Swimming Effectively - learning from the book/DVD

As things stand, I can swim 20 meters(I was under the impression it was a 25m pool till recently) freestyle with a bit of effort and 60m backstroke effortlessly. I have been at work trying to improve my freestyle this season and it sure has improved - I am reaching the other end with less panic and I can breath bilaterally(though not so smooth) and I think I am reaching there faster with less strokes as well(haven't measured this because there are other urgent things to take care now). The biggest bottleneck has been breathing - while I could hang on for more time with breathing on my stronger side every other stroke that was screwing up the form badly forcing me to stroke more.

So I went to work to improve the breathing bit first - till I started doing an exhalation drill I found at Swimsmooth.com, the progress was indeed slow. You also need to be relaxed in the water, but unless you are breathing out smoothly, you can't relax well. So this was a good workout that focused on the problem specifically. At the same time I was doing the Total Immersion catchup drills breathing on alternate sides and started introducing into my swimming. The breath on the right side is still not very smooth, which needs some work definitely. But overall good progress since the last couple of months.

So I decided to invest in a DVD, Terry Laughlin, who to me is the master teacher, which I hope can take me to the next step. I was also considering joining Nisha Millet's advanced swimming class. But that would mean a bit of commute and I am not too sure of Nisha's swimming philosophy except that she was one of the best swimmers India has ever produced. At the moment, I am brainwashed by Terry Laughlin and his Total Immersion techniques. It is not blind faith though - I learned backstroke from the Total Immersion book without anyone's help. So there is no question about whether it will work or not. I hope a video will show me more finer points than a book.

So here I go - the next target is to get to 40meter freestyle effortlessly using the DVD as a self help and let me see how it goes!