Newbie question

You would probably benefit a lot from a series of group or individually coached sessions. You can do a lot on your own, but at some point you HAVE to get someone with the right experience to work with you. It sounds like you are moving in the right direction. I'd encourage you to keep visiting this forum. Not everything will be of interest to you, but there are a lot of remarkably skilled (and nice) folks here who frequently have discussions that you will likely benefit from. To get the correct body position for easy breathing in front crawl is too much to cover in one post, or even one thread probably. But this is usually how I introduce the idea... Can you float on your back with your toes out of the water? The lesson is on "center of buoyancy". You want to try it with arms in opposite positions... over your head, and at your sides. For all strokes a goal should be a flat body position in the water. This helps improve streamlining, which in turn makes everything else easier (like breathing). :-D If you want some additional articles to look over try these sources: www.h2oustonswims.org/articles_by_category.html http://www.svl.ch/index.html :) Thanks for the encouragement, pointers and links. I was lucky to find an adult swimming class at the local city pool tonight and decided to go give it a shot. The downside was the none of the instructors struck me as real technical people. Most of what they do at the pool is run kids programs. I was there half an hour prior to my class to watch. Most everyone was churning-up water...lots of slapping, head out of the water, kicking out of the water, etc. Anyhow, the only real critique I got was that I wasn't kicking from the hips. I was told that I was bending my knees too much. I worked on correcting that both with a paddle board and simply swimming with my arms out front without using them. At first my kicks were large and I really wasn't moving forward very fast at all. Then I was told to try a higher frequency kick with less amplitude. That seemed to propel me forward at a faster rate. Overall it was useful just on that one point, but I am not so sure how far they can take me. I have years of martial arts behind me (far behind me) so I can be and like to be very technical and precise about motion. That also means that I am used to learning by watching, which is what I've been doing with the myriad of videos available on the web. Neat. I measured my progress by simply comparing my speed to others in adjoining lanes who were swimming laps and seemed to be proficient. One week ago I couldn't go a third of the pool without stopping because everything was wrong, including, more importantly, my breathing technique. Tonight I'd say that the best swimmer at the pool was 25% faster than I was for one lap. My breathing still isn't perfect so I have to take a short break after one lap (50m total). To me that is a huge improvement over my condition just a few days ago and every bit of it has been about technique. I am certainly not powering through any of it because I am way out of shape right now. I might try the public pool coaching again, but I would really like to find a more technical instructor to really tear apart what I am doing so that I can really learn. On this point, I would appreciate any recommendations in the San Fernando Valley or Valencia, CA region. Float on my back with toes out of the water? I think so. I tried it tonight very briefly. If I stretch out like a plank, yes. Anything else results in toes and legs sinking. I didn't play with arm positions. I'll do that tomorrow at the gym. A link to a video showing what this exercise might look like would be wonderful. I presume you are trying to determine the location of my center of buoyancy. Is this correct? What would be the significance of knowing this? Also, tomorrow I am supposed to cross our local lake (swimming, of course). It's a little over 300 meters. My son is in the local Junior Lifeguard program. They invite parents to do the crossing with the kids at the end of the session. I did it last year and was dead last. I was the only swimmer left in the lake, swimming on my own for probably 15 minutes (lifeguards flanking me on surfboards). My ***-stroke was horrible --never having taken a lesson in my life-- so I wasn't very fast at all. Anyhow, I am thinking of doing it again tomorrow. I think that my freestyle technique is reasonable enough. My problem right now is that I am running out of breath. I think I am going to get one of those swimming snorkels and just do it. I should be fine. Heck, there will be about 15 lifeguards on surfboards along the crossing path. Why not? It's cheating, but, then again, I get to focus on technique for 300m straight. Sorry, long post.

You would probably benefit a lot from a series of group or individually coached sessions. You can do a lot on your own, but at some point you HAVE to get someone with the right experience to work with you. It sounds like you are moving in the right direction. I'd encourage you to keep visiting this forum. Not everything will be of interest to you, but there are a lot of remarkably skilled (and nice) folks here who frequently have discussions that you will likely benefit from. To get the correct body position for easy breathing in front crawl is too much to cover in one post, or even one thread probably. But this is usually how I introduce the idea... Can you float on your back with your toes out of the water? The lesson is on "center of buoyancy". You want to try it with arms in opposite positions... over your head, and at your sides. For all strokes a goal should be a flat body position in the water. This helps improve streamlining, which in turn makes everything else easier (like breathing). :-D If you want some additional articles to look over try these sources: www.h2oustonswims.org/articles_by_category.html http://www.svl.ch/index.html :) Thanks for the encouragement, pointers and links. I was lucky to find an adult swimming class at the local city pool tonight and decided to go give it a shot. The downside was the none of the instructors struck me as real technical people. Most of what they do at the pool is run kids programs. I was there half an hour prior to my class to watch. Most everyone was churning-up water...lots of slapping, head out of the water, kicking out of the water, etc. Anyhow, the only real critique I got was that I wasn't kicking from the hips. I was told that I was bending my knees too much. I worked on correcting that both with a paddle board and simply swimming with my arms out front without using them. At first my kicks were large and I really wasn't moving forward very fast at all. Then I was told to try a higher frequency kick with less amplitude. That seemed to propel me forward at a faster rate. Overall it was useful just on that one point, but I am not so sure how far they can take me. I have years of martial arts behind me (far behind me) so I can be and like to be very technical and precise about motion. That also means that I am used to learning by watching, which is what I've been doing with the myriad of videos available on the web. Neat. I measured my progress by simply comparing my speed to others in adjoining lanes who were swimming laps and seemed to be proficient. One week ago I couldn't go a third of the pool without stopping because everything was wrong, including, more importantly, my breathing technique. Tonight I'd say that the best swimmer at the pool was 25% faster than I was for one lap. My breathing still isn't perfect so I have to take a short break after one lap (50m total). To me that is a huge improvement over my condition just a few days ago and every bit of it has been about technique. I am certainly not powering through any of it because I am way out of shape right now. I might try the public pool coaching again, but I would really like to find a more technical instructor to really tear apart what I am doing so that I can really learn. On this point, I would appreciate any recommendations in the San Fernando Valley or Valencia, CA region. Float on my back with toes out of the water? I think so. I tried it tonight very briefly. If I stretch out like a plank, yes. Anything else results in toes and legs sinking. I didn't play with arm positions. I'll do that tomorrow at the gym. A link to a video showing what this exercise might look like would be wonderful. I presume you are trying to determine the location of my center of buoyancy. Is this correct? What would be the significance of knowing this? Also, tomorrow I am supposed to cross our local lake (swimming, of course). It's a little over 300 meters. My son is in the local Junior Lifeguard program. They invite parents to do the crossing with the kids at the end of the session. I did it last year and was dead last. I was the only swimmer left in the lake, swimming on my own for probably 15 minutes (lifeguards flanking me on surfboards). My ***-stroke was horrible --never having taken a lesson in my life-- so I wasn't very fast at all. Anyhow, I am thinking of doing it again tomorrow. I think that my freestyle technique is reasonable enough. My problem right now is that I am running out of breath. I think I am going to get one of those swimming snorkels and just do it. I should be fine. Heck, there will be about 15 lifeguards on surfboards along the crossing path. Why not? It's cheating, but, then again, I get to focus on technique for 300m straight. Sorry, long post.