Fred is out of town this weekend...so here are the instructions. I did not want to misplace this and I thought it might be of interest or helpful others. b
Good job Fishy FIshy!
Let's recapitulate:
For objective 1 and 2, you don't need to breathe, just do 4 or 5 strokes. Stand up and repeat.
Each time you stand up, identify what was feeling good and reproduce it. Identify also what can be improved, if anything, and do what's necessary to improve it. Don't think too long between reps. Just take 3 to 4 breaths to help you concentrate again, jump and repeat.
When you feel, it was all good, repeat it again a couple of times to ingrain it into your muscles and nerves memory.
Final note: Avoid struggling. If you feel that you start struggling,stop and repea tin a gentler manner.
Objective 1 (see previous email)
Objective 2: Digging downwards
Focus:
1. For the hands, your target is well below the surface (you already master that one)
Objective 3: Streamlined body
Focuses
1a. Head: Focus on a relaxed neck. That is let the head sink or (we could say, let it float, because it cannot sink; sink or float, same same). But make sure you don't push it down nor lift it up.
1b. Head: Focus on a stable head. Keep your gaze to the bottom of the pool. You can also focus on keeping your nose pointing to the bottom of the pool; nose or gaze, same same, not different.
2. Chest: Focus on swimming into a hole. How? After your hand entered the water in the smallest possible hole, your arm should follow your hand in that hole, then your chest and finally your legs.
At this point, you can reinforce Objective 1 which also works on streamlining.
Objective 4: Seamless breathing
This comes to supplement the paper that I already gave you.
Drills
1. Half sheeshkebab
Starting position: Jump into Superwoman Glide, pull one hand and turn your whole body facing the side of the pool. Now, your on your side, the upper arm is along side your body and the lower arm is extending slightly downwards with palm facing down, and you start to flutter. Your neck is relaxed. It feels very comfortable and weightless.
Movement: Turn like a sheeshkebab, in order to let the mouth coming to air effortlessly.
Use one, two or all of the following: feet, hips and shoulders, with the top of your head effortlessly poitning to the end of the pool.
Note: you can slightly turn the head at the end of the turn, but never feel tension in your neck.
2. Interrupted breathing movement (full sheeshkebab)
Phase a. Starting position. Take a couple of stroke. Finish in Skating position.
Movement. To help the sheeshkebab turn, use shoulderblade and opposite hip turn.
Extend the leading arm even further than on non-breathing strokes, from the shoulderblade down to the wrist. (Initiating the extension from your shoulderblade is the safest place, but you could also feel it around your armpit. However the armpit is a much more delicate area, so if possible I recommend to focus on doing the extension from the shoulderblade down to the wrist, not the fingers which are always pointing downwards).
So, as you extend the arm from your shouldblade further, also help to reach further from the upper hip, by allowing it to passively turn.
First get used to turn like that, extending the arm and turning the hip (and shoulders) up.
Note 1: always make sure to take enough air and comfortably turn back the head and mouth in water.
Note 2: keep your reaching arm close to your ear when you are on your back in order to ensure streamlining.
Phase b. If you manage phase a, phase b will be a piece of cake.
Until now, you haven't really used the legs to make the turn, because you had to stop in Skating and then turn from arm extension and a passive hip turn.
Now, you will use a gentle toe flick to synchronize the hip turn and arm extension into the sheeshkebab turn.
Vital note: it cannot be a strong kick; you must do a compact and gentle toe flick. You don't want to create turbulence and capsize, but to make a nice sheeshkebab turn through the water. Again Objective 1 will thus be reinforced.
Starting position. Jump into Superwoman, come to the skating position.
Movement: From Skating, take one stroke, and one stroke only. On that stroke, focus on synchronzing the extension of the leading arm with the toe flick. That means, just before your leading arm comes to full extension,when it is just a little bent, do the toe flick and reach full extension. As you do that, let the hip passively turn and the whole body roll as a sheeshkebab. Keep the leading arm extended alongside your ear.
Take air until you feel comfortable to roll back down.
Final note: rolling to air is easy, once you can do it. And you will do it in a streamlined way. I could see last week that your head position is as it should be. Now your problem was your leading arm which tends to go to the side instead of pointing forward. I may have forgotten to mention that once you have turned on your back, that reaching hand cannot really dig downward anymore. You can try right now: raise your arm along side your ear and stretch it backward, it is a strong and very uncomfortable stretch. So, if it is an uncomfortable position on land, it won't work in the water. So, don't focus on keeping your hand downwards when you roll on your back, just focus on changing track, and keep the arm alongside the ear.
Oh my! We are not in the uninterrupted breathing motion yet, but you have already made gigantic improvements, and I hope this will help you with your week practice.
At the end of the day, you and I know that this all bunch of instructions can be reduced to balance, streamline, and perpetual motion, an the objective being to harmonize all body parts into one effortless motion in order to feel like a fish in water. And that's what you are going to do.
blub blub Fishy Fishy
Turtle Fred
No comments:
Post a Comment