Can anyone achieve this?

[Zenturtle]

I was trying to keep it as minimalistic as possible, otherwise the basic required movements move into a more elusive and magical territory as needed.

If you take a blank sheet of paper and want to draw a face with the minimal number or lines most people will come up with more or less the same picture.

So, the straight body held in static aquatic posture is the blank 3D sheet of paper.
Only question is, what actions have to generally be added to this blank sheet of paper to achieve something that can be described as hip drive?

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

I was trying to keep it as minimalistic as possible, otherwise the basic required movements move into a more elusive and magical territory as needed.

If you take a blank sheet of paper and want to draw a face with the minimal number or lines most people will come up with more or less the same picture.

So, the straight body held in static aquatic posture is the blank 3D sheet of paper.
Only question is, what actions have to generally be added to this blank sheet of paper to achieve something that can be described as hip drive?

I'll take a crack at this. First of all, the rotation is driven by both the kick and gravity on the forward arm when it is above water. (There may also be some pushing of water with the catch arm, but experts will disagree on this subject, so let's not go there.) So the hip drive isn't really creating rotation. But it does have to keep the body straight and balanced. If you are balanced correctly on one side, your upper shoulder should be slightly in front of your lower shoulder and your upper hip should be slightly in front of your lower hip. So as you rotate, both hips and shoulders must move forward and backward, and all of this must be done maintaining a straight line. This is where (in my opinion) the core work comes in. The forward hip (in my opinion) is holding up the legs, which it needs to do to maintain a straight line, and in this sense it is working.

[Zenturtle]

Hey Danny, tried your forward extended low hip together with the forward extended shoulder yesterday,.
Resulted in interesting results perception wise.
It had a good and a bad side from my perspective.
Expand more later on it. It gave an insight in how some other people swim.

So when I extend in your style, the low arm goes forward, the low shoulder goes forward and the low hip goes forward right after spearing and moving towards maximal rotation.
Is that the same as you are describing above, or the opposite?

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Hey Danny, tried your forward extended low hip together with the forward extended shoulder yesterday,.
Resulted in interesting results perception wise.
It had a good and a bad side from my perspective.
Expand more later on it. It gave an insight in how some other people swim.

So when I extend in your style, the low arm goes forward, the low shoulder goes forward and the low hip goes forward right after spearing and moving towards maximal rotation.
Is that the same as you are describing above, or the opposite?

Hi ZT, not sure I understand the bold face above. So let me describe some dry land exercises which might help make my position clearer. I'll describe two different standing positions:

Position 1: Standing on the floor, reach for the ceiling with your left finger tips. You should notice that, when you do this, your right foot comes off the floor. This is because you are extending your entire left side, even down at the hips, so now your right side is shorter, which makes the right foot come off the floor.

Position 2: Standing on the floor, reach for the ceiling with your left finger tips, but this time force both feet to stay on the floor. There are actually two different ways to do this. Obviously you are going to have to make your right side as long as your left side, so you could simply try to stretch the length between your right shoulder and your right hip, but this is NOT what I want you to do. Instead, keep the distance between hip and shoulder the same, but simply move your right shoulder downward to keep both feet on the floor.

I think that Position 2 is the position people take horizontally in the water when they have no forward balance and their feet are dropping. Specifically, in your video "It's like magic", I think this is the position of the swimmer when his legs are down. In order to pick up his legs, he has to go to Position 1, which means that, using Position 2 as a reference point, he has to move his right shoulder and hip upward (or forward in the water). Actually, I think in the video it is his right arm that is extended, so he has to move his left hip and shoulder forward.

So I claim we want to swim in Position 1, with the lower foot always further back than the upper foot and the lower shoulder further forward than the upper shoulder. But, even though the upper shoulder is further back than the lower shoulder, it is further forward than where it would be if you were in Position 2. I think the core work that is necessary to keep a straight line is the work needed to hold Position 1. This work involves moving your upper hips and shoulders forward from where they would be in Position 2.

As you rotate, the upper and lower sides keep changing from left to right, and the core has to work to keep a straight line and stay in Position 1 as you change sides.

If what I am saying is true, then your center of buoyancy should shift toward your feet when you move from Position 2 to Position 1. That would explain why your forward balance improves. At least that's my current theory.

[Zenturtle]

dont think it will make us swim better, but here we go.

Position 1: Standing on the floor, reach for the ceiling with your left finger tips. You should notice that, when you do this, your right foot comes off the floor. This is because you are extending your entire left side, even down at the hips, so now your right side is shorter, which makes the right foot come off the floor.

Yep we are talking about 180 degrees opposite movements.
I was experimenting with imagening having a rope between elbow shoulder and hip at the same side and all where moved forward underwater during extension.
You lift the hip at the opposite side.
I agree your method to reach higher is a more natural action, but looking at the height of the head position in a mirror and comparing lifting effect of left or right leg support, the effect on head movement is the same. (hey, I am symmetrical)
So you can also stand on the right leg , lift the center of the hips by tilting the hips and reach higher with the left arm.
Thats the action I was trying to do during swimming.

Position 2: Standing on the floor, reach for the ceiling with your left finger tips, but this time force both feet to stay on the floor. There are actually two different ways to do this. Obviously you are going to have to make your right side as long as your left side, so you could simply try to stretch the length between your right shoulder and your right hip, but this is NOT what I want you to do. Instead, keep the distance between hip and shoulder the same, but simply move your right shoulder downward to keep both feet on the floor.

If I pull one side of the shoulders down if the other arm is raised, almost nothing happens with the raised arm. Perhaps it goes up 1 cm.

The hips tilt on itself has no influence on balance. It rotates around the center, one legs is pulled up, the other is pushed down. If both legs are under water the nett effect is zero.

The positon of the partly above water arm has more effect.
Moving it forward sinks the front more, etc.

are we understanding each other so far?

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

dont think it will make us swim better, but here we go.



Yep we are talking about 180 degrees opposite movements.
I was experimenting with imagening having a rope between elbow shoulder and hip at the same side and all where moved forward underwater during extension.
You lift the hip at the opposite side.
I agree your method to reach higher is a more natural action, but looking at the height of the head position in a mirror and comparing lifting effect of left or right leg support, the effect on head movement is the same. (hey, I am symmetrical)
So you can also stand on the right leg , lift the center of the hips by tilting the hips and reach higher with the left arm.
Thats the action I was trying to do during swimming.

Well, this is pretty interesting, because it seems like the two of us use completely different swimming techniques! At first glance, I have trouble imagining how one would swim like that, but this is because I haven't tried it. I also have trouble understanding how one would keep forward balance in the position you describe.

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

If I pull one side of the shoulders down if the other arm is raised, almost nothing happens with the raised arm. Perhaps it goes up 1 cm.

The point is not so much what happens to the raised arm. The point is what happens to your forward balance. If I let my upper shoulder move towards my feet when the lower arm is extended, my legs tend to drop.

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

The positon of the partly above water arm has more effect.
Moving it forward sinks the front more, etc.

Sinking the front more will help bring up the back. This is perhaps the main point, as far as balance is concerned. But just at the point before I kick with my lower leg, it feels like I am completely stretched out on that side, from the finger tips to the toes. Then comes the kick. What you are describing seems like shifting the whole body like a parallelogram. You are changing the angles, but there is not tension. That tension before the kick helps me to power my rotation, but maybe there is something here I don't understand.

Suzanne, do you want to weigh in on this?

[Zenturtle]

I dont normally swim this way, and the negative of this kind of swimming was that it induced a knee kicking tendency.
THe forward pushing from foot to hip on land idea. My usual kick is more about creating pure toque around the central axis, copmbine with lift from pressure on the top of the feet.
The outstretched part from hand to hips felt very streamlined, but the rear part felt weird. Then it became clear the knee was deep and the foot was at the surface and the rear felt short and crumbled.
Normally the rear feels tapered and long, On good days the inside of the knees can feel bubbles or air on occasions, and
Never have focussed on hip tilt much before, but it can have clear perception effects on your swim.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

I dont normally swim this way, and the negative of this kind of swimming was that it induced a knee kicking tendency.
THe forward pushing from foot to hip on land idea. My usual kick is more about creating pure toque around the central axis, copmbine with lift from pressure on the top of the feet.
The outstretched part from hand to hips felt very streamlined, but the rear part felt weird. Then it became clear the knee was deep and the foot was at the surface and the rear felt short and crumbled.
Normally the rear feels tapered and long, On good days the inside of the knees can feel bubbles or air on occasions, and
Never have focussed on hip tilt much before, but it can have clear perception effects on your swim.

Not sure I follow what you are saying here. I don't kick by pushing my foot when swimming, but I stretch out my entire lower side, from fingers to toes, before kicking. Ideally, I should be starting a catch with the front arm before the kick. As I release the tension on the lower side, it should propel me past my anchor. At least that is the way I perceive it.

[Zenturtle]

Once you leave the solid tree model, things certainly get very messy and compicated....

I build tension thats can be released by lifting the low leg before anchoring, the stretching part is more from hip to shoulder.
Just releasing the tension is certainly not enough to finish a stroke, but it helps a bit.

[CoachSuzanne]

Figure 8 in this (interesting) article .... is this what you are trying to do, but in the pool? Arm of hte higher hip outstretched?

http://www.massagetoday.com/mpacms/m...e.php?id=13852

If so I think it will induce fishtailing.



Also in the context of this article, this is called a trendelenburg gait and contrary to the authors writing, it's considered "pathologic" and indicative if weak gluteus medius, and the walker is trying to shift mass over the stance leg b/c the muscle is too weak to hold the pelvis stable while swinging the leg through. This would not apply in the water (weakness), however it would still shift the body's center of mass to the side.