Now that I've gone through the hassle of signing up as a member of this dicussion group, this gets more and more fun. Maybe I'll get fired from my job :)
Anyway... I'm sure that ALL Masters level swimmers have heard of Total Immersion (from now on referred to as TI) swimming, correct? What are everyone's opinions about TI swimming? I am most curious because as a coach of age group swimmers, I was looking for training videos for our kids. I happened upon TI and liked what I saw... at first.
Here's some background for my experience with TI... very well put together, most of what they teach has been in existence for some time anyway, and they certainly are good for teaching novice/beginner swimmers the basic technique for swimming.
However, when looking to swim fast, and I mean fast, not lap swim quality, but truly competitively, I thing TI has missed to boat completely. Yes, smooth and efficient swimming is nice, but did anyone see the NCAA's? There are 20 year old men swimming 9 strokes per length in breaststroke! We have a number of age group coaches in my area teaching their kids how to swim breaststroke at 6 or 7 strokes a length!!! What gives? Extended glide is one thing, but when you slow down your stroke to such an extent just to achieve long and fluid strokes you sacrifice speed tremendously.
Hey, if you can swim 9 strokes a length at 1 second per stroke that is WAY better than 6 strokes a length at 2 seconds per stroke. Simple math.
Anthony Ervin of Cal swam the 100 free in the follwing SPL... 12 (start)/15/16/16. I could be off but that's what I was able to get from the (ahem- PALTRY) ESPN coverage. Now TI has goal SPL's of 12/13! Hello, if the BEST sprinter in history takes 8 cycles, shouldn't that tell us something? Turnover is very important. Same with streamlining, yes streamlines are nice and quite important but A.E. pops up after 5 yards MAX out of each turn. You only serve yourself well if your streamline is faster than you can swim, most age group swimmers would be well-served to explode out of the turn and swim within 3-4 yards.
Alas, it's been a slow day finishing my work for the week. Just looking to start a nice discussion. It's been my experience that a lot of Masters level swimmers are also engaged in coaching age group swimming at some level, and therefore I feel we can get some good dialogue going on this issue.
Now I've just used TI as an example because that's what I've had my experience with, but more general is what keys do you all stress when trying to mold competitive swimmers?
Au revoir,
-Rain Man
Parents
Former Member
Please accept my apologies for clicking "Post" prematurely a few minutes ago.
Originally posted by Phil Arcuni
After reviewing my posts on this thread, I don't think I can be accused of spreading misinformation
No need to get defensive. A reinspection of my words will show I accused you of nothing.
To refute misinformation by simply calling it wrong is of little utility.
Which is why I added a fair quantity of my own observations made over a long of time - which, of course, the read may take with however many grains of salt they feel appropriate.
Of even less value is the implied claim that only those who are fully experienced and trained in the TI method are capable of criticizing it.
While you may have inferred such a claim (though I'm not quite sure how), I did not imply such a claim.
It also implies that only the most experienced trainers have the knowledge to support the method - I don't think Terry or Emmett would agree with that!
I can see where such an inferrence could be drawn from my words. And you are not way off the mark. I do know that it takes a goodly amount of knowledge and experience to learn to effectively teach ANY swimming technique to a wide variety of ability levels. TI concepts are no different. That's the primary reason that there is a long internship and certification period for TI coaches.
Could a coach simply study the TI books and tapes, perhaps even attend a TI clinic and then go out and immediately begin to teach TI concepts with a high degree of effectiveness? It could happen. But I would suggest that such coach would have to already be quite experienced with teaching a variety of swimming techniques to a variety of swimmers, and be very knowledgable about swimming technique in general.
Could the neophyte coach do it? Highly unlikely in my opinion. Now, I HAVE witnessed untrained/inexperienced coaches that hold themselves out to be "teaching TI", make a total hash of attempts to teach TI concepts. That is, unfortunately, all to common.
And especially not get defensive about criticism and questions from both the knowledgeable and less knowledgeable.!
When I get defensive, I'll let you know. :)
Please accept my apologies for clicking "Post" prematurely a few minutes ago.
Originally posted by Phil Arcuni
After reviewing my posts on this thread, I don't think I can be accused of spreading misinformation
No need to get defensive. A reinspection of my words will show I accused you of nothing.
To refute misinformation by simply calling it wrong is of little utility.
Which is why I added a fair quantity of my own observations made over a long of time - which, of course, the read may take with however many grains of salt they feel appropriate.
Of even less value is the implied claim that only those who are fully experienced and trained in the TI method are capable of criticizing it.
While you may have inferred such a claim (though I'm not quite sure how), I did not imply such a claim.
It also implies that only the most experienced trainers have the knowledge to support the method - I don't think Terry or Emmett would agree with that!
I can see where such an inferrence could be drawn from my words. And you are not way off the mark. I do know that it takes a goodly amount of knowledge and experience to learn to effectively teach ANY swimming technique to a wide variety of ability levels. TI concepts are no different. That's the primary reason that there is a long internship and certification period for TI coaches.
Could a coach simply study the TI books and tapes, perhaps even attend a TI clinic and then go out and immediately begin to teach TI concepts with a high degree of effectiveness? It could happen. But I would suggest that such coach would have to already be quite experienced with teaching a variety of swimming techniques to a variety of swimmers, and be very knowledgable about swimming technique in general.
Could the neophyte coach do it? Highly unlikely in my opinion. Now, I HAVE witnessed untrained/inexperienced coaches that hold themselves out to be "teaching TI", make a total hash of attempts to teach TI concepts. That is, unfortunately, all to common.
And especially not get defensive about criticism and questions from both the knowledgeable and less knowledgeable.!
When I get defensive, I'll let you know. :)
