Fall 2019 Private Lessons John.em

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  • #27226
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    19/10/27 – Session 1 of 1

    During today’s session we primarily focused on multiple contributing components for sinking or dragging legs. These included a balanced frame, counterbalance arms, and streamline shape. 

    I briefly touched on specific features that enable on easier, smoother Freestyle Stroke, explained in the article Four Essential Features.

    You may review the The Torpedo Frame to understand more about our first lesson’s topics of Balance and Streamline Shape. 

    And, here is the outline of the skills, drills and focal points, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of focal points may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson.

    Practice Set for Balance

    Skills To Build

    • Aligning the spine from tip of head to tail
    • Building the frame in your torso
    • Letting water support your frame
    • Becoming long, lean, firm along that spine
    • Shifting weight forward

    You want to feel long, straight, stable in Superman, gliding forward for 3 or 4 seconds parallel to the surface, feeling the full support from the water, before your legs start to sink. The better you are stretched out and long, from tip of head to toes, the longer you may delay that sinking of the lower half of the body. 

    Drills

    Balance Drills

    You may view images of these standard TI drill positions on the Freestyle Drill Resources page and you may view additional videos for some of these drills on the Video Tutorial page.

    Focal Points

    To help you pay attention, interpret and send commands to particular parts of your body I gave you a selection of focal points in each drill. There are couple more focal points on the lists below than you were given in your lesson, as I chose a few to get you going, without overwhelming with too many details. You may be able to figure out the meaning of the others you were not originally exposed to.

    Focal Points for Torpedo

    • ‘Mountain Pose’ (yoga) or ‘Stand At Attention’ (like military stance)
    • Both hands tucked deep into pockets
    • Long spine (as if pulled up by a string)
    • Keep thighs straight behind torso

    Focal Points for Superman

    • Focal points from Torpedo and…
    • Weightless Head
    • Tippy Toes (thighs straight behind torso, toes pointed gently)
    • Arms On Wide Tracks
    • Hands at Target
    • Straight (shishkabob) Spine

    Choose 3 or 4 of the focal points above to work on today.

    Then, for each focal point, work through these activities, as far as you can go successfully. Take one focal point and work through the list. Then take the next focal point and work through the list again, and so on.

    Practice Set

    • 4 to 6x Superman Glide for 6 seconds (time of comfortable breath hold)
    • Superman Glide for 2 seconds, then 4 strokes
    • 4 rounds of ‘6 to 8x whole strokes’ holding the same focal point (no breathing)
    • 2 rounds of ‘4x whole strokes, Breathing, 4x whole strokes’

    The Drills will help you isolate and target the Focal Points before moving into continual swimming. You may consider incorporating Focal Points into your regular distance swim, to maintain, reinforce and integrate these new elements to your stroke technique.

    Some Additional Reading

    Below are some links to articles in our library that may help you. And, I do hope you will take advantage of this discussion zone to ask me specific questions about what and how to practice. This space is meant to support you in your personal training time.

    You may review our introduction to the Balance Streamline Propulsion Pyramid. You’ll use this BSP organization to help you set priorities in your skill learning process.

    A central feature of our method is our use of Focal Points to create a super-learning situation for your brain. You may review our introduction to Focal Points.

    As you do your personal practice between our live sessions, you may appreciate some guidance on how to organize your efforts. You may read How To Practice.

    And, as you consider how much drills versus how much whole stroke you may do in your personal practice time you may view Transition From Drills To Whole Stroke.

    #27966
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    19/11/18 – Session 1 of 6

    Below are the lesson outline, a practice guide and some additional articles to read if they catch your interest and you have time.

    Please use this forum to stay in communication with me between and after your lessons, so I can support you as you practice.

    In today’s lesson we worked  on the second of the Four Essential Features. You may review these to understand more about our today’s lesson and prepare for those to come:

     

    Drills

    Streamline Drills

    Focal Points

    Focal Points for Skate Position

    • Weightless Head
    • Tippy Toes (thighs straight behind torso, toes pointed gently)
    • Lead Arm stays on Wide Track
    • Head Stays Anchored (it does not turn with torso)
    • Hands at Target
    • Let arms hang heavy
    • Keep forearms soft (like a tree branch)
    • Keep fingers soft
    • Back hand tucked deep into pocket (keep arm underwater)
    • Low Rotation Angle (rotate just off your stomach)
    • Lift open hip, press Skate armpit down (cross body tension, ‘seatbelt’)
    • Press Skate hip down, Lift open shoulder (opposite of previous ‘seatbelt’)
    • Light flutter of the feet (if necessary to prolong time in drill)

    You may view images of these standard TI drill positions on the Freestyle Drill Resources page and you may view additional videos for some of these drills on the Video Tutorial page.

    You may also consider using short swimmer fins (FAQ – Should I Wear Fins?) to allow you to practice Skate Position with your legs more supported and the flow of water along your body. This flow of water may provide you with more feedback about how well you are maintaining form and a low-turbulence streamline position.

    Practice Set for Streamline

     Skills

    • to maintain balance skills and…
    • Hold long, straight, firm Skate, from fingers to ankle
    • Hold low, stable rotation angle

    You want to feel long, straight, sleek and stable at a low-rotation angle in Skate Position. Along with the sensations from Balance skills, you want to see that you can slide parallel to the line on the bottom of the pool and to slide farther, more easily, the more streamlined and stable your body is. Sliding in Skate for 6 seconds with these positive feedback signs is a good goal to work towards.

    Focal Points

    • Head remains anchored – face down position (don’t turn the head as torso turns)
    • Lead Arm stays on Wide Track (as torso turns)
    • Lead shoulder extends forward
    • Other arm tucks in at your side, underwater
    • Hips and shoulders rotate as one unit
    • Hold low (minimum) rotation angle
    • Skate side scapula dips below surface
    • High side scapula barely pokes above surface

    Choose 3 or 4 of the focal points above to work on today.

    Then, for each focal point, work through these activities, as far as you can go successfully. Take one focal point and work through the list. Then take the next focal point and work through the list again, and so on.

    Practice Set

    • 4 to 6x on each side Superman To Skatefor 6 seconds (time of comfortable breath hold)
    • Superman for 1 second, the Skate for 2 seconds, then 4 strokes
    • 4 rounds of ‘6 to 8x whole strokes’ holding the same focal point (no breathing)
    • 2 rounds of ‘4x whole strokes, Breath, 4x whole strokes’
    • 2x length of pool, whole strokes with Breath

     

    How to Practice

    As you consider how much drills versus how much whole stroke you may do in your personal practice time you may view Transition From Drills To Whole Stroke.

     

    #28721
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    19/11/18 – Session 2 of 6

    In this  lesson we continued building skills for the recovery arm swing and entry, while relying upon the skills for balance and streamline.

    This lesson will build the third and fourth of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke. These are explained in the following introductions:

    *Note – When we come together next week, we will complete the Entry Focal Points and run through the Optimal Arm Switch Timing. Feel free to read the material ahead of time.

    And, here is the outline of the skills, drills and focal points, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of focal points may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson. I watched the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant focal points for you to work with.

     

    Drills

    There are three sections to this whole Recovery movement that we need to construct:

    1. The exit – how the elbow and forearm and hand will leave the water
    2. The recovery swing – how the shoulder slides and arm swings from back to forward position
    3. The entry – how the arm is positioned to enter the water, and the pathway it follows to Skate

    Recovery Swing and Entry Drills

    These drills may be used for Exit, Recovery Swing and Entry skills:

    • Standing rehearsal for recovery swing
    • Swing Skate in slow-motion
    • Standing rehearsal to create entry arm shape
    • Swing Skate (swing to Entry Position and dip that arm it a few times)
    • Swing Switch in slow-motion, With Pauses
    • Swing Switch in slow motion, Without Pauses
    • Whole Stroke in normal motion

    Swing Skate is where you hold Skate Position on one side and then practice swinging the recovery arm on the other side, in slow motion. There is no switching of the arms.

    Swing Switch is where you start in Skate, swing the recovery arm, then pause just a moment at entry, then switch the arms, slide into Skate, and repeat on the other side.

    In Swing Switch, once you remove pauses, your stroke is continuous and smooth. Your movements are getting closer and closer to normal-speed, whole stroke swimming. As you gradually speed up the motion of the swing, you may also gradually lift that forearm out of the water (let the hand go wider to gain clearance), up to the point where your fingernails are still brushing the surface.

    You may view demonstrations of these drills on the Video Tutorial page.  You may also see snapshots of particular moments in these drill positions on the Freestyle Drill Resources page.

     

    Focal Points

    Exit Focal Points

    • Flick elbow outward
    • Swing elbow wide (swing out, not up behind the back)
    • Shoulder slides, pulling the elbow
    • Elbow pulls the hand – hand is dragging behind
    • Exit The Sleeve (pull forearm and hand out of water as if extracting from a jacket sleeve)
    • No splash exit (the arm slips quietly out of the water)

    Keep attention on the very moment before the elbow exits the water to begin the recovery swing. Pause there a moment, with elbow tucked against the waist, underwater, in order to override the instinct that pulls the elbow up in the air, behind your back. At the end of the underwater pull, as the elbow arrives beside the waist, that is the moment it needs to swing out wide from the side of the body rather than going high behind it. Once you set the elbow on the correct path, it will be much easier to keep it going in the right way, swinging wide beside the torso.

    It is so important that you start the recovery swing in the best way, right from the exit moment. This sets the stage for the rest of the swing. If there is an error in how your arm exits the water, it will create error through the entire recovery swing. Be patient to get this exit moment down well.

    Recovery Swing Focal Points

    • Swing hand a bit wider (create equilateral triangle shape)
    • Relaxed forearm and hand (‘rag doll arm’)
    • Drag the knuckles (until the last moment, then swing hand forward)
    • Push the Dot forward (dot on the elbow bone)
    • Slide the shoulder all the way
    • Keep shoulder internally rotated until last moment
    • Elbow reaches shoulder line before wrist
    • Keep fingertips in contact with surface (a.k.a. ‘dragonfly fingertips’)
    • Swing The Bag

    You may start practicing the recovery swing slowly, like a robot, which will keep your torso deep and the recovery arm mostly underwater in drill mode. But eventually, as the precise movement pattern becomes more familiar, more comfortable, you must speed up the motion so that it is fluid and fast enough to feel like the arm is truly swinging, light-weight, lifting off the torso for a moment.

    Entry Focal Points

    • Elbow swings forward in front of the head as far as comfortable
    • Elbow high above ear (like a tent over the head)
    • Feel the stretch in the back as you reach entry position
    • Forearm aiming straight ahead on track
    • Hand entry position across from opposite (lead arm) elbow)

    You may examine other useful focal points for Recovery and Entry on the 101 Focal Points page.

    Bringing the arm to this high elbow position is like building a wave to its peak height before the energy breaks and spills back into the water. It is so tempting to drop that elbow before it reaches its high position above and in front of the ear. Focusing on bringing the hand around will urge the elbow to drop, so let that hand drag behind the elbow until the last possible moment (that your shoulder joint comfortably allows). This will urge the elbow to climb higher as it comes forward, coming to its peak position higher than the head (seen in image below).

    This high elbow sets up the forearm to aim straight ahead on its track, angled downward steeply into the water. Then you let gravity just pull this arm down into the water and begin extending underwater, following the Ski Jump path to the target.

     

    Progression From Drill To Whole Stroke

    You may follow this progression in Swing Switch Without Pauses to gradually raise the arm up above the surface while maintaining the qualities with focal points:

    • Full (relaxed) forearm is submerged
    • Half of forearm is submerged
    • Watchband is submerged
    • (soft) Fingers are submerged, dragging through the water
    • Fingernails are just brushing the surface

    As a useful permanent standard, you may keep your fingernails every so lightly brushing the surface during your recovery swing, all the way to entry. I like to call this ‘dragonfly fingertips’, like a dragonfly skimming the surface of a pond.

     

    Practice Guide

    You may view the Practice Plan for Recovery Swing for some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own before our next session.

     

    Personal Notes: 

    Remember to use your Left Skate, Right Swing as the baseline for the low rotation angle. Aim to replicate the same open frame on the Right Skate, Left Swing.

    Although we have added the Recovery, it is still useful to continue practicing Balance and Streamline focal points. The better these are, the easier the Swing will be.

    #29114
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    19/22/12 Session 3 of 6

    During our third session, we briefly worked on a few features of the Recovery Arm before it Exits the water. Then we continued studying the Recovery arm, specifically the Entry. Last we began building in the Optimal Arm Switch Timing. The notes below combine both the previous and new cues, to combine the skills.

    You may like to read more on the Optimal Arm Switch Timing.

    Exit Cues

    • Fully extend the arm at the end of the Catch/Hold
    • Brush the thumb on the thigh

    Entry Drills

    These drills may be used for Exit, Recovery Swing and Entry skills. During this session, we added the 2-Arm Slot to Skate to feel the Arm Switch Timing, using gravity and momentum.

    Swing Skate is where you hold Skate Position on one side and then practice swinging the recovery arm on the other side, in slow motion. There is no switching of the arms.

    2-Arm Slot To Skate is where you are standing in shallow water, with one arm in entry position, the lead arm in front and that side leg forward.  Then you fall forward over your leading leg, as the face touches the water, switch arms, and slide into Skate Position, and slide forward for a couple seconds.

    Swing Switch is where you start in Skate, swing the recovery arm, then pause just a moment at entry, then switch the arms, slide into Skate, and repeat on the other side.

    In Swing Switch, once you remove pauses, your stroke is continuous and smooth. Your movements are getting closer and closer to normal-speed, whole stroke swimming. As you gradually speed up the motion of the swing, you may also gradually lift that forearm out of the water (let the hand go wider to gain clearance), up to the point where your fingernails are still brushing the surface.

    You may view demonstrations of these drills on the Video Tutorial page.  You may also see snapshots of particular moments in these drill positions on the Freestyle Drill Resources page.

    Entry Cues

    • Elbow swings forward in front of the head as far as comfortable
    • Elbow high above ear (like a tent over the head)
    • Feel the stretch in the back as you reach entry position
    • Feel BOTH shoulders slide toward the ears, bracing the upper spine
    • Forearm aiming straight ahead on track
    • Forearm angling down steeply (45 degrees)
    • Hand entry position across from opposite (lead arm) elbow)
    • Ski jump shape entry path – Slide down to target depth and then extend forward
    • Spear wrist through your target

    You may examine other useful focal points for Recovery and Entry on the 101 Focal Points page.

    Practice Set for Entry and Extension

    Skills

    • to maintain recovery swing skills and…
    • Have the entry arm be pulled in by gravity
    • Have the entry arm slide in without a splash, no waves
    • Have Lead Arm hold extended position until Entry
    • Slide into your best Skate Position

    Cues

    • High Elbow Entry position
    • Ski Jump shaped path to Skate
    • Entry Arm lines up in front of shoulder, pointing straight ahead
    • Extending Arm extends in front of shoulder, straight ahead
    • Mail slot (fingers, wrist, elbow and shoulder slide through the same hole)
    • Slide into long, straight, stable Skate Position
    • Low rotation angle at Skate
    • Fingers remain soft from entry to extension

    Choose 3 or 4 of the focal points above to work on today.

    Then, for each focal point, work through these activities, as far as you can go successfully. Take one focal point and work through the list. Then take the next focal point and work through the list again, and so on.

    Practice Set

    • 4 to 6x, for each side, Slot To Skate
    • 4 to 6x, for each side, Swing Skate to Superman for 6 seconds (time of comfortable breath hold)
    • 4 rounds of ‘4 to 6x Swing Switch with pauses’
    • 4 rounds of ‘4 to 6x Swing Switch without pauses’
    • 4 rounds of gradually faster swing, gradually bring forearm out of the water
    • 4 rounds of ‘6 to 8x whole strokes’ holding the same focal point (no breathing)
    • 2 rounds of ‘4x whole strokes, Interrupted Breathing, 4x whole strokes’
    #29266
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    2020/01/06 – Session 4 of 6

    In the previous lessons we’ve worked our way and developed the four main features we want to see in your stroke:
    1. The long, straight Torpedo Spine
    2. The long, straight, firm Skate Position
    3. Send Force Forward through the Recovery Swing
    4. Ideal Arm Switch Timing
    In this lesson, we are going to examine The Catch/Hold (or known as the Pull/Push of the underwater stroke in traditional swimming) so that you can enhance your forward movement even more. This bonus skill will set you up for more easily learning Rhythmic Breathing in the next lesson.
    You may read the introduction for the Catch and Hold.

    Lesson Outline

    When we are following a standard freestyle lesson series, in the first two or three lessons we build the Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke. The lesson on Catch and Hold is considered a bonus lesson and it may be introduced before or after the lesson on Rhythmic Breathing.

    You may review the introduction for Catch and Hold.

     

    The Catch and Hold

    In this lesson you will work through a series of drills to help you:

    • Build better catch shape to generate more resistant force
    • Empower the catch/hold with the torso rotation, so that the torso muscles do more of the work
    • Improve the catch pathway – straight back so the body slides straight forward
    • Improve the smooth, steady sense of pressure through the whole motion

    The focal points below will help you create and improve these features in your catch action.

    Drills

    Focal Points

    • Touch The Ball (Set the catch)
    • Hand stays on track
    • Elbow slides up and outward to make shape of arm
    • Forearm angled 45 degrees inward/downward
    • Touch the ball with entire forearm and palm
    • Hold the ball and rotate body past it
    • Press the ball straight toward the hip – hips rolls out of the way at last moment
    • Press the ball straight toward the toes – send the ball of water under hip and leg
    • Press on ball steadily
    • Smoothly increase press (don’t yank, or pull abruptly)
    • Catch hand and extending hand move (on their tracks) exactly opposite to each other, at approximately the same rate of speed
    • Hesitate ever so slightly after ‘Set The Catch’ in order to Load The Torso
    • Pull with whole side of torso (not with shoulder)

    The entry and extending arm is the main actor, while the catch arm is the supporting actor. Set a good catch and then focus upon sending force forward into your best Skate Position. The better your Entry, Extension and Skate, the farther you will slide forward on each stroke!

    There are more focal points for the Catch on our 101 Focal Points page as well as some demonstration of the 1-Arm drill on the Video Tutorial page.

     

    Practice Guide

    You may view the Practice Plan for Catch and Hold for some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own.

    Additional Nose

    We will expound on the Rhythmic Breath during the next session. In the meantime, you may like to start breaking apart the tie between the Recovery Arm and head rotation. I’ve included a few drills below to build from drill to whole stroke.
    #29286
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    Tempo Trainer

    You can read about using a Tempo Trainer.

    I had you add the Tempo Trainer at 1.25 sec, and then swim to the beat of the trainer timed to the Entry Hand. Add one beat to swing to breath and return to neutral before the next stroke/beat.

    #29318
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    2020/01/27 – Session 5 of 6

    When we are following a standard freestyle lesson series, in the first two or three lessons we build the Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke, and then come to Integrate Breathing, which depends on those features.

    You may review the Integrate Breathing Intro.

    Here is the outline of the skills, drills and cues, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of cues may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson. The instructor will watch the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant cues for you to work with.

     

    Integrate Breathing

    Skills For Integrated Breathing

    1. Position of Head and Lead Arm
    2. Timing of Turn
    3. Air Management (exhale/inhale)

    Drills

    These drills are listed, starting with easiest, in order of increasing complexity:

    In each drill we may use three stages for developing the head position, starting below the surface and gradually working to a ‘sneaky breathing’ position with half the head still in the water…

    First, Nod to the side, both goggles underwater, looking directly at the wall, then quickly turning back to face-down position.

    Next, Split The Face, and keep the shishkabob underwater pointing straight ahead. One goggle underwater and one goggle above water. The mouth is half in, half out of the water.

    Next, reach the cheek and the lips up to the air. Kiss the air with the lips. You may not attempt to breathe during the first tries of this just to make sure you can touch the air. Then, when you feel more confident that air is there, you may attempt a quick sip of air.

    In today’s lesson, we just started with the Nod.

    Cues For Position

    • Keep head in line with spine
    • Tip of the head is underwater
    • Turn head on spine axis (shishkabob spine)
    • Head remains flat (on pillow) while turned toward air
    • Keep extending lead arm while turning/returning the head
    • Cheek up, forehead down (you don’t breathe with both goggles out of the water)
    • Tilt head down further than you think (your sense of ‘flat’ may not be truly flat)

    Cues For Timing Of Turn

    • Turn head right with start of the catch
    • Turn head right with start of entry (turn away from entry arm)
    • Turn a bit faster than torso is turning (but not whiplash)
    • Return the head to face-down immediately

    When we come together again for your next lesson, we will visit the remaining cues for Timing of the Turn and touch on the Air Management Cues.

    As we discussed, you may like to set aside some time during your regular distance/fitness swim to work on Integrated Breathing Drills. Here are Practice Sets for Integrated Breathing to lend some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own before our next session. You’ll notice the contents stretch into some drills and cues we have not yet used. We’ll work on them next time.

     

    Dryland Exercises

    I recommend incorporating gentle neck stretches to ease the differential between the left and right side of your neck.

    Even with a decent stroke and practicing the main breathing skills, some can still feel unusually out of breath after short distances.

    This appears to be a more significant problem and solution for some swimmers than we realized previously. So here is some more guidance for you on breathing deep from the belly while swimming, what is technically known as diaphragmatic breathing.

    You can read more about this in Instructions For Diaphragmatic Breathing. Using the diaphragmtic breath, inhale quickly to then exhale for 4-6 seconds. In through the mouth, out through the nose. A longer exhale than inhale.

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