Elliot: Before and after his first Total Immersion Swimming lesson

Kent: Switching from traditional freestyle to Total Immersion Easy Freestyle in one lesson!

Kent came to his first class with a high level of skill; he had been a successful competitive freestyle swimmer in high school.  His transformation suggests what can be done in a 1-1/2 hour lesson with willingness to slow down his stroke, a patient calm, and focused attention to details.

Progress Report: Beverly 9/15/14. Total Immersion Swimming

With grace, attention to details, patience and ease: Beverly swims beautifully by the end of lesson 4. She is ready to swim laps, count her strokes, and continue to refine her technique and perceptions through practice. Bev has a list of focal points to help her remain mindful during future practices.

Found on YouTube: Slow motion 2-beat kick

My experience is that the 2-beat kick must be learned in stages. First, the "2 wide legs" stage; then a more compact position of "feet close together -then- feet opening"; last, finding separate sensation in the R or L leg, allowing just one leg to flick, and then the other.

This is a great video of a well executed Total Immersion Swimming 2-beat kick:

Progress report: Beverly 9/7/14

Beverly came to the pool on Day 1 with a nicely coordinated side stroke and good flotation on her back. She practiced superman float, superman glide, "tic toc" hip rotation, slot-to-skate, and elbow circles for recovery arm. Here is her crawl at the start of lesson #2 with a bit more relaxed arms and head:

Lesson 2 began with a skate-with-flutter drill in 3 steps: (1) motion of the head to air and to downward alignment; (2) slow motion of the recovery arm, dragging fingertips and forming a geometric entry; (3) slot-to-switch (bringing her to the other "edge"). Since her first switch was so powerful that it flipped her onto her back, we moved right into practicing the "sweet spot" (on 3/4 back) breathing position. Here is a sample of that skating practice:

From there, after another practice of superman and tic-toc hip rotation, she repeated yesterday's practice of slot-to-skate and elbow circles for recovery arm. She did repetitions of "relaxing her forearm" by dragging it in the water. The next video is Bev's best swim at the end of class:

I see a well organized core body with a rhythmic forward thrust of propulsion created by her relaxed recovery arm and stable "underwater reaching" arm. I feel fairly certain that she is not thinking about her legs... but you can see the clear "plunk" splash of one foot that demonstrates oppositional (contralateral) core body engagement.

Future goals for Bev: wide tracks, timing of switch-to-pocket, and a bit further deconstruction of her 2-beat kick until it is effective (primarily for hip rotation) and streamlined.