learn from Total Immersion book alone or need a coach?

Get "Total Immersion Pool Primer" and quit your belly aching and just
do it. Rome wasn't built in a day. Go to the pool and do lap after
lap of the drills described in the book.

Quoted message said:

I can swim but not very well. In the pool I do not float, although I'm
going to try it again after searching this group and reading a lot of
suggestions. So when I swim I really struggle and it's very exhausting
so I don't enjoy it at all. I can do probably 3-4 laps maximum without
being exhausted. In the ocean however, I can float and can swim much
easier. I know the ocean is much more dense making it easier. I scuba
dive and just feel really at ease in the ocean, but in the pool I feel
like I'm sinking/drowning.

So my wife wants to sign me up for private lessons with a swim teacher
at the neighborhood pool. I bought the Total Immersion book from
Amazon and just started reading it. Now I don't know what to do. I
don't know if I can learn to swim on my own or if I need a coach. I
live in France and none of the coaches have heard of total immersion,
and there aren't any TI workshops here. So my question is can I learn
to swim just from the book? My wife and brother-in-law swim very well
and they are willing to work with me but they don't swim TI.

I don't want to break any speed records, I just want to swim
comfortably. As slow as I need to so I can do as many laps as I want
without getting tired. I was into running but am having a problem with
my knees so my doctors are suggesting swimming. When running I was
running 3 times a week, up to over an hour for my long runs. So I'm
confident that I'm "in shape" and physically capable of swimming, I
just need to learn how! 🙂

Thanks for any suggestions you may have,
Michael

Sorry if I wasn't clear..

Would a conventional coach be beneficial to be or should I try and
learn the TI approach on my own? My wife is pushing me to take lessons
but I'm afraid they'll try teaching me the old school method and I
really am convinced the TI method is what I need.

I saw a guy swimming with the TI method once, he was in a pool in Bali,
in some temple ruins actually. The way the guy glided through the
water was like magic. I was mesmorized watching him.

-Michael

Sorry if I wasn't clear..

Would a conventional coach be beneficial to be or should I try and
learn the TI approach on my own? My wife is pushing me to take lessons
but I'm afraid they'll try teaching me the old school method and I
really am convinced the TI method is what I need.

I saw a guy swimming with the TI method once, he was in a pool in Bali,
in some temple ruins actually. The way the guy glided through the
water was like magic. I was mesmorized watching him.

-Michael

You know, although they claim they are revolutionnary, TI doesn't teach
anything really different than the others, as far as basics are
concerned. So there is no contradiction between working with the book
and taking a few lessons. But you are going to make progress only by
spending a lot of time in the pool anyway, a coach won't do a miracle
in just a few lessons ! So you should do as already suggested: go to
the pool, do the drills, ask your wife to tell you if you seem to be
doing them correctly, and be patient !

You know, although they claim they are revolutionnary, TI doesn't teach
anything really different than the others, as far as basics are
concerned. So there is no contradiction between working with the book
and taking a few lessons. But you are going to make progress only by
spending a lot of time in the pool anyway, a coach won't do a miracle
in just a few lessons ! So you should do as already suggested: go to
the pool, do the drills, ask your wife to tell you if you seem to be
doing them correctly, and be patient !

Clarou said:

You know, although they claim they
are revolutionnary, TI doesn't teach
anything really different than the
others, as far as basics are
concerned.

Although TI's emphasis on streamlining
and longitudinal balance are not unknown
by other coaches, I don't yet know of
anyone else that offers drills that are
so specifically-oriented to achieve
those goals.

Quoted message said:

Would a conventional coach be beneficial
... or should I try and learn the TI
approach on my own?

Have you searched for a TI coach on their
site?

http://www.totalimmersion.net/find-coach.html

Man o' Tea a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Although TI's emphasis on streamlining
and longitudinal balance are not unknown
by other coaches, I don't yet know of
anyone else that offers drills that are
so specifically-oriented to achieve
those goals.

Yes, you are right, of course. What I wanted to explain is that even if
the learning process is very different, at the end you don't swim very
differently whatever method you followed. I think the TI method is
better for the beginning. Anyway in my local pool (I'm French too by
the way) I see lots of people who would really benefit from doing some
balance drills, instead of kicking like mad to try to keep their
balance.

Man o' Tea a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Although TI's emphasis on streamlining
and longitudinal balance are not unknown
by other coaches, I don't yet know of
anyone else that offers drills that are
so specifically-oriented to achieve
those goals.

Yes, you are right, of course. What I wanted to explain is that even if
the learning process is very different, at the end you don't swim very
differently whatever method you followed. I think the TI method is
better for the beginning. Anyway in my local pool (I'm French too by
the way) I see lots of people who would really benefit from doing some
balance drills, instead of kicking like mad to try to keep their
balance.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

In the pool I do not float, although I'm

going to try it again after searching this group and reading a lot of
suggestions. So when I swim I really struggle and it's very exhausting

so I don't enjoy it at all. I can do probably 3-4 laps maximum without

being exhausted. In the ocean however, I can float and can swim much
easier. <<

By all means try the Total Immersion stuff, but, if you get the chance,
you might also try the following:

Get yourself a kickboard at the end of your Total Immersion practice
session and kick three laps of the pool Do it slowly and easily.
Don't think at all about your feet. Think only about your butt the
whole time. You want your butt right up on the surface of the water.
You get it there not by kicking it up by by pushing it up with your
lower back muscles as you kick gently. When you get to the end of each
lap, take a good, long rest. Pay attention to the muscles that you
have to use to push your butt up to the surface of the water and keep
it there. You want to strengthen those muscles and then everything
else will fall into place. The way that competitive swimmers
strengthen those muscles is with many kilometers of kickboard training,
butterfly swimming, and dolphin kicking. You won't be able to do any
of those things, of course, but you can get what you need simply by
kicking those three laps after each practice session, focusing only on
using your lower back muscles to keep that butt pushed up to the
surface of the water.

Then, when you are comfortable with doing this, and can pretty much do
it without having to think about it too much, try to focus on doing
this also when you swim. I think that you'll find that swimming in the
pool will become a lot more like swimming in the ocean, as you remain
balanced in the water, without your thighs and butt dragging you down.

If you do this and it works for you, let me know and I'll give you my
opinion on the next thing that you can do to start moving your (now
horizontally balanced) body through the water with greater ease and
greater speed.

- Larry Weisenthal, Huntington Beach, CA

"Clarou" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message de
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Anyway in my local pool (I'm French too by the way)

Even though Manaudou and Figues had some good results at the Worlds, young
fr.rec.sport.natation is dead now, and we all have to come here to find
valuable advice.
Just another example of not having the critical size, I guess...

--- Olivier

Silver0l a écrit :

Quoted message said:

Even though Manaudou and Figues had some good results at the Worlds, young
fr.rec.sport.natation is dead now, and we all have to come here to find
valuable advice.
Just another example of not having the critical size, I guess...

My guess is that what we lack in France is older swimmers. There are
lots of young competitive ones, but you can't learn anything from them
because they haven't yet taken the time to think about their practice,
so they just repeat what they were told to do, without considering
differences in ability or objectives (see the French web-based forum
www.natation.org for example). But swimming is not really developped
for the adults : we have much fewer triathletes, and it's hard to find
a masters club. For example I haven't found one yet that would accept
me, because I'm not a former competitive swimmer so of course I'm not
good enough to be competitive !

Thanks for the suggestion Larry, I'm ready to try anything as long it
is not dangerous or illegal. 🙂 I'll try it next time and let you
know.

Today I worked on drill #1 & 2 from the TI book. #1 is to float on
your back and gently kick your legs to keep your balance. I've never
been able to float on my back (without kicking). In the beginning I
couldn't do it. I was actually going the wrong direction. This is
explained in the book, I was bending my knees and bicycling it. So I
took a break and did the breastroke for a while. Then I did the
vertical kicking exercise suggested in the book, to feel like it's like
to kick properly with really rubbery legs. Immediately I tried again
the float on my back with gentle kicking and this time it worked! So I
did it 25m down the pool! Cool, first time in my life I've floated on
my back without moving my arms.

I tried Drill 2, which is to rotate a bit on your side, I need to work
on balance.

Overall I think the book explained things very well and I'm really
impressed with it. At first I was worried it was just a book to get
you to come to his seminars. A tony robbins bait and hook type book
but in fact this book does tell you everything you need to know. I
can't wait to go back to the pool to continue working on the first two
drills.

It's funny, people swimming laps going really fast kicking and
splashing everywhere and here I am going 0.5 Km/h down the pool. But
one day I know I will be swimming even better than them. 🙂

-Michael

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Thanks for the suggestion Larry, I'm ready to try anything as long it
is not dangerous or illegal. 🙂 I'll try it next time and let you
know.

Today I worked on drill #1 & 2 from the TI book. #1 is to float on
your back and gently kick your legs to keep your balance. I've never
been able to float on my back (without kicking). In the beginning I
couldn't do it. I was actually going the wrong direction. This is
explained in the book, I was bending my knees and bicycling it. So I
took a break and did the breastroke for a while. Then I did the
vertical kicking exercise suggested in the book, to feel like it's like
to kick properly with really rubbery legs. Immediately I tried again
the float on my back with gentle kicking and this time it worked! So I
did it 25m down the pool! Cool, first time in my life I've floated on
my back without moving my arms.

I tried Drill 2, which is to rotate a bit on your side, I need to work
on balance.

Overall I think the book explained things very well and I'm really
impressed with it. At first I was worried it was just a book to get
you to come to his seminars. A tony robbins bait and hook type book
but in fact this book does tell you everything you need to know. I
can't wait to go back to the pool to continue working on the first two
drills.

It's funny, people swimming laps going really fast kicking and
splashing everywhere and here I am going 0.5 Km/h down the pool. But
one day I know I will be swimming even better than them. 🙂

-Michael

Your testimonial sounds like a tony robbins bait and hook.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm ready to try anything as long it

is not dangerous or illegal. 🙂 <<

Nothing I've told you so far is "dangerous" to someone with normal
anatomy, but if you've got something like a herniated intervertebral
disk or some other type of degenerative lumbar spine pathology, then
certain types of lower back exercises (including those suggested) may
not be agreeable.

Michael, I believe there is a video/dvd that the total immersion site
sells that you would probably like because the swimmer looks sort of
like the swimmer in Bali that you mentioned. Divinely effortless.
The rolling-to-breathe drill is important. Its great that you are
trying this stuff. I took the workshop when it was in Philadelphia and
the swimmers in it were incredible swimmers already. There was even a
Navy Seal in the class. He said they are trained to swim the side
stroke at all times but he wanted to learn everything he could possibly
learn about swimming to be the best he could possibly be.

Michael, I believe there is a video/dvd that the total immersion site
sells that you would probably like because the swimmer looks sort of
like the swimmer in Bali that you mentioned. Divinely effortless.
The rolling-to-breathe drill is important. Its great that you are
trying this stuff. I took the workshop when it was in Philadelphia and
the swimmers in it were incredible swimmers already. There was even a
Navy Seal in the class. He said they are trained to swim the side
stroke at all times but he wanted to learn everything he could possibly
learn about swimming to be the best he could possibly be.

Get the DVD. It's called 'Fishlike Freestyle'.

It contains, skate, underskate, underswitch, double/tripple underswitch,
zipperswitch, double/triple/multiple zipperswitch, overswitch and flow-state
swimming.

Should be all you need to improve your drilling.

Get the DVD. It's called 'Fishlike Freestyle'.

It contains, skate, underskate, underswitch, double/tripple underswitch,
zipperswitch, double/triple/multiple zipperswitch, overswitch and flow-state
swimming.

Should be all you need to improve your drilling.