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
I swam once a week with my HS team in 10th and 11th grade. Joined an AAU club as a HS senior which mainly served to alert me how slow and clueless I was.
You swam in high school and college. In fact, I believe you've written that you "majored" in swimming. So you have much more substantial youth experience than many masters swimmers. Most people who swim in college are not considered "slow" either. With your two new LD records, you're definitely an elite master.
The point is it's hard to learn swimming. I've had trouble re-learning it as masters after a 24 year break. I had to re-learn basic stuff like flip turns and how to swim fly. I think I'll be perpetually learning. Probably Alphathree will be too.
I swam once a week with my HS team in 10th and 11th grade. Joined an AAU club as a HS senior which mainly served to alert me how slow and clueless I was.
You swam in high school and college. In fact, I believe you've written that you "majored" in swimming. So you have much more substantial youth experience than many masters swimmers. Most people who swim in college are not considered "slow" either. With your two new LD records, you're definitely an elite master.
The point is it's hard to learn swimming. I've had trouble re-learning it as masters after a 24 year break. I had to re-learn basic stuff like flip turns and how to swim fly. I think I'll be perpetually learning. Probably Alphathree will be too.
