When to slot during Skate and Stroke video #7

I joined a pool & am working on my own with the 15 videos along with the books.

I have progressed pretty well at each step. I have not done the breathing video yet because I feel I need more time now putting it all together before I go on to watching the breathing video. ( I don’t want to get ahead of myself)

My question is regarding video #7 Skate & Stroke.

I was fine with raising my hands over my ears after having learned to bring my elbow wide & low & dragging my knuckles but now in video 7 it seems that I get bogged down with raising my hand in slot by focusing on the ear.

I guess my question is do I just raise it more organically as when I rotate my shoulder in skate? Or is it essential to pause & raise it at the ear.
It almost seems too natural when swimming to focus on the ear.

Any info would be helpful at this point.

[CoachBobM]

In general, when you're swimming, you never want a pause where you aren't doing anything. You want to pause particular parts of your body at times (e.g., keeping a patient leading arm during your recovery), but some other part of your body should always be moving.

During drills, however, we sometimes have you pause at a particular point in order to focus on what you're doing. But you should think of this as a stepping stone in the learning process.

A general rule of thumb, when you're recovering your arm during your stroke, is that your recovering hand should never pause. As soon as you have brought the elbow of your recovering arm all the way forward, you should immediately begin swinging your forearm forward, hopping your hand over your ear to position it for its mailslot entry.

Does that answer your question?


Bob

[WFEGb]

Hello Astoria,

great, you're doing large improvements in relativ short time!

Additionally to Bob's post (more the same with another picture to imagine...). You can think of your lower arm as rigid pendulum with the elbow as pivot point. Your elbow should lead the movement dragging the lower arm and hand behind, middle finger drawing a line. When your elbow is at your ear's "height" give the middle finger just free and let lower arm and hand swing relaxed forward a bit more to "mail slot". In his video Terry moves his recovery arm in continues movement without any stops.

(Think the ear-hop, mentioned in the Gallery could be a little bit a relict. I even know a master coach who doesn't like this drill... at least not doing so long to become imprinted...)

Enjoy your drills and strokes!

Best regards,
Werner

at this point in my progress what is the class that I should take to get clarification
on what I have been doing and then have them teach me how to breath?
which is best the Total Immersion Freestyle Workshop or one of theTI Effortless Endurance & Smart Speed Freestyle Workshops?

[WFEGb]

Hello Astoria,

I'd advocate Terry's Effortless Endurance. Work through step by step, ask here in the forum, if questions will pop up... Breathing is the step before last...

Enjoy your strokes!

Best regards,
Werner

Since I have not learned to breath yet I thought this might be a good time to have someone work with me and help me correct any of the techniques in my elbow swing and hop and slot, to superman Skate and then skate and stroke to lastly the slot to skate.

Would I take the Workshop to go through these quickly and move onto the breathing lesson?

[WFEGb]

Hello Astoria,

a TI-Workshop will definitely show you a faster way than you'll have to go without. If you'll take the necessary steps to continuous TI-breathing in a quickly way is more dependent in what "quickly" means to you...

Best regards,
Werner