I posted here when I was just beginning to swim at the ripe age of 23.
Since a lot of people helped me both publicly and through private messages, I think you deserve an update.
I'm a lot more comfortable in the water these days. I'm still trying to perfect my breathing, but it's much less of a struggle.
I realized that THINKING and SWIMMING don't go well together. Once I stopped over-analyzing everything and started just focusing on swimming, more things fell into place.
As a beginner adult swimmer, here are the things that really helped me:
-- Swim, don't think (see above)
-- The kicking you see in TI videos is not the way most people kick... and if it is, it's not a good thing to think about when you're trying to kick better
-- Looking DOWN is bad. Look forward slightly.
-- Backstroke in busy pools with poor turbulence absorption (lane ropes, gutters) is a BAD idea.
-- You are too full of hot air to sink to the bottom of the deep end... if you want to kill yourself by going down there, you'll have to try pretty damned hard.
-- Anything that is supposed to help you float is in fact the best way to drown yourself
-- Drinking lots of chlorinated water will make you sick to your stomach and you'll think you have an ulcer for a month until you take a break from swimming and feel fine
-- Jammers are tight
-- Diving is fun
-- Diving improperly hurts
Parents
Former Member
Anything that is supposed to help you float is in fact the best way to drown yourself posted by Alphatree
I for one am a big fan of paddles and pullbuoy. Having the poolbuoy keeps my back end afloat since my kick is very weak....I can feel a major difference with the pullbouy in the positive sense. I am glad that you are enjoying swimming so much and making improvements alphatree. I also don't try and over-think what I am doing when I am swimming b/c there are so many simultaneous things going on that it is hard to keep all of them in focus.....I do, however, think a lot about what I'm doing while swimming...especially during drills and such.....I try and focus on one thing at a time when doing drills ....and then when I am simply swimming sets and such I try and focus on the "feeling" aspect associated to proper technique...feeling smooth etc. Good luck with it all alphatree and keep us posted on your progress.
Newmastersswimmer
Anything that is supposed to help you float is in fact the best way to drown yourself posted by Alphatree
I for one am a big fan of paddles and pullbuoy. Having the poolbuoy keeps my back end afloat since my kick is very weak....I can feel a major difference with the pullbouy in the positive sense. I am glad that you are enjoying swimming so much and making improvements alphatree. I also don't try and over-think what I am doing when I am swimming b/c there are so many simultaneous things going on that it is hard to keep all of them in focus.....I do, however, think a lot about what I'm doing while swimming...especially during drills and such.....I try and focus on one thing at a time when doing drills ....and then when I am simply swimming sets and such I try and focus on the "feeling" aspect associated to proper technique...feeling smooth etc. Good luck with it all alphatree and keep us posted on your progress.
Newmastersswimmer
