Trouble in (TI) paradise

[eganov]

First of all I'm down with TI, as they say. My old school stroke is plagued by every negative mentioned with TI's justification. BUT...I do have a few issues with TI methods and I'm wondering if they plague others too. Don't take these comments as negative because I'm just trying to find some solutions.

1. I'm not a driller. I love to swim but don't necessarily like doing the small, incremental building steps of the stroke.
2. Every pool available to me goes from 3 to 8-10ft. Can't really do some of the drills which require push offs from the bottom.
3. All water time available to me is for lap swim. Occasionally, I get a lane to myself but it's more likely I'm sharing or doing circle swim. Drilling doesn't work here.
4. I like the workout I get from swimming. Drilling interrupts that. I realize you might have to take a few steps backward to move forward but that's easier said than done given the circumstances above.

What I think I'm looking for is a modified TI process that incorporates specific stroke fixes while swimming, acknowledging that other parts of the stroke are deficient. These fixes would be applied incrementally in some logical order until the whole stroke was perfected.

As an example, I made progress by focusing on my laser and pressing my buoy while keeping all my other bad habits. Once I was comfortable with that I started to add "corrections" to my rotation, entry and catch. I'm not saying I'm there yet but I certainly would like to see others comments on the possibility of a modified TI teaching method that lets you keep swimming while improving as you go.

[aerogramma]

I have similar pool experience as you, last sunday we were 4 in a lane, for example.

However I've never found any problem drilling. I just don't do the drills the require push off from the pool's bottom. Superman glide for example can be initiated at the start of every lap and when the momentum ha ceased converted in another drill, ie spearing .

Workouts also don't seem to be a problem. I do some before entering the pool, plus some balance drills are pretty heavy on your core muscles and you can always do a 50/50 ratio between drills and whole stroke.

Also there're people here who don't learn TI with drills but just swimming wholestroke. It doesn't work for me but you can dwell on their experience if you want to go down that route.

hope this helps

[haschu33]

What kind of drill is it where you push off from the bottom?


BTW eganov: TI is not paradise, it is trouble itself ;-))



Hang on in there...

[millertime]

Why can't you do laps of drills? You could move into the slow lane of your pool, and do single continuous laps of skating, underswitches, single arm freestyle, etc.

[flppr]

Originally Posted by millertime

Why can't you do laps of drills? You could move into the slow lane of your pool, and do single continuous laps of skating, underswitches, single arm freestyle, etc.

Yep. I just tell the other swimmers I'll be drilling, and feel free to pass me as needed.

[Lawrence]

I practise TI freestyle using wholestroke only. I just get in the fast lane at my local pool and away I go. There has been quite a lot of discussion on here of the merits of drills versus wholestroke as a practice medium. The upshot tends to be that no one is convinced by anyone else.

[terry]

Originally Posted by eganov

What I think I'm looking for is a modified TI process that incorporates specific stroke fixes while swimming, acknowledging that other parts of the stroke are deficient. These fixes would be applied incrementally in some logical order until the whole stroke was perfected.

You describe precisely what I have recognized in recent months as a priority we need to address fairly early this year. Apart from any logistical issues - lane space or crowding, pool depth - is the more compelling issue of Learning Style.

There are clearly at least two fairly distinctive learning styles.
Formal - Like structure a lot. Inclined to prefer a more choreographed process. Enjoy exploring the minutiae of potentially dozens of drills and variants or focal points.
Organic - Favor flow and creativity over formal structure. May not have the patience to , e.g. lovingly examine head position for many brief, examined repeats Laser Lead Flutter. This is simply an acknowledgement that we're all 'wired' differently, not in any way a criticism.

I strongly suspect that Organic learners may outnumber Formal in the general populace and by providing the kind of incremental, logical process for them that you describe we will greatly expand our potential pool of enthusiasts.

I'd add one caveat to that. I've actually done a lot of Organic coaching, in either of two environments:
1) I recognized in a student the personality to prefer that.
2) Coaching in open water where whole-stroke simply makes more sense.

While doing so I've found that I can teach balance and streamlining pretty satisfactorily but several aspects of skill require a level of self-perception that can be difficult to achieve without breaking things down more finely, as it's possible to do with drills.

In those instances I have good results when I select a particular drill to address a particular sticking point and teach/use it until I see the kinesthetic awareness I'm looking for.

So here's some encouragement. I'm outlining a series of 10 to 20 ibooks or vooks which we plan to publish in the next 3 to 5 months. These will be designed to provide a more organic process to teach what we've done a good job teaching with drills for 20+ years.

[splashingpat]

Originally Posted by haschu33

TI is not paradise, it is trouble itself ;-))

Paradise Patricia (here); can you "see" what that means :-(

[borate]

Originally Posted by terry

I'm outlining a series of 10 to 20 ibooks or vooks which we plan to publish in the next 3 to 5 months. These will be designed to provide a more organic process to teach what we've done a good job teaching with drills for 20+ years.

Wise marketing that may broaden TI appeal, especially to mature rec swimmers whose focus is on achieving better form, maintaining robust health, and avoiding injury.

[eganov]

Hey, thanks Terry, I, and others, are not outliers!

My "organic" orientation is driven in part by preference and part by logistics (don't discount them, please). Given that, I had started by breaking down all the components of a perfect TI stroke. Things like float the head, press my chest buoy, wide lead arm, spear entry hand, etc. My intention was to write them all down, in no particular order, and then prioritize them into my current stroke sequentially.

I also felt that some of the stroke components were represented by too many finely grained drills. One example would be sweet spot breating during balance drills. I'd much rather just use a snorkel and focus entirely on a particular stroke component.

Finally, I didn't see organic and formal as alternatives. They seemed more complementary. I'd start with an organic plan to build TI components into my stroke but revert to drills with trouble areas. My intent with the original post was to see if people had done this before and could provide guidance. I'm looking forward to your future work.
Thanks