The best of both worlds

“It‘s a good idea to begin at the bottom in everything except in learning to swim”

Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin

Much as I want to get to talking about the present, there’s a few things about the past I need to mention. As you know, back in January 2010 I’d made the decision to teach myself freestyle. Much like when I first picked up a guitar at age 14 there was one source that I started with. Back then it was a Burt Weedon video, but as far as I know he’s not a great swimmer, so instead I turned to a book called Total Immersion by Terry Laughlin. The main principles are based around trying to swim more like a fish, out glide like a boat. As such, there is a heavy focus on streamlining and gliding. Certainly when watching clips of TI swimmers on YouTube they look very very smooth. The book was great for introducing the basics of balance and feeling comfortable in the water, but there’s one aspect that I and others think they take too far – namely ‘glide’.

Swim Smooth

Around the middle of 2010 I happened across a website that has effectively become my ‘swim Bible’: Swim Smooth.  Whilst there is still a strong focus on reducing drag, for them glide is a dirty word. And it makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Every time you pause at the front of your stroke you deccelerate (more than you normally would). To reaccelerate you’re going to have to put more effort in. A good visualisation is to imagine you’re pulling yourself along a rope that’s underneath you’re body – you need to keep a constant momentum to keep going. Swim Smooth also have a strong focus on correcting stroke flaws by identifying the root cause – a scissor kick can be caused by crossing over at the front of the stroke, for example.

So whilst I’m definitely in the Swim Smooth camp when it comes to learning freestyle, there are still a lot of good aspects to Total Immersion. I see no reason not to take the best bits of both – whatever works for you!