I recently responded to a thread and was attacked for not presenting emperical evidence as to why a part of a stroke works. It must be documented in order to write it. For years I was stuck in the “lift” dogma because Doc Counsilman said it was the correct way to swim and I believed him. Ernie Maglischo wrote three books espousing the same dogma backed up by charts and diagrams demonstrating that it was the correct way to swim. I felt that I did not have a good feel for the water because it never felt right but I swam that way because I was supposed to. The books all said it was the way to go. There were some coaches and swimmers who never bought into the “lift” theory. I was fortunate enough to meet some of them and rethink how I swam because I could never get just the right angle of inclination on my hand entry and my hand sweep down and out then in and up and out again left me feeling very ill at ease in the water and I realy wanted to be a “good” swimmer.
My older brother was always a champion swimmer. He was fast from day one. He was physically gifted being six feet tall at age thriteen with huge feet. He could never tell me how he swam. It just felt right and it was incredibly fast. In 1958, at age 16 he swam 26.9 sec for 50 yards backstroke leading off a medly relay and was in first place in the East Coast High School Swimming Championships.
Now I read about new thoughts on swimming and go into laboratory (the pool) and experiment. I put in several hours on an aspect of the stroke. What do I feel? Is it any faster or easier to move through the water. I have evolved a way of swimming which works for me. My emperical evidence is the stop watch. Are my times getting faster or at my age, can I hit the same time as last year. I now love the feel of the water. I have the shoulder, ankle and hip flexibility to make it work. I recently went back into the gym to make my engine stronger.
When I give a lesson to one person or a group, the first I check for is what you bring to the game. How flexible are you? Can your point your toes? Are you able to raise your arms overhead, grab your hands and have your upper arms touch your ears. I look for lateral motion when you swim. Do your hips go side to side? Do your legs come apart or cross over. Are your arms crossing inside your shoulders? Do you breathe to early or late? Do you look back when you breathe? Is your head too high or low in the water?
Once I know how you swim I ask you “what do you notice about your stroke?” “What do you see and feel?” Changes occur through observation and awareness. I need to see your stroke through your eyes. Once I have this information WE can go about creating a faster swimmer. I will make an observation and offer a suggestion. I then ask, “what did you notice and feel?” Each person is an experiment of one. What a world class swimmer does is a piece of information to be played with to see if it is of value in your particular stroke.
World class swimmers are always evolving new technique based on feel and experimentation. Scientists then measure what they have done and write papers explaining the new phenomenon. Sometimes they measure the right thing and sometimes they cannot figure out why this world champion is doing what he/she is doing something.
The world record holder in the 100 meter freestyle swims using one arm front quadrant swimming and the other arm kayak style. Why? It works for him.
DougStern