Lessons from Bill

By Bill Lang

 

Diane was my seventh swimming student.  I’ve been lucky finding students through referrals and from people noticing my TI cap at the pool; however, I found Diane because she’s married to my friend David, who (not so luckily!) broke his leg in a recent cycling accident.  I visited them in Oberlin to commiserate with David after his accident, and Diane and I made a plan to work together during the trip; she was trying to improve her swimming for an upcoming triathlon in Lake Erie. We only had a few hours together, just enough to make a beginning.

We started on a gorgeous Friday in August in the outdoor part of the Oberlin municipal pool. It was early morning and a few people were doing mild water aerobics under the broad Ohio skies.  We’re on camera: David has volunteered to video our lessons from his wheelchair. Diane was obviously comfortable in the water, lifted her head somewhat to breathe, had fairly short, quick strokes, and a fast, not very propulsive kick. Her recovery looked different on each side – probably the result of an injury to her rotator some years ago.  This may have contributed to the considerable side-to-side movement I observed.

We got started with introduction to balance.   All of my students thus far have been pleasant to work with, but Diane was a joy: calm, attentive, and fun.  When we got to skating (or streamlining) she immediately started over-rotating to the stacked-shoulders position, especially when right-side streamlined.  I have noted this tendency in other students when I first get them away from the flat-down position.  It really works to emphasize using the abs to stay “just enough” rotated – it’s easy to feel the abs working – and, of course, adjusting the rotation hands-on until it’s right.  Diane was hardly moving forward at all in Fish or skating, and we worked on her kick for a while.  (I am finding that non-propulsive kicks are also not uncommon; I don’t like to spend a lot of time on kicking, but it’s no fun doing the drills if you don’t go anywhere, and even slight improvements in kicking make a big difference.)

We spent some time on “active streamlining,” or underswitch; Diane had some trouble coordinating that, and we agreed to go over it again later.

For our second session, the pool was full of kids, all sizes, having a wonderful time.  We did some prepping on the grass for what the zipper drills feel like, and got into the water when the kids are having their 15-minute break.  Diane’s underswitch was a little better but still needed more practice.  We worked on the zipper drills a lot: learning the timing and learning to take time were very important to her progress.  The kids cannon-balled back into the pool – we dealt with that for a while and then called it a day.

Our last session, two days later, was in the blessedly calm, quiet, newly-reopened indoor pool. After reviewing skating, we worked on all of the transitions to whole-stroke, and then breathing.  Diane hadn’t had time to practice much, and I was sure to emphasize what she should work on going forward: head-spine alignment and the patient hand, above all.  I think that the more years you’ve been swimming, the harder it is to switch to “front-quadrant” and wait for the stroking hand to catch up.  Diane still lifted her head to breathe somewhat, losing balance and grip, so I went through all of Terry’s breathing fundamentals, one by one: laser beam (which she remembers, intriguingly, as “a beam of light”), staying long, and looking back over her shoulder as she took a breath. Diane will benefit from lots of skating and underswitch practice, patient zipper drills, and – in whole stroke – focusing on a precise return to streamlining. She will also focus on breathing calmly and patiently and minimizing her kick, which will be easier as her balance improves. Diane has made a great start, and has a long way to go – like most of us!