Can someone explain to me the differences in the Kicking Rhythms? I feel that my kick is not consistent and is really holding me back. I feel like w the pull buoy I can swim all day but once I add in the kick I tire a lot quicker. Maybe this is common for everyone.
This whole "core engagement" issue is clearly so essential - but so darn tricky! As JanSwim asks vo2, "If I am doing what you are describing, how would I know?" That's just it. If you don't know what an engaged core feels like, how do you know whether you are doing it or not? Reminds me of how I did yoga for years with zero core engagement - and never had the slightest inkling that there was anything missing there. And never did a yoga teacher point this out to me. When I got back into swimming in 2006 or so, I used the Total Immersion book, which talks very explicitly about engaging your core; but still, I had no idea whether I was doing it or not. For years, I thought I was, but really wasn't. Bit by bit, I may be starting to catch on, finally. It feels like it. But who knows? Maybe I'm still nowhere near really getting it??
Seems that for those lucky people who have always engaged their core naturally - the "natural athletes" who probably go on to become the yoga teachers and super-fast swimmers and so on - it is so automatic to them that they can't even imagine the degree to which some of us are not doing it and the struggle we have to go through to do what comes so naturally to them. So maybe this doesn't get talked about and emphasized enough for some of us for whom this is the "core" issue, so to speak.
But hey - this is what makes learning to swim well such an interesting adventure! And this is why I am so appreciative of all the little clues, suggestions, hints, tips, and encouragements I pick up from here and elsewhere - like those by vo2, Beards247, my coach, videos like the one suggested above, etc.
This whole "core engagement" issue is clearly so essential - but so darn tricky! As JanSwim asks vo2, "If I am doing what you are describing, how would I know?" That's just it. If you don't know what an engaged core feels like, how do you know whether you are doing it or not? Reminds me of how I did yoga for years with zero core engagement - and never had the slightest inkling that there was anything missing there. And never did a yoga teacher point this out to me. When I got back into swimming in 2006 or so, I used the Total Immersion book, which talks very explicitly about engaging your core; but still, I had no idea whether I was doing it or not. For years, I thought I was, but really wasn't. Bit by bit, I may be starting to catch on, finally. It feels like it. But who knows? Maybe I'm still nowhere near really getting it??
Seems that for those lucky people who have always engaged their core naturally - the "natural athletes" who probably go on to become the yoga teachers and super-fast swimmers and so on - it is so automatic to them that they can't even imagine the degree to which some of us are not doing it and the struggle we have to go through to do what comes so naturally to them. So maybe this doesn't get talked about and emphasized enough for some of us for whom this is the "core" issue, so to speak.
But hey - this is what makes learning to swim well such an interesting adventure! And this is why I am so appreciative of all the little clues, suggestions, hints, tips, and encouragements I pick up from here and elsewhere - like those by vo2, Beards247, my coach, videos like the one suggested above, etc.
