I need O2 in my life!

No "private post" from you, Werner,for what I can see... No private message either.

Novaswimmer: I have a good TI Coach.

I now swim in OW most every day. I can breathe sustained, however, only to the right, with a half-assed left breath attempt every once in a while. It's very uncomfortable to the left.

I'm painfully sloooow; much slower than when I used to swim on a single breath. Dunno how I could get faster. Incorporating breathing has slowed me down significantly.

We also swam in seriously rough water and I managed. Everything goes better in a wetsuit, but not absolutely necessary.

There's little to no relaxation in my swimming now, other than the occasional bliss for a short while, only to go back into struggle mode the next day.

Plus I have a serious assimetry which causes me to swim to the right even if I compensate as best as I can to the left. My lead arm does not drift inwards (anymore) so I don't really know why. Breathing to the left to balance it out feels like mission impossible at the moment.

[WFEGb]

Hello Cathy,

congratiúlations! You're still in the water and now with "wind in your lungs", onesided and some ifs and whens, but TI(?)-swimming. Great!

No "private post" from you, Werner,for what I can see... No private message either.

Strange, they're in my sent-list. Trying to send again shows a Database-error, but they're stored as sent (multiples)...

OK, let's shorten it: If interested, please drop me an email-line with "Cathy-TI" in its header to

baergit.hh@t-online.de

Best regards,
Werner

Asymmetry. Can't believe I wrote that. Haha!

Congratulations Cathy. And well done.

Now you have achieved this, everything else is fine tuning.

Thanks, I'm definitely making some progress. I think I don't lift my head. Today I even managed to swim rather straight over a ca. 900m stretch, breathing mostly on every 4th. However, I swim very sloooow.

Yesterday it dawned upon me that I hadn't received some much expected PMs.

Since I literally never received a PM on the forums here, and that includes people I sent PMs to... it's safe to assume I can't receive PMs due to (likely) some account trouble. Possibly related to that my username is still not underlined/clickable.

So if I've ignored anyone trying to help me, now you guys now why...

[Zenturtle]

Hey Cathy,

Do you want me to have a look at your stroke and have a chat? You have come so far allready, and looking quickly at the first video you sent there are lots of good things going on in your stroke.
No genetic borders I can detect, you just dont breathe.
I can relate a bit to your stroke/problem, also finding breathing the most difficult part and staying a bit too flat at the front for a loooong time.
Since your PM box doesnt seem to work, you can send me a PM.
Lets try to get this problem out of the way. Swimming is too much fun to abandon.

OK i read the whole thread.

The bobbing is a natural efect of the same side arm and leg pushing water down in a pressure-no pressure rhythm. This gives an upward force on one side of the body and a torque on the body because its asymmetric. So it causes roll and bob.The rhytmical weight force of the arm above water also acts on the floating body to complete the picture.
The pushing up and down force works together with your natural bobbing frequency to set up a bobbing resonance.
Its not a big deal. Just requires more skill to eliminate it.Smoothing out, redirecting and lengtening your stroke will deminish it. Perfectioning a stroke takes years, not months.
I like your arm entry with the elbow rotated up quite nicely. Your natural timing seems to be more rotary than catchup.
That timing also gives a bit more bobbing, but thats not to say that its bad. Its just a certain style.
The entry angle of the arm is OK and there is a start to a fluid transition to catch with a good arm shape. A very good starting point for further development.
Your buoyancy and natural balance are above average in the positive sense. Most males have a more difficult genetic starting point.
Range of motion, and fluidity of motion are also OK. Stroke even has a gentle smoothness despite the slightly overthinking robotic underlying movement program. (which is natural when you have to learn to execute all those things at the same time)
You are a bit too much a rationel perfectionist I guess. Paying too much attention to insignificant details.
Details are for experienced swimmers to get the last 20% out of their stroke.
Important for beginners is to find a comfortable rhythm at a low effort level with an implemented breathing function working OK-ish.
From this entry level comfortable and relatively relaxed moving platform you start your improvement voyage.

The other method is to swim 25 meters endlessly until you have optimised and ingrained your (relatively sound) basic stroke into your muscle memory.
Now add the breathing and hope the rest of the stroke doesnt fall apart.
The last method doesnt seem to be working very well in your case. Dont know why. Havent seem what happens when you add breathing.

Ok, I can go on and on about the subject, but possibly you are not interested in my opinion. But if you are, I love to chat some more and even more, love to solve problems.

I see you do try to breathe in the second part of the video. Looks like you are a bit lower than I thought.

Your natural balance is good. You can check your general buoyancy by doing the vertical float test. Pump your lungs max full of air and see where the water level is in vertical position. The avarage is about half a head above water, so water at eye level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWwRGrPquJU

You indeed seem to freeze up when you are about to take in some air. The fact is that its impossible to be horizontally aligned with the water level, be on your edge and breathe with your head aligned at near zero speed.
The head is simply too far under water under those circumstances and not being super buoyant.
Just look at a rather dense olympic swimmer. He has to bend his body upwards to get his mouth to air. Olympic swimmer!
Even he cant tick all those boxes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH5HA9BiTBc
So if you try to be perfect as a beginner...

( you can also see him bounce caused by the armpull by the way)

Here are 2 of the best swimmers in the world. Park Tae Hwan and Sun Yang taking a breath at full speed.
Big bow wave to help them make breathing easier, breathing with one goggle under water.
Are they horizontal and aligned? Horizontal: Yes, Aligned: No. They need to bend their body to get air.
So what if you take the theory to literally and try to stay horizontal and aligned without a bowwave while taking a breath? You get a mouth full of water. And your brain had figured that one out already. Thats why you dont open your mouth.
Dont take everything the coach is saying too literally.

Park breathing
image uploader

Sun breathing


from this footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTD0bH1E9BU