swimtraining with TI like stuff in it

[Zenturtle]

how many words to use?

Unco is good for:

Timing
Roll from the core
Balancing and staying aligned while being thrown off course by the recovering arm, or the pulling arm
Connection your catch and pull with your body twist/roll
Breathing while not disturbing the process.

Because you are more concentrated one one side of the body you can focus on whats happening better.
Unco or one arm swimming is a very difficult action to do perfect. Even the olympic swimmer cant keep perfectly aligned and struggles a bit if you watch her in slowmo.
The beauty is that its very close to the starting point of swimming, that is being in balance rotationally and between front and rear.
Now you add disturbing actions and you have to stay balanced and also make sure you are making forward progress while staying aligned.
With every action you can focus on the effect of that action.
How does lifting of the arm out the water effects my rotational balance and where does the body sink during that action? How does the body react on a fast recovery, on a slow recovery? How does the lifting of the non working arm help rotation? Can I use more core and legs or a smoother recovery to do that work in the water?
What part of the body is bending a bit instead of only rotating around the axis? In what sequence connect all the bodyparts if I imagine them to be seperate parts, only allowed to rotate around a spit? Can I add abit of that bending and twisting to my advantage without creating too much drag, or loosing the rotation around a spit idea too much?
How do I make the whole cycle smooth? How can my legs help rotation a bit?
At what time do I add a bit of shoulder twist and reach, and how do i set up the arm in the water so that the following actions dont cause the body to be steered off line or the body starts to bounce?
Because there is only one arm thats anchoring, its more important to get the connection with the water and all the following actions in the body timed just right. You are having a one cilinder engine that you are trying to operate as vibration free as a 2 cilinder engine.
If you can do that, your 2 cilinder engine will run as smooth as a 4 cilinder engine.

[Zenturtle]

Originally Posted by Mushroomfloat

Yes, tone on the skate edge, i went to the pool tonight with that in mind and i opened up with that fingertips to toes then relaxed through the transition and firmed up again on the other skate edge, that is how you get the fast skate on egde, without tone it's very lacklustre, i must have had the apperance of doing virtually nothing but rocketing along :-)

Terry has talked about the stable low side and the relaxed high shoulderblade, but the focus is always on the recovery in TI, not so much on the catch side of things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWzQc1XadHk (from 45 sec)

The movement done on the learners arm mimics the right recovery movement in the above water part, but also mimics the dropped elbow movement for the underwaterpart.... yeah, how to teach everything and not overwhelm the student with information overload?

By the way this is more on topic in another thread.

[Zenturtle]

Originally Posted by CoachStuartMcDougal

ZT,

Terry sinks in th.........other than creating the impulse to pull?

The single arm fly you posted too creates the impulse to pull ..... The single arm fly I use with my swimmers, opposite arm remains in front to maintain balance
Mindbodyandswim.com

OK. one arm always in front makes front- rear balance easier I agree. But more or less blocks rotation, and teaches 100% catchup timing which is not optimal normal swimtiming.
OK. It does force the swimmer to use the core/hip/leg region to use as a foundation for throwing that arm forward.
There is nothing else left to help that movement. Is that what you want to achieve?

Originally Posted by CoachStuartMcDougal

ZT,
...as the high side arm swings forward from the pelvis accessing external forces of the weight and momentum as it swings forward and thus minimizing and being aware of primal impulses to pull to stabilize the vessel.

Mindbodyandswim.com

External forces of the weight and momentum?... Where do you think that weight gets its momentum from?
You alway talk about primal instincts to pull. So what place does the pull have in the stroke besides being primal and intinctive? (instinctive being to balance and get to air I suppose)

[CoachJamesEwart]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

I am not a TI swimmer or a swimsmooth swimmer or whatever.
Just a guy who started swimming 6 years ago already, and trying all the dishes available on his own.
That means, trying differnt swimming styles to see what makes them tick as far thats possible for a middle aged guy with an avarage engine size.
Still havent found my personal style by all this messing around, but its converging to a certain stroke. Luckily the very raw basics for a good stroke are the same for any style.

But whats wrong with unco? One of the best drills around if you execute it properly I think.

Thanks. Can you post a link to clip of yourself executing it properly? Of course some people find different drills beneficial so if you find it helps you then that's great. My experience of these kind of drills is that they do not help create natural stability or flow. 'Hip with your hips' is one thing but using them independently of the core is quite another and I find people get themseves in quite a muddle when they start trying to jerk their hips from one side to another.

[CoachJamesEwart]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

OK. one arm always in front makes front- rear balance easier I agree. But more or less blocks rotation, and teaches 100% catchup timing which is not optimal normal swimtiming.
OK. It does force the swimmer to use the core/hip/leg region to use as a foundation for throwing that arm forward.
There is nothing else left to help that movement. Is that what you want to achieve?


External forces of the weight and momentum?... Where do you think that weight gets its momentum from?
You alway talk about primal instincts to pull. So what place does the pull have in the stroke besides being primal and intinctive? (instinctive being to balance and get to air I suppose)

The Pull works best when timed with rotation. We exert pressure to drive forwards from high side to low side past that anchoring low side hand. Pull too soon and you have lost the coupling motion of shifting and catching and holding at the same time. That's another thng that's unhelpful about the Unco drill - it messes up your timing.

[Danny]

There are two forms of this one-armed freestyle, depending on which side you breath on. Supposedly each one highlights some aspect of balance and timing, but I won't try to get in to that, because I'm only familiar with the version I use, where I breath on the side of the stroking arm. I also like to swim this way with my hand closed in a fist. I can slow the stroke way down when I do this, which allows me to focus on my timing of hips and shoulders. The other thing this seems to help is precisely the bobbing that ZT was referring to. A slow one armed recovery means that your recovering arm is spending more time out of the water, which pushes your body down. This can help you to time your breathing with the natural bobbing of your body induced by the heavy arm outside the water. At more realistic swimming rates, this effect becomes smaller, so it is harder to teach yourself how to exploit it and coordinate it with your breathing.

Some years ago there was a long thread on this forum about one-armed breathing, which I can't find now, but others with better web skills might be able to put up a link to it. Two coaches who saw some virtue in this drill were Charles Couterier and Suzanne Atkinson.

[CoachJamesEwart]

[quote=Danny;66226]There are two forms of this one-armed freestyle, depending on which side you breath on. Supposedly each one highlights some aspect of balance and timing, but I won't try to get in to that, because I'm only familiar with the version I use, where I breath on the side of the stroking arm. I also like to swim this way with my hand closed in a fist. I can slow the stroke way down when I do this, which allows me to focus on my timing of hips and shoulders. The other thing this seems to help is precisely the bobbing that ZT was referring to. A slow one armed recovery means that your recovering arm is spending more time out of the water, which pushes your body down. This can help you to time your breathing with the natural bobbing of your body induced by the heavy arm outside the water. At more realistic swimming rates, this effect becomes smaller, so it is harder to teach yourself how to exploit it and coordinate it with your breathing.


The recovering arm should not push the body down, it should help stability. You are most likely over rotating and recovering the arm too high if that's happening. You should definitely not be "bobbing". That is not how to breathe efficiently when swimming freestyle.

Wheneer ive seen single arm drill done well there is a rythmical bobbing to the stroke
it comes from the boyancy in the chest pressing & rolling from side to side through flat

[Danny]

[quote=CoachJamesEwart;66227]

Originally Posted by Danny

There are two forms of this one-armed freestyle, depending on which side you breath on. Supposedly each one highlights some aspect of balance and timing, but I won't try to get in to that, because I'm only familiar with the version I use, where I breath on the side of the stroking arm. I also like to swim this way with my hand closed in a fist. I can slow the stroke way down when I do this, which allows me to focus on my timing of hips and shoulders. The other thing this seems to help is precisely the bobbing that ZT was referring to. A slow one armed recovery means that your recovering arm is spending more time out of the water, which pushes your body down. This can help you to time your breathing with the natural bobbing of your body induced by the heavy arm outside the water. At more realistic swimming rates, this effect becomes smaller, so it is harder to teach yourself how to exploit it and coordinate it with your breathing.


The recovering arm should not push the body down, it should help stability. You are most likely over rotating and recovering the arm too high if that's happening. You should definitely not be "bobbing". That is not how to breathe efficiently when swimming freestyle.

This bobbing motion is more pronounced in the one arm drill because the opposing arm is down at your side and not extended. When the opposing arm is extended, it supports the weight of the recovering arm and damps the bobbing. If you look at the film of Terry doing the one armed drill you will also see a pronounced bobbing, as ZT has already pointed out.

In real freestyle, the opposing arm is extended and this effect is more subtle, but it is still there.

[Zenturtle]

Agree 100% with you here on the damping of the outstretched arm.
If you would make your body rigid and long from toe to fingertip with an outstretched arm like a long plank,than that shape will damped the temporary disturbances of the pull and the recovering weight more.
I find that the pull is mostly responsible for the bobbing, depending how hard you pull offcourse.
You really have to shape and accelerate your pull in a certain way to move forward in a more or less straight line with minimal bobbing.
It tells you often that your normal stroke has quite some sideways or up and down force components.


I have no footage of myself executing it properly. Still cant do it 100% properly also.
Sometimes its nearly there and feels wonderfull and smooth. Its getting better and better though. Feels more and more like normal swimming, but just with one arm less.
I like to do the easier version that is swimming 75% with one side and let the other side go along for the ride, help do the other 25 %
Than you still are close to normal swimming, with the recovering weight keeping you in the same rhythm, but only using the weight of the arm on the non working side in the recovery, also hardly any pulling on the non working side.
Its a bit like loping then, big pull and hip action on one side, limp fillup action at the other side.
Gives most of the benefits, buts easier to stay aligned and keep the rhythm going.
If you then try to go from 75 % one side to 90 % one side for instance, you can feel where it starts to break down and work on that part.

she also has a great one arm freestyle.(and normal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkt31KITQro (4 min20)