Today's class: Finding left and right edges, finding air, adding momentum and mindful timing

The big picture: breathing in through mouth and out through nose, relaxing, floating, and moving with organic/core motion of the torso/hips/shoulders.

Class begins with some face-down flotation and the organic movement of "crawling" in the water; then "skate" position on left and right edges; then one skate immediately into a roll-onto-back. Student shows excellent relaxation in the water, keeping head - and hair - dipping deeply into the water. She's so excited, she says "wow!" from her relaxed float. Relaxation in water is an essential element of mastering flotation.

Student also practices extending the length of her glide during skate by adding a gentle flutter kick. This gives her time to check her relaxed neck and head alignment. We do only a little bit of flutter kicking during exercises and try to let it go quickly. The final goal is simply to have a 2-beat "organic" kick: legs which react to the rotation of hips/core body movement with only a flick of ankle to aid in rotation during switches.

Then student combined 1 skate and 1 skate-to-back; slowly lifting the free hand above the body to re-enter the water, rolling and reaching into face-down position again. This is a challenge! It's a useful skill to have but it will not be an element of her final uninterrupted stroke.

Finally, a few elegant, slow and mindful underwater switches. Student shows mindful control of the timing of the "switch."

Breathing on the left side

My mom has a favorite side to breathe on. Today, turning her head to catch breath on the left resulted in a pain in her neck. She could feel that she was using her neck to lift her top-of-head out of the water - too high and too tense. It hurt.

In preparation for a more balanced stroke, breathing left and right, she demonstrates two useful exercises that train the nervous system for relaxation in the neck and shoulder.

(1) Mom is gliding on her side edge and simply rotating her face to the "face down position" and up to the "breathing position." I see a nice horizontal alignment and her head and neck very relaxed in the water.

(2) Mom is performing "underwater switches." By avoiding her usual tense arm stroke recovery (out of the water) perhaps she can train her shoulder to relax.

My goal for her eventually would be to incorporate a very relaxed shoulder with the above-water stroke recovery. Perhaps "a little pain" can be a healthy motivator to find a better, more relaxed arm stroke and head rotation.