Since I adopted that intention, I’ve enjoyed great fulfillment– and even excitement– in virtually every practice. A key to making this happen is to never push off a wall without a specific purpose.

Intention #2: My intention on every set and repeat is to accomplish whatever task I set for myself (whether technique, stroke count, time, or some combination) with as little effort as possible. In conventional training, the goal is typically to work harder, to increase physiological capacity. But time and energy are finite, while opportunities to increase efficiency are virtually infinite. After more than 40 years, I’m still improving my sense of how to swim more economically. 

 WHAT ABOUT FITNESS?

In writing about training, I don’t mean to suggest that fitness is unimportant. But instead of training to “get in better shape,” train to improve your swimming. Conditioning will be something that happens to you while you improve your swimming. To illustrate:

Redefine Endurance. Webster’s defines endurance as “the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity.” T.I. defines Swimming Endurance as “the ability to repeat effective swimming movements for a duration and speed of your choosing.” That definition places as much importance on nervous system development as on aerobic system development. The critical difference is that when you train the nervous system, the aerobic system also receives the training it needs; when you train the aerobic system, there’s no guarantee that the nervous system will be trained the way you wish.

Ideal for Fitness Swimming. Many of those who take our workshops swim purely for fitness, rather than speed or performance. A common question among fitness swimmers is: “If I swim easier, will I lose fitness?” You won’t– and here’s why: 

(1) A quality workout is one that makes good use of the body. T.I. practice makes better use of the body than conventional workouts, minimizing the chances of injury and increasing the likelihood that you’ll be able to do healthful training consistently.

(2) Motivation matters. If you enjoy and are engaged by your fitness routine, you’ll continue for the long term; if you don’t enjoy it, you’ll lose interest. Kaizen– Continued Improvement– Swimming will keep your interest higher than conventional training that you do simply because “it’s good for you.”

(3) Increasing intensity is always an option. Once you begin to master the basics of efficient T.I. swimming, you’ll find yourself able to swim longer– and faster– with less fatigue. 

Should I Increase Yardage? In Kaizen Training, the primary reason for swimming more yards is to increase opportunities to imprint efficient movement. Will fitness increase as you do so? Yes, but your swimming will benefit only if that increased fitness accompanies increased skill. So if increased yardage causes you to compromise form, don’t swim those distances until you can do so and maintain good form.

Advance beyond the basic T.I. skills with this comprehensive guide on pursuing the kaizen path of swimming to the highest levels of swimming mastery: 

Terry Laughlin’s book– Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body– shows you how!

The post Conventional Training vs. Kaizen Training: Maximize the Value and Enjoyment of Your Practice appeared first on Total Immersion.

One of the single most common questions that T.I. swimmers ask after first learning the T.I. drill process and technique-focused approach is: “How do I apply what I’ve learned in the drills to my whole stroke practice?” To help guide our students with integrating T.I. skills in the transition to whole stroke practice, we have long provided a companion instructional manual to our workshop attendees. Below is an excerpt from a workshop manual that Terry Laughlin adapted from his 2006 book “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body,” providing practical suggestions to guide T.I. swimmers through the first several weeks or months following a T.I. workshop. This post highlights a detailed list of freestyle focal points that aims to answer the question of how to transition the skills of T.I. drills to whole stroke swimming– an indispensable aid for both new T.I. swimmers and long-term kaizen learners! Enjoy… and Happy Laps!  

 SELECTED EXCERPT FROM:

“KAIZEN SWIMMING: HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TOTAL IMMERSION WORKSHOP” 

DEVELOP YOUR STROKE

This phase of practice can last a lifetime for those most committed to Kaizen Swimming, but it should certainly last between one and several years. Your minimum goal is to swim whole stroke with the same degree of balance, ease, and control that you enjoy in the drills. You do that by:

(1) Learning to swim balanced and tall

(2) Learning to breathe rhythmically without interrupting your flow and while keeping a hand extended and anchored

(3) Learning to start each stroke with a “patient hand”– taking time to trap the water with hand/forearm before stroking

(4) Develop “gears” by establishing an SPL (strokes per length) range of three to four 25 yd/m stroke counts (e.g. 14-17 strokes per length, calibrated precisely according to your chosen pace) at which you can swim efficiently… and be able to swim 400-1500 meters without exceeding your SPL range… and to swim sets of shorter repeats (repeats of 25-200 yd/m in sets that last 10-20 min.) in the lower half of your SPL range

PRACTICE TIPS

Following a period of intensive drill practice, you have two priorities: (1) Apply what you’ve learned in drills to whole-stroke and (2) Begin imprinting an economical stroke into muscle memory. The two key ingredients are Drill/Swim Set and Mindful Swimming. Earlier in this practice guide Coach Brian Van de Krol gave great guidance on Drill/Swim sets. [Those particular drill/swim sets will be shared in a separate blog post in the coming weeks.] Basically, take what feels good in the drill and make it feel the same while swimming whole stroke. At first, it might take you 75 yds of a drill to get a clear idea of the sensation you’re trying to replicate, and you might be able to “hold that feeling” for only 25 yds of swimming. With time, that mix should become 50 yds drill and 50 whole stroke, then 25 drill and 75 whole stroke. Prioritize clarity by having a specific focus at all times and keeping that focus from drill to whole stroke. For example, if you practice Skating with a focus on establishing “wide tracks,” then focus on following those wide tracks in whole stroke.

When you increase your whole-stroke practice, it’s best to simplify your task and heighten your focus with Mindful Swimming. Pages 115-127 of “Extraordinary Swimming for Every Body” [available for purchase– follow this link to the T.I .Store] provide a detailed context for all Freestyle Focal Points. Here is a consolidated list to begin your freestyle practice. 

FOR BALANCE

• Completely release the weight of your head to the water
• Imagine a laser beam coming from your head-spine line– keep it pointed forward
• Feel that the back of your neck is lengthened
• Hang your extended hand– keep fingers below wrist and wrist below elbow

FOR LATERAL STABILITY

• Keep extended lead hand outside of shoulder
• Follow “Wide Tracks” with recovery and extension
• Rotate only enough for shoulder to clear the water

FOR LONG, SLEEK BODYLINES

• Spear hand forward to a target located in Skating and reinforced in Switch drills
• Line up your body to follow your spearing hand down the track
• Keep legs inside the “shadow” or slipstream of your body
• Always have a hand forward of your head

FOR RECOVERY AND ENTRY

• Ear Hops– Hop fingers over an imaginary bar coming from your ear, then into the water
• Marionette Arms– Hang hand/forearm from your shoulder like a marionette or rag doll
• Mail Slot– On entry, slip hand and forearm through a visualized mail slot forward of your shoulder
• Soft Hand– Entering hand should be relaxed enough that fingers separate loosely

HOLD YOUR PLACE

• Enter fingers opposite the elbow of extended hand
• Pause hand– fingers down– for a brief moment before stroke
• Trap the water behind hand/forearm before stroking
• Hold– don’t pull– as best you can

PROPEL EFFORTLESSLY WITH YOUR CORE

• Spear your entering hand past your grip
• Spear your hand through the target established in Skating and Switch drills
• Drive down the high hip as you spear
• Count strokes with hip drives instead of hand entries
• Drive opposite foot as you spear your hand
• Finish each stroke to the front

BREATHING

• Bubble out immediately and continuously after inhale
• Blow out the final 20% more forcefully as you roll to air
• Use the spearing hand to take you to air
• Follow shoulder back with your chin and look past your shoulder
• Keep the top of your head down, aligned with spine
• Get taller as you roll to breathe; stay taller as you return face-down

KICKING

• Legs should be as passive as possible (if you came to workshop with “busy” legs)
• Keep kick as small and “neat” as possible
• Try to close feet briefly as you spear
•  Kick from “gut” and top of legs– don’t feel it in your thighs
• Synchronize left foot drive with right hand spear and vice-versa

AND FINALLY

• Do everything as quietly as possible– drilling, swimming, increasing speed or cadence
• Never Practice Struggle

If you’re counting, that makes 38 different focal points– but it’s not an exhaustive list. I’ve used every one of these, some for hundreds of thousands of strokes, others for tens of thousands. All have contributed something meaningful to my efficiency. I never take a stroke– in training or racing– without thinking about one of them. Each focal point works on a particular part of the stroke. And each lap you consciously focus on, for example, slipping your arm into a mail slot, faintly imprints a new groove in your nervous system. After 5 or 10 minutes thinking only about that, it will feel a bit more natural and improve the chances that you’ll continue doing it when you’re thinking about something else. 

Through practice, you’ll narrow the list to a few particular favorites. Once you do, you might note those on an index card and laminate, or put it in a Ziploc baggie and take it to the pool with you. Put it at the end of your lane, and then do several 25s of each “cue” on the card. Take enough time between reps to catch your breath and think about how you feel. As they become easier, progress to 4 x 50 of each cue. Then, 4 x 75. The level of focus required to do these and groove them into your nervous system makes the time fly, so enjoy this exercise in Mindful Swimming, while you build efficiency and fitness.

The post PRACTICE CUES: Kaizen Focal Point Checklist For Transition From Drills to Whole Stroke Swimming appeared first on Total Immersion.

One of the most distinctive and effective aspects of the T.I. approach to swimming is not merely our focus on efficient technique– it’s the way in which we approach the learning process itself. “Meta-learning”– or learning how to learn– is a key element of how we pursue swimming as a path for kaizen mastery (continuous, life-long improvement). We set clear intentions through deliberate practice of specific and discrete skills, and every feature of practice is purposeful, designed to sharpen our mastery of even the subtlest movements within a swim stroke. The complex movements of whole-stroke swimming are deconstructed into its simpler skill components (“mini-skills”) for ease of learning and practice, building the stroke piece by piece, from the ground up. Teaching though this building-block method has always been an integral part of the T.I. process and our swimmers’ success, as each drill and skill in our learning progression builds upon the previous drill and skill. A credo Terry often quoted from the U.S. military is the philosophy that “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”– it is imperative to learn and master foundational skills at slow speeds in order to perform them impeccably at faster speeds and in more complex movements. This September 2016 post from Terry is an in-depth look at how T.I. applies the specific learning strategy of “chunking”– breaking a component into smaller “chunks” of related information– to the practice of swimming, and how this approach is a key to your success in swimming mastery.   

 September 13, 2016

At some point, all kaizen swimmers employ a learning strategy that cognitive scientists refer to as “chunking.” Chunking refers to grouping separate pieces of information together to facilitate learning by remembering the groups as opposed to a much larger number of individual pieces of information. The types of groups can also act as a memory cue. In TI we group by body segment (head, torso, arms, legs) and skill type (Balance, Core Stability, Streamlining, Propulsion).

We learn to read via a chunking process. First, we learn the sounds of individual letters which assemble into words we generally know before beginning to read. Three individual letters (d-o-g,  c-a-t) form a group that represents a family pet.

Next, we combine a series of words into a phrase or sentence. Via several additional chunking steps we may acquire the skill of speed reading, in which we rapidly scan pages of text, identifying key phrases which convey the main ideas of what we’re reading.

Chunking is a key strategy for learning complicated physical skills such as swimming. In T.I. methodology, we call this approach “Blend-and-Harmonize”– as in, blend several discrete mini-skills, then bring the new skill set into harmony with the whole stroke.

Long before I knew of it as a learning strategy, I instinctively employed a chunking process to learn new skills. This first occurred nine months before the first T.I. camp, before I’d chosen the name Total Immersion, or even thought of offering a swim camp for adults.

The first skill was Balance, to which I was introduced by Bill Boomer. Bill taught me to align my head with my spine and shift weight forward to my upper chest. We called it “swimming downhill.” Practiced together, these two skills (aligning head and spine; shifting my weight forward) made my legs feel light, something I’d never experienced in almost 25 years of swimming.

From the start, I realized that I couldn’t fully concentrate on both of these new thoughts or sensations at once. So I’d spend 10 to 30 minutes concentrating on feeling a straight line from the top of my head to the base of my spine. Then I’d focus on leaning on my upper chest (we no longer teach balance this way) for a similar duration. This particular approach is called “Block practice.”

After several weeks, I felt sufficiently familiar with both sensations to begin alternating them—focusing on head-spine alignment one length and swimming downhill on the next length. This approach is called “Random practice.” (Note: I also practiced a head-lead balance drill—similar to today’s Torpedo—that highlighted both, giving me a heightened sensory benchmark to aim for in whole stroke.)

After another few weeks, I began to blend the two thoughts. One length focusing on head-spine alignment, one length on swimming downhill, and a third length blending the two thoughts/skills. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Now I was “Chunking.”

I learned later that sequencing Block, Random, and Chunking practice (the names for which I didn’t even know when I began doing that) accelerates transfer of skills from conscious to autonomic control. Or to use a more familiar phrase: Forming a Muscle Memory.

It took me about five years of similar experimentation to achieve Balance in even a rudimentary way –it felt great at the time, but I didn’t yet know how much better that sensation would become in the years ahead. Over the next 10 years, I continued to discover new mini-skills—like the Mail Slot entry and reaching below my bodyline–that improved my sense of weightlessness in the water.

But the bottom line is that Balance originally occurred to me as several discrete skills, which I focused on and sensed individually. After the passage of time– and without my realizing consciously what had occurred– the multiple, individual sensations consolidated or “chunked” into a single awareness I call “Swimming in Balance.”

When Balance became a single, seamlessly-integrated “sensory package,” that freed up mental bandwidth to add new skills—Stability, Streamlining, Propulsion, and Breathing.

It would be many years before I read about chunking as a learning strategy and I could apply that term to what had occurred to me– finally, I could articulate the theoretical framework to describe how I’d intuitively been practicing all along. Both before learning about chunking, and since then,  I’ve developed countless skills by the same process.

For instance—as outlined in the 1.0 Effortless Endurance Self-Coaching Course—I achieved a far more refined and efficient freestyle recovery by breaking it into three discrete mini-skills, each of which occupy only a micro-second in the stroke—Elbow Swing, Rag Doll Arm, and Paint a Line.

As brief as these mini-skills are, I have a keen awareness of each, acquired by applying the proven sequence of Block, Random, and Chunking (or “Blend-and-Harmonize”) practice to them.

Fast forward to the present day: I have a far more expansive and holistic “chunk” to which I could give the term “My Utterly Blissful Freestyle,” which integrates six to eight sizable chunks of skills that I’ve developed over the years.

Accessing such high level sensation used to be hit-or-miss. It often took 30-60 minutes to “find” the peak feeling I’d acquired at that point. Now those high quality sensations are absolutely dependable—always there–and I can consistently access them within just a lap or two.

Learn all the skills of efficient freestyle with the Total Immersion Effortless Endurance Self Coaching Course!

The post PRACTICE STRATEGY: Learning How We Learn Any New Skill Is the Key to Kaizen Swimming Mastery appeared first on Total Immersion.