Kaizen Camp Q&A

 Terry recently received the following inquiry about the upcoming Total Immersion Four-Stroke Kaizen Camp:

Terry,
Having enjoyed the freestyle workshop in San Francisco immensely, I’m considering attendance at the Kaizen 4-Stroke Camp in Coral Springs this November, but wanted to learn if I’m ready to benefit at this time. Since the workshop, my freestyle has improved a lot, but I’m not a particularly fast swimmer. I swim about 2:00 per 100 yards, while taking 15-16 strokes per 25-yards. My breaststroke is in good shape, but my backstroke is rather slow (about 3:00 per 100 yards) and I’ve only just begun the first couple of drills for butterfly, but haven’t mastered the whole stroke yet. Am I ready to attend the Kaizen Camp now, or should I wait for next year when I’m better and faster?  Thanks.
- Hadar

Hadar,
I appreciate your keen interest in TI and applaud your desire to pursue continuous improvement (Kaizen) and become a “complete” swimmer. I’m glad you asked this question because others may wish similar clarification.

At the Kaizen Camp, we’ll teach a 4-stroke program I’ve been refining for two years. My goal in tweaking our curriculum has been twofold:
1) To provide more unity in the TI learning process. This is accomplished by having one foremost focus: minimizing  energy cost by teaching the most hydrodynamic position for each stroke and organizing the rest of the stroke – pulling, kicking and breathing – around returning easily to that position.  
2) To simplify and accelerate the learning process so any student – even if inexperienced – could learn the rudiments of Butterfly, Backstroke and Breaststroke in four steps or less. The fact that our primary goal for each stroke is “active streamlining” makes this possible, as streamlining skills rely on much simpler coordination than locomotion skills do.

An encouraging aspect of working on the “Different” strokes is that they can all be learned faster and easier than freestyle. The alternating movements of freestyle, combined with side breathing in rhythm with core-body rotation, are actually the most exacting skills in all of swimming. By comparison, the skills of Butterfly and Breaststroke are much easier to learn, because both sides of the body move simultaneously (i.e. right and left arm and right and left leg do the same thing at the same time). And though Backstroke involves alternating arm/leg movements, there’s no need to rotate to breathe; this hugely simplifies the learning process compared to freestyle. So be encouraged that you can master a “fundamentally-efficient” whole stroke (i.e. one you can swim with minimal effort and maximum enjoyment) much faster in these strokes than may have been your experience with freestyle.

While our focus will not be to produce Phelps-like speed, the skills we teach are modeled on techniques that are effective enough to have helped make Phelps the best swimmer in the world and are easy enough that anyone can learn them. However, we won’t ignore speed entirely; we’ll use some of our afternoon pool sessions to clarify and teach how speed is a relatively straightforward “math problem.” In freestyle, you’ve achieved a good Stroke Length, with your SPL of 15 to 16. You’ll translate your existing efficiency into higher speed by learning to complete those efficient strokes at incrementally higher Stroke Rates. We’ll show you how to use the Tempo Trainer to make that happen.

Happy laps,
Terry

PS: Anyone registering for the Kaizen Camp on or before October 31 will receive a free Tempo Trainer as a bonus!