Have you all had a day when you suddenly had a substantial breakthrough in learning to swim better? A day on which your swimming suddenly "clicked", so instead of trying hard to correct this or that detail of swimming better as you had been doing each day (how to kick, pull, breath, etc.), all of a sudden, you swam with all those details corrected, without effort, and without much thought about it. Months (and perhaps years) of thinking, practice, seem to be paying off altogether on that one day. I made some nice progress yesterday and today and feel great. My swim just suddenly became so much more relaxed and I was much more buoyant without effort. and breathing, which I had tried to improve, poses little problem now--and I wasn't even thinking about it. :D
I hope the progress will stay with me and I won't forget how to swim the way I did. :cool: I'm still a beginner. I will be really interested to hear you story. :)
Parents
Former Member
Yes. I recall as clearly as if it was yesterday. I can remember the warmth of the water, its clarity, the brilliant sun, cloudless skies and the session.
I only learned how to float (tread water) in deep water when I was 17. That's 49 years ago.
I learned "How to swim the Australian Crawl" from a book by Johnny Weissmuller (except I didn't learn how to breathe and, what's worse, I didn't know that I didn't know.)
A year later we moved and I joined the Guezira club in Cairo (with which Geochuck is familiar) and joined the swimming team (Champions of Egypt several years in a row.)
I could do the 50 LCM free in 30" but was unable to even complete a 100m.
The coach was not one of those who corrected styles or zeroed in on efficiency (DPS or SPL). He was strictly a hard yardage man.
He never noticed that I didn't breathe correctly.
One day he paired me in a lane with the slowest swimmer and told me to stay with him and swim at his speed.
That teammate was so much slower that I was kind of bobbing up and down, not even pulling with my arms, letting the weight of my arms move my hand to somewhere below, in order to stay even with him (we had a 50m lane for the two of us, swimming up-and-down). All of a sudden, I blew air out with my face submerged, turned to breathe and the sweet air rushed in all by itself and I discovered that I had been holding my exhales until I turned to breathe and would exhale and then inhale. I had discovered, by accident, how to breathe.
That day, I could have gone on forever.
From that day on I swam (raced) the LCM 50, 100, 200, 400 and 1500 (and on two packs of cigarettes a day).
My best ever 50 LCM free was 27.2 and that was 46 years ago after which I turned into an older guy (resuming swimming only in 2002 as I quit smoking).
Unfortunately I had already reached a stage where I knew how I should breathe but where I had lost the control and ability to inhale fully whenever I want to (even on dry land) and I don't think I will re-experience that epiphany again.
:cane:
Yes. I recall as clearly as if it was yesterday. I can remember the warmth of the water, its clarity, the brilliant sun, cloudless skies and the session.
I only learned how to float (tread water) in deep water when I was 17. That's 49 years ago.
I learned "How to swim the Australian Crawl" from a book by Johnny Weissmuller (except I didn't learn how to breathe and, what's worse, I didn't know that I didn't know.)
A year later we moved and I joined the Guezira club in Cairo (with which Geochuck is familiar) and joined the swimming team (Champions of Egypt several years in a row.)
I could do the 50 LCM free in 30" but was unable to even complete a 100m.
The coach was not one of those who corrected styles or zeroed in on efficiency (DPS or SPL). He was strictly a hard yardage man.
He never noticed that I didn't breathe correctly.
One day he paired me in a lane with the slowest swimmer and told me to stay with him and swim at his speed.
That teammate was so much slower that I was kind of bobbing up and down, not even pulling with my arms, letting the weight of my arms move my hand to somewhere below, in order to stay even with him (we had a 50m lane for the two of us, swimming up-and-down). All of a sudden, I blew air out with my face submerged, turned to breathe and the sweet air rushed in all by itself and I discovered that I had been holding my exhales until I turned to breathe and would exhale and then inhale. I had discovered, by accident, how to breathe.
That day, I could have gone on forever.
From that day on I swam (raced) the LCM 50, 100, 200, 400 and 1500 (and on two packs of cigarettes a day).
My best ever 50 LCM free was 27.2 and that was 46 years ago after which I turned into an older guy (resuming swimming only in 2002 as I quit smoking).
Unfortunately I had already reached a stage where I knew how I should breathe but where I had lost the control and ability to inhale fully whenever I want to (even on dry land) and I don't think I will re-experience that epiphany again.
:cane:
