Body Rotation Works!

[Mempho]

I took up swimming at age 66 when back problems made me give up running. I looked at the different instruction materials available and TI seemed the only thing that made sense. I read the book, bought the videos, joined a gym, and, two weeks ago, started trying to swim.

For the first week and a half I felt I was making good progress, but I had a nagging feeling I was missing something. My lap times were about 1:30 and 2 laps exhausted me. But, then, some swimmers in other lanes were not all that much faster, and they were working a lot harder, windmilling and kicking like a tornado. So, I thought, maybe I'm doing OK, I'm learning every day, maybe I just need to give it some more time.

But a few days ago I moved on to the Zen drill -- you know, the one where your recovery elbow is high in the air and your hand is dangling in the water. I got a big surprise. From the high elbow position I drove my arm down with some real force behind it. This brought my shoulders around quickly and snapped my hips over. Suddenly I was streaming through the water like I had fins on. My flutter kick was just slowing me down so I let my legs trail. Without thinking about it, I drifted into a natural two beat kick. That was like hitting the Turbo switch. Tiles seemed to go past in a blur. Lap times were under 40 seconds and stroke count 18. And it was effortless. I felt could do this all day. Perpetual motion. WOW!

So it's really true. Freestyle is not just the dog-paddle done horizontally. You don't swap arms just so you can paddle with the other hand. You don't kick just to keep your legs from sinking.

Freestyle is magic.

-- Jim