At first I thought I liked the backstroke, but now I'm all confused about the stroke.
I started doing the stroke "not thinking about it", but now that I'm _trying_ do it right, I can't do it anymore. =)
The recovery phase is fine -- obviously, it's relatively easy. My hand is in front of me and I'm not doing anything too crazy with it.
It's the push/pull. I find it awkward to do much of anything behind my back, perhaps because of low flexibility.
During recovery, my arm stays in the vertical plane, close to my head. But once it enters the water, it tends to veer out of that plane and to the side because I can't put my arm behind my back with my palms facing my feet very easily.
Since my stroke goes out to the side a bit, it steers me off course and destabilizes me.
While writing this, I'm practicing my stroke in the air, and I just noticed that rolling into the stroke makes a HUGE difference for me.
My instructor didn't tell me to do that... I'm beginning to wonder how good she is... she's a good swimmer... effortless in the water... but she doesn't verbalize very much.
Ahh, rolling, maybe I answered my own question. My shoulders REALLY hurt when I don't roll, but when I do, it feels great. That definitely helps.
Okay, I have one more: I don't wear goggles when I swim and I find that even when I minimize the splash, I still get water in my eyes during backstroke. Should I just swim with my eyes closed, will I get used to it, or what?
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Former Member
No, I am saying to be truly centered it would be that way. You would not be efficient if you did this.
Get in and relax and try not to be too technical until you start get the feel of the water.
An old coach of mine told me swim and everything will fall into place. Perfection does not come overnight.
Fair enough, but I also don't want to train a whole bunch of wrong things into muscle memory. I figure I should start out practicing as close to perfect as possible so that I land somewhere near average. =)
And I really _AM_ experiencing this turning force _in real water_ when I try backstroke, so I really did need help =)
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Former Member
No, I am saying to be truly centered it would be that way. You would not be efficient if you did this.
Get in and relax and try not to be too technical until you start get the feel of the water.
An old coach of mine told me swim and everything will fall into place. Perfection does not come overnight.
Fair enough, but I also don't want to train a whole bunch of wrong things into muscle memory. I figure I should start out practicing as close to perfect as possible so that I land somewhere near average. =)
And I really _AM_ experiencing this turning force _in real water_ when I try backstroke, so I really did need help =)
