Swimming

I could only do the dog crawl till I learned it the right way in our apartment pool which was just 4ft deep. Along with Terry Laughlin's classic book on Total Immersion(TI) Swimming, I made good progress on my swimming technique especially backstroke which I learned from the book literally! I went easy on swimming mostly when I started running seriously, which I guess was a mistake because swimming gives a great massage for your legs that takes a lot of pounding during running.

With the summer heat on, I had been thinking of getting into the pool for a while, but I had some starting trouble. But spending some time reading the TI book was enough to get going. More than learning the swimming techniques in the book, Terry Laughlin inspires you to learn swimming the right way. It is not one of those technique books - in fact it can be quite boring if you are just looking for quick fixes. The overall philosophy is to learn swimming the right way than fighting the water. He looks at swimming holistically and focuses on the important aspects.

This time I am trying to improve my freestyle strokes which can get me barely to the other end on a 25 yards pool. Getting to breath well is still a problem for me. So I am going to do some TI drills that can help me improve the freestyle skills. Hopefully that should get me swim better which is primary motive of Total Immersion techniques and take me longer than 25 yards comfortably. Rest of the styles(breast and butterfly) can wait till I get this right.