Getting my elbow far enough out of water

[IngeA]

I have the "Easy Freestyle" video from 2008:

The main exercises until you take the elbow out of the water first:

- superman glide
- superman flutter
- laser beam flutter
- core balance (rotating the first time)

- core balance to skating position
- skating position: finding the correct position
- recovery under water: finding the correct timing to switch

- spear switch with pauses
- rhythmic spear switches

- zen skating (first time elbow leaves the water)
- zen switching.....

Breathing is introduced after core balance and renewed again after most exercises.

As I understood reading in this forum, some exercises are added, some are somewhat changed.

Best regards

Inge

[WFEGb]

Hello Terna,

Superman to whole stroke (1.3 in your material?) are pinpointed with a sequenze of FPs to work through and to transform SG to 3-5 strokes. Did your work them through? The "real" work with elbow out and relaxed recovery are in the next step. And if you have difficulties with this step you simply should go on to 1.4.

Think Terry's intention with SG into whole strokes in an early state was more for students already swimming FS-laps. To take as much of the new balance-feelings from Torpedo and SG into their whole strokes with short repetitions, not as mandatory step for absolute beginners.

Happy new year to all readers!

Best regards,
Werner

Originally Posted by CoachBobM

What materials are you using?

Historically, we've had swimmers master the Skate position before we begin working with stroking and arm recovery.

Bob

Originally Posted by CoachBobM

There are quite a few steps in the TI drill sequence between Superman Glide and the drills where we first have you bring your elbow out of the water, so I'm not clear on where, exactly, you're running into trouble.

Bob

Even though I'm not OP but I've been struggling as well. Somehow I intuitively got that Skate was cardinal and have been skating day in day out, even though the recommended drill sequence told me otherwise, and my arm strokes were ugly. Yes, in the current TI material you do get to do arm strokes right after Superman. Actually for the first time it encourages you to do Superman with arm strokes... without knowing anything about core rotation yet... I was quite perplexed about that.

Skate in the recent course material comes super late. I just couldn't understand how exactly I was supposed to make nice strokes at all (oh, and the wide recovery! The bane of my existence so far! Lesson 2) if I wasn't stable in a skate to begin (Lesson 3) with so I deliberately chose to skate a lot even if that meant I temporarily sort of "skipped" Lesson 2...

There's no Spearskate, Spearswitch, or Core Balance at all. Sweet Spot is, if I understand correctly, "Roll to Air" now and comes very late into the drill sequences, among the breathing rehearsals.

The full drill sequence (I may have renamed the files a bit, like I added (EAR) so it became (EAR)HOP so that it made more sense to me), but did not change the order:

[CoachBobM]

Originally Posted by IngeA

I have the "Easy Freestyle" video from 2008:

The main exercises until you take the elbow out of the water first:

- superman glide
- superman flutter
- laser beam flutter
- core balance (rotating the first time)

- core balance to skating position
- skating position: finding the correct position
- recovery under water: finding the correct timing to switch

- spear switch with pauses
- rhythmic spear switches

- zen skating (first time elbow leaves the water)
- zen switching.....

Breathing is introduced after core balance and renewed again after most exercises.

As I understood reading in this forum, some exercises are added, some are somewhat changed.

Best regards

Inge

We used to have swimmers do nothing but drills until near the end of the learning process, but Terry began, in the Perpetual Motion Freestyle DVD, having swimmers experiment with stroking during the early parts of the drill sequence. So after Superman Glide, we have swimmers experiment with trying to carry over the main focal point of SG (relaxing your head into the water) into whole stroke swimming. And Terry also mentions using "wide tracks".

How well this works, in my experience, depends on how good the swimmer's freestyle was to begin with. Swimmers who were already doing many things well may see significant and immediate benefits just from carrying over the relaxed, horizontal body position they practiced in SG into their freestyle swimming. But swimmers who have a lot of other problems with their stroke are still going to have those problems. In lessons or a workshop, we can just push those people along into the drills that we know will address their other problems, but it's possible for swimmers who are coaching themselves to get hung up at this point, expecting to see the kind of perfection they see displayed in the video and reluctant to move on until they do.

Breathing in freestyle is really a separate skill from stroking, and because of that, it can be dealt with at different points in the learning process. We used to teach swimmers sweet spot breathing early on and wait until the end of the learning process to transition to normal freestyle breathing. But the Perpetual Motion DVD introduces breathing right after skate, and before the switch drills.

The moral of all this is that you can vary the order in which you work on things without contaminating the learning process, and different sequences may work better for different people.


Bob

[CoachBobM]

Originally Posted by paznut7

Hi Bob,

I appreciate you taking time to try to problem solve!
I'm using the swim ultra efficient videos and workbooks. The order of lessons goes:
Torpedo
Superman & Superman w/ glide
Elbow Swing
Paint a line
Hop and Slot
Superman to Skate
Skate + strokes

It does seem like Elbow Swing should come later because at this point, there's been no conversation about skating until much later.

Thanks!
Terna

I agree with Werner on this. TI has varied the sequence in which drills are introduced over the years because different sequences work better for different people. There are a number of reasons why I've seen swimmers have trouble bringing their elbow out of the water during recovery: Some swimmers are gliding too far under the water, and that can happen because their body is not horizontal. Others have trouble doing it because their body isn't rotated enough.

I'd suggest that you proceed to the Superman to Skate lesson and try coming back to these drills afterward.

Let us know how you're doing!


Bob

[CoachSuzanne]

One of the wonderful traits of Terry and TI was ongoing refinements. The newest ebook and videos you are using introduces elbow swing before skate.

One of the reasons is that balance involves front to back as well as side to side balance. The elbow swing is a component of side to side balance.

It may seem contradictory to have older materials follow one path and newer materials another but the reality is that everyone learns differently.

If you're having trouble just move to the next set of drills and then come back to the Elbow swing.

yes, I am new to this and have had to go back and forth in order to get it. At times it seems a bit like the lessons are not in the right order but I understand that he had to start somewhere to begin explaining the technique.
I actually copied and made my own notes in another order sequence because I found the order of things confusing.

[CoachBobM]

If you'd like to see more of an explanation of why TI abandoned the "do nothing but drills until the end" training approach and moved to a drill/swim training approach, take a look at this video and jump to 1:02:06 (or watch the whole thing if you want):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB645p3H5o&t=819s

*** WARNING ***
This video features Terry Laughlin, so don't be surprised if, as you're watching it, you feel a renewed sense of loss over the fact that this paragon of wisdom and experience is no longer with us!


Bob