What do you think of total immersion?

A smooth and efficient stroke does not neccesarily equal fast swimming. Stamina, strength, and turnover rate play a large role in speed. However, I think one would be well served to learn to swim smooth and efficient before he/she attempts to add speed to the equation. That's just my $.02. I think you will find that many of the TI drills are quite similar to those used by many other respectable swim coaches. TI's approach is not wildly creative or bizarre as many would lead you to believe.

Thanks for all your relpies. Frank i'll look at the threads some time today, thanks. Didn't relies this was suck a contivesial issue, cause i only heard about TI last weekend (well some oe recomended the book to me) thanks

wo talk about pandoras box... i just read abit on "critisums of TI" I think the generally consensus is, TI is a good START but most definatly not the be all end all of how to swim. Approach to teaching competitive swimming? Criticism of TI Principles

To all of you who know every little detail about swimmign's history. Has Terry ever produced any really top swimmers? I know a woman who ahs taken all of the "workshop" offered. Her strokes are really beautiful. But she isn't fast. People tell me that my stroke is so relaxed but I'm not fast either.

greetings all, i have the good fortune of living in stone ridge, ny (about 20 minutes from the ti swim studio in new paltz) i started training with terry a few years ago. we are both members of the same masters club and swim in the same lakes during the summer season. although our masters club is not a ti organization, we have a very dedicated coaching staff who prepare challanging workouts for us five days a week. as a ti convert , i consider it up to me to impose certain disciplines into each set that my lane mates couldn't care less about. though i do touch on the drills regularly to keep my form, i can swim the sets posted by our coaches and practice ti without disrupting anyone in my lane.

I have watched several videos of top calibre swimmers but have not seen very many that have significant hip roll, as discribed in TI, they do roll their shoulders.

Ok, before I'm flamed, let me point out that this is strictly IMO. As always, your mileage may vary. I took a TI clinic last year and it improved my stroke quite a bit. The most obvious improvement for me has been distance and straightening out obvious kinks in my technique. Before TI I felt out-of-breath with sets over 100. After TI, I can swim sets of 800+ and be perfectly relaxed. I have almost tripled the distance I swim in an average workout since I completed TI. I have not seen a gain in speed, or not yet, anyway. However, I was not fast before TI, and I'm not naive enough to think one clinic is going to drop seconds off my time. From what I can tell, the drills are not particularly unique to TI. I have all the Go Swim DVDs and several of the USA Swimming DVDs, and many of the TI drills overlap with what I see there and with the drills I was taught in Masters. My personal opinion is that if you're quite serious about competitive swimming, you should find a coach who has a history of turning out successful athletes. The secret of TI's success is that they are willing to invest time in the average swimmer with unglamorous goals, and I see nothing wrong with that. If I can use an analogy here, my husband is a Juilliard-trained classical musician. To make it in that line of work, you need to go somewhere like Juilliard and study with a top teacher, someone with a track record of turning out great musicians. Realistically, though, the majority of people will never be accepted into those programs. For someone who is not in the top of the talent pool (or someone who is not looking for a professional career but just looking to play for enjoyment), you have no choice but to explore other learning opportunities. That's how I see TI... an opportunity for those of us who are not in the top of the talent pool or who are not shooting for top success on the competitive circuit. It's a matter of horses for courses, or however that saying goes. :D

I'll bet a few bucks via paypal on that race if anybody is interested! Newmastersswimmer, what about your face off with Raz? When is that going to occur, or did I miss it? originally posted by 330 Man in response to the 500 Challenge between Aqua Geek and Gull80 Actually our challenge is based on the fastest 500 free time posted before the end of the 2005-2006 SCY season....So far neither of us have swam a 500 in a meet yet. I just got back into training again a couple of weeks ago after taking off 5 weeks ......it's a long story (involving a fire at the YMCA, an injury, and a vacation to Mexico).....Anyway, Ande is in much better shape than me right now.....and he is faster than me anyway.....so I'm going to need a miracle to win my 500 free challenge.....but I'm not throwing in the towel yet b/c I will never submit passively to defeat against an ex-Longhorn....I will go down fighting! Newmastersswimmer

Originally posted by LindsayNB I just wish that the word "effortless" could be removed from the TI vocabulary. I would have to agree with that. Swimming is all about resistance. Resistance is what provides your propulsion and it is also what slows you down. Working with and against resistance at the same time will never be effortless. TI may teach a method of swimming that requires less effort at slower speeds than other methods but effortless swimming is quite contrdictory.

We do have to realize that resistance is what makes us move forward, we grab the imaginary wall of water and apply pressure against the imaginary wall (resistance) and we move forward with very little effort..