Need advice (GoPro video) Don't laugh!!!

[pbeckman]

Ok all... thanks to my buddies new GoPro I was able to get some underwater video last night. Wow, was that an eye opener! I can't believe I can even make it down and back. Anyway, take a look at the video and offer any suggestions/drills I can do to help. Oh, and funny jokes are excepted, I always like a good laugh!

http://youtu.be/cUGhY0UA7dg

Thanks, Paul

[nurledge]

hi Paul, your video is in private mode, can't be viewed.

[pbeckman]

Ok, sorry about that. It is not unlisted so that you can reach it by the direct link.

[jenson1a]

ok I am not the best person to give advice, but I won't let that stop me.

You seem to move thru the water pretty easy or effortless. The one thing I noticed however (I have the same problem) is the lack of "The patient lead hand"!!! I think your lead hand needs to be out in front until the stroking arm enters the water. If I am incorrect, I'm sure there will be others to correct me.

Don't know about a drill, but a focal point you can use is called the race. Think of a race between the 2 hands. The spearing hand should get to its target before the lead hand gets to the pocket. Read this somewhere and it helped me to visualize it better.

Sherry

[daveblt]

Your hands will become more patient when you can work out better balance in your stroke which is obvious not only because of the hands not being patient but also your body position with dropped legs and the continuous flutter kick .Also try breathing as early as possible in the stroke .

Dave

[helixfairweather]

Paul, I'm a newbie to TI myself so you can take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm commenting so that I can learn to start recognizing the components of a TI stroke.

I am envious of your hands on such nice wide tracks and consistently too!

I'm seeing your upper body and lower body rotating separately rather than together. My suggestion would be that you Skate position practice would be a good idea - lots and lots of it.

In the Easy Freestyle book, Terry has recurring discussion about how freestyle swimming is never done flat on your stomach. You are rotating once direction, then to other but never lingering flat. That picture really helped me a lot!

Helix Fairweather
Keizer, OR

[dgk2009]

try to keep your legs closer together on your kick,it's seems to be throwing you off balance,and I' m not laughing,it's actually not that bad.

[tomoy]

Never use a long word… when a more diminutive one would suffice :-P

---

That's one I have to tell myself often.

Anyway, I'm not sure what your experience to date is, how much of an introduction to TI you already have or what your goals are. So maybe a little of that would help, so we don't state the obvious, or use terms that are incomprehensible … er… new.

Helix is right, you have a good imprint of what we call wide tracks, so that's one problem ticked off the list. Your body symmetry and conditioning looks good too so you probably won't have significant physical limitations.

What strikes me most to correct, are the wide splaying your legs are doing, and the general angle you're holding while moving through the water. Which is to say head high, rear end low. There are a lot of things which fall under this heading which we call (fore-aft) 'balance'. Too many practices to single out.

So at the risk of sounding sales-pitchy, I'd say get the Perpetual Motion Freestyle DVD's and start going through the lessons. In my experience, you can try to learn it on your own, do tons of reading online, watch tons of video and still take 2 years to get maybe 75% of the way from uninitiated, to a decent TI stroke. Get the DVD's and it'll cut that time in half. Take a TI class and it can cut that in half again. To generalize.

Anyway, the good news is that you're at the fun part of the journey where there's a lot to gain.

Originally Posted by pbeckman

Ok all... thanks to my buddies new GoPro I was able to get some underwater video last night. Wow, was that an eye opener! I can't believe I can even make it down and back. Anyway, take a look at the video and offer any suggestions/drills I can do to help. Oh, and funny jokes are excepted, I always like a good laugh!

http://youtu.be/cUGhY0UA7dg

Thanks, Paul

[pbeckman]

Thanks for all the advice so far...

As for my experience... I am a runner migrating to the Triathlon world until this little thing called the swim came alone... All kidding aside, I have been swimming for about 5 months about twice a week. When I saw this video The first thing I saw was my legs so far apart. In the water you just don't feel that way, but now I know. I just ordered the DVD's today so I am sure that will help.

I do have a problem breathing on my weak side (lefts) I can do it for about 100 yards and then start sinking when I take a breath on that side and then revert to a two stroke breath on my left side. I am sure it's because I am lifting my head and dropping my hips.

I am heading to the pool now to just work with the pull buoy and practice keeping my legs together and working on the rotation.

once again, thanks for this site and all the advice...

[CoachSuzanne]

Overall nice clean stroke, not a lot of splash or hurriedness. Due to lack of time I can't provide a full evaluatoin, but when you get the DVDs take a look at the spearing and skating lessons where terry demonstrates teh "target practice".

Move your "y" target deeper in the water, and visualize the lead arm reachhing down over the hood of a VW bug, or a swiss ball. This will do 2 things for you, 1) bring the lead hand to a position where the first movement is towards your feet rather than toward the bottom of the pool
2) allow the hips to rise to the surface because you'll remove the leveraging in the front you are currently doing which pushes the hips down.

you'll feel really weird doing this but give it a shot.