"Pressing Your Buoy" ?

[Deepbluetackle]

Hi Everyone:
I've been a TI swimmer for a few weeks and still learning bit and pieces here and there. After purchased and read a few TI books, still not too successful with the technique of " Press your Buoy ".
I've tried to press my chest down, eyes looked down and raise my hip and pointy toes when doing the Ultimate Superman Glide, however my legs dropped on the second half of the glide.
How can I get my feet up to the surface while gliding like Sensai Shinji Takeuchi.
Appreciated for any comment.

[madvet]

Originally Posted by Deepbluetackle

Hi Everyone:
I've tried to press my chest down, ... however my legs dropped on the second half of the glide.
How can I get my feet up to the surface ....

That is why the "press the buoy" is not used anymore. So, don't worry about it. The descriptions of the current drills are quite enough.

How to get your feet up to the surface?? Practice the drills. It is more important that the hips be up at the surface, the feet will follow. I do visualize lifting my body up to meet the surface while I am drilling and swimming. It is best to just visualize it: make an effort and what you said happens to you will happen to you.

[Deepbluetackle]

Thankx for the reply John.
When you mentioned " current drills ", and what and where are you referring to. Please forgive my understanding of your suggestion, exactly what drills will help bring your hip up? I currently own Coach Laughlin's Total Immersion and Mr. Emmett Hines's Fitness Swimming and might have missed some info on raising the hip through drills. I'll read them again.
Many thanks.

[daveblt]

To bring the hips up:
Relax !
Look down head in line
lean in to the water
Hand below elbow as you extend

I'd like to mention a few things about this 'pressing the buoy' issue. Doing TI for the past 13 years I started with this from the original TI book which was also in the 2004 issue. Now we don't refer to it ,but why? When I swim freestyle or backstroke I have to at least just a little press in , lean in , lie on my lungs,which ever way you want to call it with my upper half to help keep the legs up which to me is the same thing as 'press the buoy' (in combination with keeping a relaxed hand thats below the elbow ,head in line ). I realize that some people may have misunderstood exactly how to do it but I never really dismissed the 'buoy press'.Would appreciate some thoughts on this.




Dave

[Deepbluetackle]

Thanks Dave.
I guess you are right, not relaxing sure is my major problem.
I did get myself to glide a few times without dropping the legs this morning by using your suggestions, also gliding distance had lenghtened by 25%.

This time I did it without pressing the Buoy too hard, but stretch my extended arms out as far as possible and causing my chest to press down indirectly. I'm not sure whether this is the right way to do it but it's the only way I know.

I'll give it a shot to apply the same technique when I'm gliding on the side.

Thankx again. It's been a great help.

[Jamwhite]

Here is how I learned what it feels like to remain high in the water.

In my master's class one evening, my coach complained that my hips were too low. As a TI swimmer who worked on balance a lot, I took offense to this (though not verbally). My coach is either psychic or I wear my disapproval on my face because she set out to prove to me that my hips were low by making me do a 100 with the pull buoy.

During the 100, it quickly became clear to me that my hips were not as high as with the buoy. Swimming with it was much much easier. Although her suggestion was start regularly using them in my practice, what I actually did was put in time to figure out how to achieve the same feeling without the aid of a flotation device.

When I practiced by myself next, I would do 25 with the pull buoy, then 50 without trying to achieve the same sensation. Eventually, I realize that the trick involves my head alignment. When I pull my head inline with my spine while staring straight down (which I believe is the "head-spine laser" referred to in "Easy Freestyle"), then I am able to keep my hips up. I am not conscious of needing to press at all, I simply line up my head until I feel my hips move into the correct position.

I have since become very sensitive to the feeling of sinking hips. For instance, about 1 in 3 flip turns, I sink my hips between my last dolphin kick and my first pull (this is something I am currently working on). When I turn to look at the person next to me in another lane, or look forwards towards the end of the pool, I feel my hips sink immediately.

As validation that my technique worked, my master's coach commented to me on my next practice that she was amazed at the improvement to my stroke. The only real improvement which I had made was where my head was positioned.

[CoachBobM]

Originally Posted by daveblt

I'd like to mention a few things about this 'pressing the buoy' issue. Doing TI for the past 13 years I started with this from the original TI book which was also in the 2004 issue. Now we don't refer to it ,but why? When I swim freestyle or backstroke I have to at least just a little press in , lean in , lie on my lungs,which ever way you want to call it with my upper half to help keep the legs up which to me is the same thing as 'press the buoy' (in combination with keeping a relaxed hand thats below the elbow ,head in line ). I realize that some people may have misunderstood exactly how to do it but I never really dismissed the 'buoy press'.Would appreciate some thoughts on this.

The feeling was that the reason some people misunderstood how to do it was because the term "pressing your buoy" doesn't give a very good description of what is really happening. It likens your lungs to a floating buoy, and while it's true that you can press a buoy into the water, the way you do this is by adding additional weight to it. But you can't add weight to your body while you're swimming. What really happens is more like a seesaw, if you can imagine a seesaw resting on a floating fulcrum. Your legs provide a weight on one side of the fulcrum, so you need to counterbalance them with something on the other side (i.e., your head and leading arm).


Bob

[joeintx]

CoachBobM - Nice explanation!!

[daveblt]

Bob ,

Thanks for your explanation ,but from that , Correct me if I'm wrong but:

If it's true that the lungs are the most buoyant part of the body then instead of leaning on them or 'pressing the buoy' which TI used to teach instead we now actually have to think of "pressing OVER the buoy" as we do in counterbalancing with the head and arms and LEANING in so the buoy or lungs will remain the fulcrum ? Is this correct ? Which may also mean that leaning in is not necessarily pressing the buoy but leaning past it ?



Dave

[CoachDave]

I still think of the old "press the T" and use it with my swimmers. All too often, a swimmer trying to do everything to an extreme takes the arm too low from an overstacked position instead of rolling inward twenty degrees, finding a more comfortable, but shallower, position with the arm, and leaning in through the lungs and lats.
Ever wonder why every great swimmer has monstrous lats? the press, used differently in every stroke, and sometimes as more of a subtle emphasis but always with exacting control. When you press and stretch, it will feel like a downward lean in the lungs but stretching out both ways through your core. That way, there is more lean without losing posture in the torso than in the arm, and more in the torso than the lower core. When done right, it is truly blissful, but it is so easy to do wrong or be misunderstood that I agree that it should only be taught or emphasized by someone who feels it and can show it. It definitely works better in taller swimmers.
I think a great way to learn the press with subtlety and control is through the undulation drills in butterfly and breastroke, making sure that the arms do not move up and down with the body's pulse. Don't slam the head up and down, but instead feel the pulse starting and extending from the armpits, lats, and lungs. This is the top bar of the "t", and when you move into skating, think of where and how you pressed.
_Dave Cameron