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First Session – December 14
Hello Lucile,
It’s a pleasure to share these skills with you! I know it was a bit overwhelming with the door thrown open to a new way of viewing swimming, but you did well tuning into the body position and sensations with each new cue. We will keep building on these in the next lesson.
Below are links to 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.
Welcome to our Freestyle Lesson Series
To review the concepts we are working with in this lesson series you may view our Freestyle Lesson Series Overview and the article Four Essential Features, where the skill objectives for each lesson are explained.
Build The Frame and Form Streamline Shape
Study
In our first lesson we have worked on those first two of those Four Essential Features. You may review these to understand more about our first lesson and prepare for those to come:
Lesson Notes
You may view the outline for our first Lesson on The Frame and Streamline Shape, which list the skills, the drills and the cues we used in our lesson together.
I also introduced you to the Interrupted Breathing Position which may be very helpful in your pool practice time and prepare you for Rhythmic Breathing in the following lessons.
I also mentioned that you might enjoy using short swim fins to assist while working in the drills. You may read some thoughts on this in the article Should I Use Fins? Now you can do drills the full length of the pool, without stopping and you may breathe as you please.
Practice Guide
You may view the Practice Sets for The Frame and Streamline Shape for some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own before our next session.
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.
A central feature of our method is our use of cues (a.k.a. focal points) to create a super-learning situation for your brain. You may review our introduction in Using Cues.
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. If you are feeling some tension between your need for drill work and your need to maintain fitness you may view Whole Stroke Swimming With Cues for some suggestions on how to balance those.
Second Session – December 21
Today we focused on the very important skill of using the torso rotation. I am so glad you sense the importance of this skill and the profound impact it can have on your swimming (and other movements in life).
To use the torso rotation better, you need to become aware of the torso and how your body controls it. You have been using torso rotation (or ‘mass/weight shift’ to empower your movements in many situations on land, but probably without being aware of it. This use of weight shift is familiar to your body in some situations, but not in others. And, it is unusual for land-mammal humans to immediately know how to apply this when horizontal and weightless in the water because that is not a situation we are genetically programmed for.
So, today we continued on our journey of discovery today to tap into the power of your torso rotation. We did some activities in the horizontal position, and we did some standing drills to make a bridge between using the torso rotation in the vertical position where your body does know how to use it, and the horizontal position where it is learning how.
Activites
- Streamline with Underwater Switches
- Face-down Torpedo Position with Quarter Rotations (hold rotated position for 3 seconds)
- Face-up Torpedo Position with Quarter Rotations (hold rotated position for 3 seconds)
- Standing rehearsal – pull the chainsaw cord
- Standing rehearsal – pull on Mat’s wrist using hip
- Standing rehearsal – push against Mat’s hand from the hip
- Balance Position – Left Pull and Torque (repeat just one side several times)
- Balance Position – Left Pull and Torque – Balance Position – Right Pull and Torque (alternate sides)
In the first activity, I had you be careful to try to hold your streamline (rotated) position until your other hand has slid almost all the way forward, then deliberately shift weight to the other side, into the other streamline shape.
In the standing rehearsals, I had you notice and tap into the torque you create when pulling the arm from the hip.
The first step is to tap into the torque of pulling with the hip, which activates torso-turning muscles and initially gets you into that rotated position.
I had you focus on piercing the target with your extending lead hand, using the hip to drive that hand forward.
The second step is to be aware of which muscles, which regions inside the torso are working to rotate, so that you can then attempt to hold those and maintain that rotated position for 3 seconds.
Third Session – December 28
In this third lesson we continued working our way through the Four Essential Features, in the freestyle stroke.
Generate Forward Momentum and Make First Connections
Study
We focused on the next two features:
- Generate Forward Momentum through the Recovery Swing
- Make First Connections
Lesson Notes
You may view the outline for our second lesson on Lesson For Forward Momentum And First Connection which list the skills, the drills and the cues we used in our lesson together.
Practice Guide
You may view the Practice Sets For Momentum and Connections for some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own before our next session.
Fourth Session – January 4
Catch And Hold
As a bonus to the Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke we spent some time working on the catch, we applied those skills on Integrated Breathing for the end of this lesson.Study
You may read the introduction for the Intro for Catch And Hold.
Lesson Outline
You may view the outline for our fourth Lesson for The Catch and Hold, which list the skills, the drills and the focal points we used in our lesson together.
Practice Guide
You may view the Practice Sets for Catch And Hold for some guidance on how to work on these skills on your own.
Fifth Session – January 11
In this session we spent our time tuning up some features of your extension and connecting the catch to the extension, to feel the effect of your torso-empowered propulsion.
We just kept you swimming repeats down and back in the fitness pool, and these were the main cues we worked with:
- Straighten the lead arm in front of the shoulder (wider)
- Slightly deeper target for the lead hand
- Emphasize that extension for just a moment longer
- Enter the hand a little closer to the body, a little wider
- Hold the ball and slide the body forward, past it
We reviewed a little about training with Stroke Counting. You may read more about this in the Introduction To Training With Stroke Counts.
And, I had you try out using a Tempo Trainer (swimmer metronome) to help the brain refine the movements. You seemed to like it and find it fairly easy to follow or ignore if you needed to. You may read more about this in the Introduction To Training With Tempo.
Pool Session – February 8
In today’s session we reviewed the main parts of the stroke, looking at them through the lens of ‘connections’ through the body.
Activities
For each part, for each cue, I had you do…
2x half length for input
2x full length
The Connections
- connect the frame
- connect streamline
- connect momentum in recovery
- connect arms to torso rotation (we didn’t quite get to this one)
- connect breathing action (we briefly touched on this one)
We did the frame, and was looking good.
Worked on right side streamline, reduce rotation angle, emphasizing extending forward not downward.
I had you work on a wider entries.
Set lower controlled rotation angle by laying on breast and pelvis. Lay on that depth and extend, not rotate farther.
Hold streamline until finished with breathing, until back to face down position
Disconnect head return from recovery swing, by pausing stroke in streamline position
I assigned to you the 3 part breathing drill.
I showed you how to do the dry land stroke rehearsal.
Pool Session – February 22
You came with a concern that you are still not feeling like breathing is smooth as it should be.
While warming up I observed that lead arm and L streamline were not stable on R breathing.
Upon further testing we found that you could come into a very stable R streamline immediately but were having a hard time holding angle in L streamline. When the head turns to R to breathe it pulls the torso with it. Torso goes flat as head returns and lead arm rops and pulls as a reaction. Upon testing we observed that when standing up with shoulders fixed you could turn the head to the R a bit farther than you could turn to the L. The range of turning appeared slightly limited on both sides.
When you did the underwater arm switches, without turning the head you could come into streamline on both sides, the R streamline being a bit stronger. When we added a turn of the head, you could turn towards the L without disrupting R streamline but when turning to the R it would invariably disrupt the L streamline. The turning of the head to the R turns the torso with it.
In general, it appears that the turning of your head automatically turns the torso with it. You need to work on retraining the head turning and the torso turning to function independent of each other.
Two land exercises you can do to train…
- Practice turning just the head to look around at things in your environment, without turning the torso, especially things far to the side of you range of view.
- Practice lifting objects with arms and turning the torso to move that object without turning the head to go with it. Keep the gaze fixed and just lift, rotate and place the object down in another location without turning the head to follow the object.
In the water you can practice controlling just the torso rotation into streamline without head turns. You want this to become very familiar and preferred by your neuromuscular system.
Then you practice turning the head without tuning the torso at the same time.
Practice noticing the sensory information that tells you how well your body is positioned in streamline. Feel air on the upside scapula. Feel more preesure pushing up against the low side breast and hip. Monitor this sensory info while turning the head to tell if or how far the torso is being pulled out of position by the head turn. Keep lead hand deeper and on wide target.
Pool Activities
Half length of 1 arm swimming without turning to breathe.
a) 1 full length of 1 arm swimming w object in your lead hand.
b) Alternate holding R streamline for two 1-arm strokes (with L arm) and then switch to other side for 2 strokes.
- Emphasize full extension and stability in that streamline.
- Take a breath only on first stroke of each side in order to maintain streamline during complete breathing action.
c) Half length of underwater switches with no head turns.
d) Half length or full length w underwater switches with 1 head turn per switch.
- Make sure head turns and returns without moving the torso.
- Keep other arm underwater, elbow below surface, with palm on front of thigh.
e) In whole stroke swimming you can use the 3 point breathing drill to help you pause the stroke and practice holding streamline while doing the breathing action.
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