TI Question...heard this and doesn't sound right...
Former Member
I am teaching a stroke clinic class at the YMCA. My background is USS competitive swimming (ages 8-18) and some age-group coaching. One of my students, a triathlon trainer, has been to Total Immersion. Because of his TI training, he is doubtful of any stroke correction I am giving him. Basically he has the typical problems of a short stroke...entering too close to the head and not pulling thru.
The TI triathlete is telling me that the TI "Fish" style swimming technique says the hand should enter the water just in front of the head, then reach forward. In my opinion, he needs to lengthen his stroke, rotating and reaching as far forward as possible, entering out front (not by the head). I am thinking he is mixing up some TI drill with proper freestyle SWIMMING technique. He at least agreed with me when we talked distance per stroke (and started believing I know something about swimming)...but I don't see how you can maximize DPS with hand entry by the head.
Can someone shed light on this for me? What is this "Fish" swimming in a couple sentences? And where does TI say the hand entry should be?
Thank you!!
P.S. I'm new here and enjoying reading...I swim masters and hope to compete in butterfly someday...I'm waiting it out until I get a bit older so can face the competition. My butterfly has held out better than my other strokes (used to be a long distance freestyler too).
P.P.S. I did a search on TI and read some of the posts but they didn't quite get to my specific question above.
Parents
Former Member
You are right about this:
Originally posted by Gareth Eckley
...
As I understand it the main feature of " Australian crawl" is the pronounced shoulder shift forward during entry. The shoulder is held high and the catch is acheived by taking the time to get the hand and forearm at 90 degrees to the water surface, before initiating the pull. The pull is actually quite shallow. The upper arm remains high and almost parallell to the water surface during this.
This differs to " normal " freestyle where the shoulder is dropped during the entry phase and the shoulders roll more, leading to the pull being deeper in the water.
This is covered in Swimming technique magazine , july-sept article. " Thoughts on the crawl stroke" www.swiminfo.com/.../200007-01st_art.asp There is also an article in Swimming World magazine, January 2000, titled "the New Australian Crawl" that covers this in depth. the last article has a good photo sequence but is not available online.
The straight arm recovery is not an intrinsic or neccessary part of this swimming style, Thorpe and Hackett do not use it and they are certainly swimming "Australian Crawl".
...
Maybe the article in the Swimming World magazine from January 2000, is the same article that I am reading right now from the Swim magazine of March/April 2000.
The article from the Swim magazine has eight pictures under the title 'Fairly Good Sequence Illustrating the "New Australian Crawl"'.
It says:
"The following photos, using former short course world champion Francisco Sanchez of Venezuela, are a fairly good approximation of the Australian stroke."
Captions under the eight pictures do emphasize what you are describing.
Picture number four (picture on the right, in the second row), does show a straight right arm, fully extended closely above the water, before entering the water to catch and pull.
However, the caption under this picture doesn't mention the straight arm, so what Swim magazine and you describe in 'Australian Crawl', that is the definition of the 'Australian Crawl'.
You are right about this:
Originally posted by Gareth Eckley
...
As I understand it the main feature of " Australian crawl" is the pronounced shoulder shift forward during entry. The shoulder is held high and the catch is acheived by taking the time to get the hand and forearm at 90 degrees to the water surface, before initiating the pull. The pull is actually quite shallow. The upper arm remains high and almost parallell to the water surface during this.
This differs to " normal " freestyle where the shoulder is dropped during the entry phase and the shoulders roll more, leading to the pull being deeper in the water.
This is covered in Swimming technique magazine , july-sept article. " Thoughts on the crawl stroke" www.swiminfo.com/.../200007-01st_art.asp There is also an article in Swimming World magazine, January 2000, titled "the New Australian Crawl" that covers this in depth. the last article has a good photo sequence but is not available online.
The straight arm recovery is not an intrinsic or neccessary part of this swimming style, Thorpe and Hackett do not use it and they are certainly swimming "Australian Crawl".
...
Maybe the article in the Swimming World magazine from January 2000, is the same article that I am reading right now from the Swim magazine of March/April 2000.
The article from the Swim magazine has eight pictures under the title 'Fairly Good Sequence Illustrating the "New Australian Crawl"'.
It says:
"The following photos, using former short course world champion Francisco Sanchez of Venezuela, are a fairly good approximation of the Australian stroke."
Captions under the eight pictures do emphasize what you are describing.
Picture number four (picture on the right, in the second row), does show a straight right arm, fully extended closely above the water, before entering the water to catch and pull.
However, the caption under this picture doesn't mention the straight arm, so what Swim magazine and you describe in 'Australian Crawl', that is the definition of the 'Australian Crawl'.
