Pmf User Guide

by Terry Laughlin

User Guide to theTotal Immersion Self-Coached Workshop

Perpetual Motion FreestyleIn 10 Lessons

Build a Better Stroke and a Better Brain!

Be your Own Best Coach

Learn at your Own Pacein your Own Pool

Copyright 2010 Total Immersion, Inc. All rights reserved. Do not copy without permission.

Self-Coached Workshop User’s Manual

The Self-Coached Workshop (SCW) is the most important TI learning tool to date. Many people think our most important innovation was teaching human swimmers to be fishlike. I believe teaching them to be empowered is equally valuable. The SCW is designed to help you acquire self-improvement savvy along with swimming skill; it doesn’t just teach you how to move; it teaches you how to think about and feel movement via these innovations in practice methods:

1. Swim Early and Often During the 1990s, attendees at TI’s Weekend Workshops swam 25 yards of whole stroke to record video and stroke count, then practiced six hours of drills before attempting another 25 of whole stroke. Our books and videos also recommended completing the entire drill sequence with relatively little whole-stroke. Because we were concerned that old habits could take over if students resumed swimming before new habits had taken hold, we hoped to create muscle amnesia – eradicating inefficient patterns and replacing them with efficient ones.

Over the past decade, we’ve steadily increased the amount of whole-stroke throughout the progression, but in ways designed to minimize the potential for practicing struggle. We do that in SCW by recommending brief ‘pieces’ (3 to 7 strokes) of whole stroke at regular intervals, starting with the first drill. This is to help you: (1) Remember the purpose of a particular drill; (2) Give each new focal point undivided attention; and (3) Integrate new mini-skills into the whole.

2. Break Mini-Skills Into Micro-Skills When a skill is new, the fewer ‘parts’ it has -- the fewer thoughts it requires -- the better. TI has always taught via a series of mini-skills, gradually assembled into a more complex skill. SCW breaks down mini-skills even further, presenting micro-skills called Rehearsals or Tuneups. In Rehearsals, you stand in place; in Tuneups you move a short distance.

• Rehearsals highlight an element that requires keen attention, prior to attempting a new drill or movement. By rehearsing first, you initiate a pattern-memory in your brain that is more likely to persist when you expand focus to two or more aspects at once. Static practice (not moving down the pool) also allows for deeper focus. Rehearse for 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat rehearsals as long as you feel they help.

• Tuneups are moving, but very brief, practice -- usually 10 yds or less. (You may sequence several reps to cross a pool.) Why short duration? (1) To minimize the need to breathe, when it’s best to treat breathing as a separate skill. (2) Like rehearsals, they’re designed to target one aspect of a more complex drill or whole stroke, not to imprint the whole movement.

E.G. Our first drill, Superman Glide, is a Tuneup – for which you Rehearse by standing with arms extended. SG is designed, in part, to let you focus intently on neutral head position via a series of related Focal Points including: (i) Relax neck and shoulder muscles; (ii) Feel your head is “weightless;” (iii) “Aim’ your Laser Beam. Each can be practiced in a set of repeats dedicated only to that thought or face – first in SG, then in Whole Stroke. SG makes focus easier because it’s a relatively simple skill.


Tuneups are most valuable: (1) when learning a new drill or skill; and (2) when your practice includes more drills than whole stroke. The more familiar you become with any skill, the less you need to Rehearse or Tuneup. Even so, don’t hurry to drop them from your practice.

3. Minimized Kicking Nearly every lesson includes this warning: “Don’t turn this into a kicking exercise.” SCW is the first TI self-coaching tool to make this an explicit improvement principle. TI drills have always relied to some extent on kicking-for-momentum because: (1) It takes time to tweak and imprint key positions. (2) You need momentum to gain that time and not sink. (3) When your movements are non-continuous you must kick to maintain momentum and body position.

This dependence on kicking had the potential to fatigue and frustrate new swimmers, many of whom had an inefficient kick. It also had the potential to create a kicking habit that could be difficult to unlearn.

Because an economical 2-Beat Kick (2BK) is the default choice for tireless distance swimming, we want the first steps in our progression to imprint relaxed, streamlined leg action. This will prepare you for later lessons designed to teach 2BK coordination. Thus many activities—such as Skate--previously taught via pool-length repeats are now presented as Tuneups. (This doesn’t mean never Skate for 25y/m. Rather, if you make that choice, your kick should be relaxed and your attention on the fine points of the drill, rather than getting to the end of the pool.)

Thus many steps suggest that you: (1) Use SG to establish the sense of weightlessness which permits relaxed streamlined legs; (2) After a few moments transition into Skating or another drill) seeking to maintain a sense of weightless, easy travel; and (3) STOP and restart when your kick becomes labored. Focus on streamlining, not kicking, to extend glide. Stay fresh. Imprint ease.

Three Learning Steps: Balance, Streamline, Propel

The central learning principle that separates TI from traditional swim instruction is that we always teach via a sequence of three skills – Balance, Streamline, Propel. No matter the stroke, no matter the student or her goal, we teach in that order. We do so for two reasons:

• This order reflects their impact on your efficiency: Balance will make the biggest difference by far. Streamlining will improve your swimming nearly as much. Propelling better is not unimportant, but will create change that’s relatively harder to notice.

• This order also reflects how easily you can learn the component skills. Balance skills involve large body parts and simple coordination; you can sense them more easily and master them more quickly. Streamlining skills start out fairly simple, then become a bit more challenging. Propelling skills involve fine motor skills and complex coordination. They require keen attention (and attention itself is a skill that takes time to learn) and great patience.

Balance means ‘in harmony with the water.’ It’s also the foundation without which skilled movement is impossible -- on land and in water. Balance provides both physical control and mental calm by replacing semi-panicky reflexes with the possibility to sort thoughtfully through choices that impact every skill step that follows. Among the four strokes, balance is most delicate in crawl, but once learned, allows you to swim almost any distance. If you tire while running, you can always walk. Balance gives swimmers a ‘walking option.’


Streamlining comes in two forms. In Passive Streamlining, the simpler of the two, you shape your body to be longer, sleeker, more hydrodynamic. In Active Streamlining, you stroke in ways that move your body forward, rather than moving the water around. Your greatest energy savings – and therefore increases in both endurance and speed — come from Streamlining.

Effective Propulsion in the TI Method means to direct ‘available’ forces, rather than generating muscular forces. Gravity and body mass are a ‘free’ source of power, which can minimize reliance on muscular force. You then convert Force (horsepower) into Locomotion by concentrating on holding water, rather than moving water back.

In every stroke, in every skill, in every question or decision that arises, if you address Balance first, then Streamlining, then Propulsion, you minimize the potential for frustration or confusion and maximize the potential for clarity and success. The SCW will teach you as much about using this framework to answer questions as it does about swimming movements.

The 10 lessons of SCW are organized into the Balance group, Lessons One to Three; the Streamlining group, Lessons Four to Seven; and the Propulsion group, Lessons Eight to Ten. We’ve organized it this way because each group requires distinct forms of thinking, practicing and adjusting. You’ll maximize success at each step -- and ultimately in how you swim the rest of your life -- if you develop the right movement and thinking habits in the steps that precede it.

Balance Lessons

The first three lessons are designed to encode key body positions and practice habits. These include:

• A set of motor skills that improve body control and strength of perception; • A set of cognitive skills that improve strength-of-focus and decision-making.

Improved self-perception and body control are both essential to mastering the movements. When teaching yourself, you replace a coach’s guidance with a ‘mental blueprint’ for each movement. Self-Perception allows you to compare each drill repeat with the blueprint or with another repeat, then make the right adjustments. Body Control allows you to move according to plan, rather than in response to discomfort. The cognitive skills help you plan a practice session, decide when to continue or interrupt a repeat, when to drill or swim, etc.

Most Balance drills are Tuneups and seemingly quite simple. Despite that simplicity, you’ll gain much by devoting at least a couple of hours to them. Any swimmer who has experienced discomfort, felt as if you were sinking, or found it difficult to relax the kick will benefit immensely from ‘too much’ Balance practice.

Streamlining Lessons

The middle four lessons teach Streamlining skills entirely specific to freestyle. The Streamlining sequences are SpearSwitch (Lessons Four and Five), SwingSwitch (Lesson Six) and OverSwitch (Lesson Seven).While the long-term value of Balance drills is mainly in tuneup and renewing comfort and sense-of-control, Streamlining drills can become a core element of practice sets for months, if not years. Practice repeats during this part of SCW


will be longer because (1) they include regular breathing; and (2) Active Streamlining skills have more ‘moving parts’ to coordinate, requiring more repetitions to hone awareness and movement.

Effective Propulsion Lessons

The final three lessons in the SCW call on smaller movements, subtler awareness and advanced coordination. The skills taught in this group take years, rather than weeks or months, to develop. Indeed it’s more accurate to say the skills taught in this part of the SCW will never be “finished.”

There’s no set time from for progressing to Propulsion skills or lessons. A fair rule of thumb would be to practice Streamlining for at least 10 to 20 hours first. Self-coached swimmers will have more success with Lessons Eight to Ten if the movements targeted by Lessons Four to Seven have become accurate and consistent. On the other hand, don’t be overly cautious about experimenting with them. An essential principle of practicing-to-improve is to identify a weak spot in your current skill set then focus on strengthening it. Attempting new or advanced skills is one way to do so.

LESSON SUMMARIES

This section of the User Guide explains the value of the skills taught in each lesson, and how each prepares you for those that follow, and for whole-stroke.

The Streamlining Group of Lessons

LESSON ONE: Relax Into “Weightlessness”

Have you ever seen a fish that wasn’t horizontal while swimming? Fish and aquatic mammals are naturally designed for aquatic (i.e. horizontal) balance. Humans, as terrestrial mammals, are naturally designed for land (i.e. vertical) balance. Most of us recognize that the cost of imbalance in the water is more drag and fatigue, less speed. But the true cost is actually far greater.

In fact, few swimmers even recognize it as a balance problem. It feels more like a sinking problem and is virtually universal among new swimmers. It leaves feelings ranging from discomfort to being at risk. Poor balance is the reason one’s first attempt to cross the pool can feel like a “near death experience.”

We’re not in real danger, but who can think clearly when you feel that way. Imbalance is a simple matter of buoyancy and gravity. Buoyancy pushes our air-carrying lungs up, while gravity pulls our dense lower body down. That has costs far beyond what most people realize.

1. A sagging lower body increases drag considerably.

2. Survival strokes exhaust you quickly and are utterly ineffective for propulsion.

3. But unrecognized costs in mental energy may be greatest of all.


Imbalance burns Mental Energy

Though the brain makes up just 2 percent of the body’s weight, it consumes 20 percent of its energy. While moving on land some 50 percent of the brain’s energy consumption goes to managing balance. But when the brain senses imbalance (and particularly when it thinks you’re sinking) over 90 percent of its energy is consumed with trying to fix that.

Until you fix ‘that sinking feeling,’ you have no chance of becoming comfortable or efficient. And forget about trying to ‘tough it out’ as I heard one triathlete say: To learn even the simplest skill, the brain must sense that the body is supported and stable. Swimming skills are complex and counter-intuitive. Learning them requires calm, even analytical, focus. And that takes balance.

Relax into Weightlessness

In terms of stroke mechanics, Lesson One exercises teach you to position head, arms and legs in ways you’ll maintain on every crawl stroke from now on. But—before you ever take a stroke--the greater priority is learning to relax into weightlessness. Like all terrestrial mammals, we’re wired by evolution to keep the head ’safely’ above the surface. This instinct aggravates our balance problem. On land, we find gravity comforting. In the water it feels like a threat to well-being. So we do everything possible to avoid sinking. To swim well, we need to bypass that instinct and replace it with a ‘learned response’ to cooperate with gravity—and sink into equilibrium. Difficult, but utterly necessary.

Lesson One Practice Tips

Feel relaxed and supported before proceeding to Lesson Two. One to two hours practice is a suggested minimum for Lesson One. New swimmers or those who feel uncomfortable in the water -- especially those who feels their legs are sinking and tend to over-kick -- will benefit significantly from open-ended Lesson One practice. Continue until you feel more comfort and body control and your kick is more calm

Lesson One exercises are simple enough that many swimmers will feel they perform them well after as little as 10 minutes. But they can be beneficial far beyond completing the lesson. I recommend starting starting each repetition of drills in Lessons Two through Seven with a few moments in Superman Glide – initially from a standing-push, later from a wall-push. (I.E. Instead of the usual underwater-streamline.)

This is because the weightless support and leg-calming you feel during these moments will wire relaxation and body control into your brain and allow you to perform those drills with more flow and ease. In fact, anytime you feel yourself becoming tense or working too hard, revisit SG and other Lesson One drills until you feel weightless and relaxed again.

Practice pinpoint concentration. The second key benefit of Lesson One drills is to sharpen your ability for undistracted-and-targeted focus. You should pay nearly as much attention to your ability to Keep a Single Thought in mind as you do to how your body performs the movements.

Lesson One is designed to suggest a logical sequence of specific focal points for each drill. After several hours of practice, you can alternatively ‘scan your body’ from front to back -- checking Hands - Arms - Head – Torso - Legs.


Practice one Focal Point until it registers in the cognitive (thinking) circuits in your brain, and is reflected consistently in the motor (action) circuits in your nervous system and muscles. How long this takes depends on how simple or complex the movement is.

For example, here’s a guide for progressing through Superman Glide Focal Points and integrating them into your stroke. In each instance tune in to a specific Focal Point during one or more SG repeats. Then maintain that thought and feeling while stroking – after setting the sensation during a few moments of SG at the start of each whole-stroke ‘piece.’

1. Focus on weightless, neutral head and Laser Beam during SG then maintain it while stroking. Tune out everything else!

• Note: After you absorb how it feels to release your head, visualize a laser beam while gliding and while swimming.

2. Hang relaxed hands on wide tracks during SG and maintain while stroking. • Note: Observe your hands during SG then check to see if they go to the

same place – and look equally relaxed – as you stroke. Consciously slow your hands’ extension.

3. Feel calm, streamlined legs during SG and maintain while stroking. • Note 1: To increase muscle-feel for streamlined legs, press them lightly

together during glide, then gently activate them as you begin stroking. • Note 2: Initiate stroking with a slight body roll—not with kicking.

Repeat each Focal Point 4x or more. Add a few strokes if you wish, but stop if you lose the sensation.

LESSON TWO: A More “Slippery” You

The easiest way to swim farther or faster is to reduce drag. The easiest way to reduce drag is to shape your terrestrial-mammal body more like an aquatic mammal. Shaping-for-sleekness is not instinctive, the way arm-and-leg-churning is. Fortunately the skills required are simple enough to be learned quickly. These include: (1) Align head with spine. You did that in Lesson One. (2) Shape each side of your body, from fingers-to-toes, as a “streamlinable unit.” (3) Rotate off your stomach (but not on your side.) When one shoulder clears the surface, the water travels a shorter distance to get out of your way.

A short lesson in hydrodynamics: Bodies that offer the least resistance when traveling through air or water have similar shapes—elongated and sleek. The advantage of this shape is that the tapered leading edge gradually separates air or water molecules, to minimize turbulence. A human swimmer’s body normally has nothing in common with, say, a dolphin and is almost perfectly designed to maximize drag and turbulence. However, by changing our concept of freestyle from upper-body-pulls and lower-body-kicks to streamlined-right-side and streamlined-left-side we can dramatically reduce turbulence and drag. Lesson Two teaches you to shape your vessel this way.


Lesson Two Practice: Create Foundations for a Lifetime

All recommendations from Lesson One remain true here. Skills and habits created by Lesson Two practice are critical building blocks for maximizing improvement on skills taught in Lessons Three to Ten. If you take the time to heighten kinesthetic awareness (Are you doing them just-right or not-quite?) and strengthen muscle memory, you’ll be far better prepared for more complex skills and longer reps. In fact, allowing sufficient time here to ‘store’ foundations (both physical positions and practice habits) in Long Term Memory will free up space in Working Memory for the new skills and Focal Points that follow.

Lesson Two exercises are still more Tuneups than Drills. Brief repeats help ensure your ability to (a) maintain keen focus for the entire repeat, and (b) continue the process of transforming Struggles into Skills. Both are equally important in progressing to longer repeats with ‘unbreakable’ form.

LESSON THREE: Rotation and Breathing Skills

Breathing is Job One for any new swimmer. If you can’t easily take a breath while stroking then even a single pool length will be an ordeal. Breathing—a ‘no-brainer’ on land—is an advanced skill in the water.

So why wait until Lesson Three to introduce breathing? Most human swimmers, fearful of choking on water. lift the head to breathe. This instantly makes body position feel much more precarious. The challenge of getting air without sinking can be so overwhelming as to make calm, clear thinking impossible. This is a Balance issue, which is why we include basic breathing skills in the Balance group of lessons.

The Self-Coached Workshop asks you to focus on only one challenge at a time. As long as you’re comfortable putting your face in the water, learning ‘weightlessness’ in Lesson One will come more easily than learning to breathe-in-balance. (If you’re not comfortable immersing your face, start with our self-help breathing skills DVD O2 in H2O.) Thus Lessons One and Two consist of exercises that don’t require breathing skill. But they help you build a ‘balance foundation’ that prepares you for the breathing exercises here.

Feeling balanced minimizes the brain’s energy requirements. You’ll need all your brainpower to learn breathing skills because—like every skill we’ve learned so far—they’re not instinctive. Breathing in crawl is the most exacting skill in all of swimming, with countless opportunities for error or inefficiency. Lesson Three includes many Tuneups to highlight and imprint key breathing skills including:

• Use spinal stabilizers to maintain a low-drag, aligned position during rotation; • Extend the lead arm (and lengthen your vessel) as you rotate to air; • Rotate to air with a weight shift not head turn.

Lesson Three also introduces Interrupted Breathing, a simplified way to breathe, which allows novice swimmers to maintain comfort and body control while acquiring basic breathing skills.


The Streamlining Group of Lessons

LESSON FOUR: SpearSwitch – Learn to Swim with your Body

The greatest value of Lesson Four is as much in changing how you think about swimming, as in how you move through the water. As terrestrial mammals, humans have a powerful instinct to swim by churning all four limbs and a body designed to maximize drag and turbulence. Aquatic mammals have an instinct to slip through the water with a minimum of drag, and bodies designed for active streamlining.

Because streamlining doesn’t come naturally to humans it can only happen as a result of conscious choice. The SpearSwitch drill sequence helps you convert an inborn instinct to pull and kick into a learned instinct to pierce the water by: (1) Using your extending arm to spear a human-sized sleeve through the water in front of you; then (2) Using weight shifts to propel a streamlined torso and legs through that hole.

Lesson 4 includes a series of small steps taking you gradually to rhythmic and continuous SpearSwitches. The number of steps, and how finely they’re broken down, is designed to minimize the possibility that small errors may accumulate as you move from one step to the next. Some of these steps (because they’re Tuneups) may require only 5 minutes or less, so the time investment is modest, but the potential benefits are great.

LESSON FIVE: Rhythmic Movement and Breathing

Among thousands of adult students, a common challenge has been the transition from drills to whole-stroke. Drills are unsurpassed at rewiring the brain from struggle to skill. That’s partially due to ‘interruptions’ that allow extra time to visualize, assess, and adjust. But hours of interrupted switches and breathing can make it difficult to resume continuous movement and breathing in whole-stroke. The Self-Coached Workshop helps avoid that by including whole-stroke throughout. Still, Lesson Five is devoted to (1) Showing how position and timing change as you move from Interrupted to Continuous movements; and (2) Helping you smoothly transition to Continuous movement via a series of simple steps to preserve key habits.

As well, Lesson Five illustrates a progression from elementary to advanced versions of the same drills. A key strategy for adult brain-building is to tackle a more complex skill once you’ve learned a simpler one. Interrupted switches and breathing are intentionally simple so you can learn them more easily. The Continuous versions of the same drills are more complex. This (1) mimics whole-stroke; and (2) gives your neural networks a stimulus to add new circuits.

Similar to Lesson Four, Lesson Five includes a series of many small steps on which only one element changes in each step. Again, you may only need to practice a particular step for a few minutes, but taking those few extra moments to understand and integrate the slight change can make all the difference in the quality of your outcome.


LESSON SIX: Propel Effortlessly with Weight Shifts

In his 1985 book about Olympic rowing, The Amateurs, David Halberstam describes the magical feeling rowers experience when perfect synchronization among eight individuals makes rowing seem almost effortless: “When oarsmen talked about their perfect moments in a boat, they referred not so much to winning a race but to the feel of the boat when it seemed to lift right out of the water. Oarsmen called that swing.”

Lesson Six teaches a drill series we call SwingSwitch. When you get it right, the effortless propulsive power it provides seems almost magical, like ‘swing’ in rowing. Swing also describes the most effective way to bring the arm forward. Most swimmers instinctively lift the arm, but the optimal movement is a compact, relaxed swing. While the result is effortless, it takes considerable effort and focus to learn it, since the arm position and action are counter-intuitive.

After five lessons that focused on reducing drag and turbulence, we expand our focus Effortless Propulsion here, learning to tap “free power” rather than costly muscular exertions. The greatest store of free human-power is the weight shift which powers dynamic actions like hitting, throwing, jumping, and kicking. In these the limbs are the ‘delivery vehicle.’ The torso is the ‘engine.’

We’ve already experienced weight-shift in Lessons Four and Five, using hip drive to propel the spearing arm to its ‘target.’ Here, we redirect the spearing arm to concentrate that power even more. Lesson Six is designed to shape your stroke in three ways:

1. Make your recovery more compact and relaxed. This saves energy by turning off muscles. It saves time by sending the hand via a more direct route from exit to entry.

2. Improve stability by controlling rotation (with spinal stabilizers) and making arm actions symmetrical.

3. Deliver more energy from weight shift to the stroke by aligning the angle at which your arm enters the water with the downward movement of that hip.

As in previous lessons, you learn the Swing via multiple small steps, each introducing only one ‘mini-skill.’ But here we’re targeting smaller muscles and subtler skills. This increases the margin for error and decreases the range of effective action. A few extra minutes on each mini-skill will save a lot of energy over time.


LESSON SEVEN: Channel Energy Forward

The relaxed compact recovery introduced in SwingSwitch imprints an entry angle that more directly transfers the energy from your weight shift. In Lesson 7, the OverSwitch series, you’ll remove your hand from the water. How you lift and carry your hand forward will strongly impact how well you move your body forward in two ways:

1) A human body in water is highly unstable. Even a small amount of misdirected energy—from the mass of your arm, swinging through the air--can divert it off-course. Excessive lateral movement—swinging your arm sideways then toward the centerline--can move the body laterally. Excessive vertical movement will sink other body parts. Either will divert energy from propulsion to correcting course or position. The optimal recovery helps channel energy forward.

2) Recovery and entry also prepare you for effective propulsion by putting your hand in the most advantageous position to begin the next stroke. From the first moment you apply pressure to the water, you want your palm facing back. If you have fingers down and palm back throughout recovery, you literally won’t need to ‘move a muscle’ to position your hand to move you forward from the first moment of pressure on the water.

The skills this requires are subtle (requiring precise adjustments in small muscles) and counter-intuitive. Learning them requires a sharper focus than any preceding skill. Thus we teaching these exacting movements with a series of paired Rehearsal+Tuneup, each of which address one narrow aspect of recovery.

Your initial experiments with these Tuneups should be very short -– often 6 strokes or less. This allows for keener focus and greater precision, less affected by either physical or mental fatigue. You might experience physical fatigue because you’ll be using muscles that are both untrained and relatively small/weak. The mental demand comes from creating new neural circuits. With more practice, you should sense an increasingly distinct difference between one Focal Point and another -- though an observer might be unable to discern the difference.

The goals of Lesson 7 include:

• Move your elbow in a circle as it exits the water. (Cyclists might think of it moving like the crank on a bicycle.) This converts the previous stroke’s rearward momentum into forward momentum.

• Carry the elbow forward in a straight line outside your bodyline. This improves stability and minimizes the need for ‘steadying’ actions by hands or feet.

• Hand follows a ‘laserline’ from Exit to Entry by (i) barely clearing the surface, and (ii) following a straight line on Wide Tracks. This saves time in the non-propulsive part of the stroke, allowing an increase in Stroke Rate while maintaining Stroke Length.

• Enter hand-forearm-elbow in that order – without a splash. Your hand will then be immediately ready for the next stroke, and have ‘quiet’ water to hold.


The Effective Propulsion Group of Lessons

LESSON EIGHT: Integrate Stroke-Building Skills with Random Practice

Improvement-minded swimmers should understand the importance of two kinds of practice – Block and Random. In Block practice, you repeat one activity, with tightly targeted objectives or Focal Points, for an extended period. E.G. Focus only on spearing hands-to-targets (using SpearSwitches and/or Whole Stroke) for a block of 10 or more minutes. Then focus only on spearing hands-to-targets via a steeper angle (using SwingSwitches and/or Whole Stroke) for another block of 10 minutes. This is most effective when the mini-skill – and the motor circuits that convert thought into action – are new. This places heavy demands on working memory.

When accuracy and consistency improve, your goal is to shift that mini-skill to long-term memory -- freeing space in working memory for new tasks. (This involves an actual physical shift in processing activity from cortex to cerebellum in your brain.) Random practice is particularly effective in accelerating that transfer. In Random practice you sequence two or more mini-skills in briefer ‘practice pieces.’

Lesson 8, rather than introduce new skills, strengthens those you learned in the Stroke-Building lessons by (1) integrating skills of drag avoidance with those of propulsion so you perform them with greater coordination and fluency; and (2) helping you execute them in a more ‘automatic’ way. You accomplish both by practicing two or more activities in unbroken sequence.

Previous lessons were organized so that your focus was directed to a pinpoint aspect of the stroke. There were typically several steps (2.1 2.2, 2.3, etc), with each step contributing a distinct mini-skill. Subsequent lessons built upon the focus of previous lessons – as illustrated by the focus-sequence described below:

• Steps 2.3 and 2.4: Visualize a target and spear your hand to it. • Steps 4.3 and 4.4: Hold your place with one hand. Move past the anchored hand by

spearing the other hand to its memorized target. • Steps 6.3 and 6.4: Move past the anchored hand with effortless power – by linking

to energy generated by the weight shift. • Steps 7.3 and 7.4: Move your body forward on weight shift – by entering your hand

positioned to hold water on the next stroke.

Each step and focus represents a distinct circuit of cognitive and motor neurons. As you add new thoughts and movements, they link to earlier ones, but it takes thousands of reps to closely bind those circuits. One way is to sequence cycles of different drills, followed by whole stroke, in a single pool length. The element that gives them unity is employing the same Continuous rhythm for the entire length, as you change activities.


LESSON NINE: Single Arm Practice

Single Arm (SA) practice expands on existing skills by presenting them in more challenging ways. Therefore we usually teach SA only to advanced/experienced TI students. SA practice requires a level of body control and kinesthetic awareness that often comes only after dozens of hours of Balance and Streamlining practice. Once you’ve achieved control and consistency in those drills, SA drills are superb for continuous improvement. Their primary benefits include:

Active Streamlining: SA drills are performed with your head leading, most of the time without a stability-aiding arm alongside. During recovery and rotation-to-breath, you rely entirely on spinal stabilizers to keep your body extended and streamlined. This should leave you with a more stable and streamlined ‘vessel’ when you resume using both arms -- in drilling or swimming.

Connect to Core: The initial focus in SA drills is using weight shift/hip drive for both extending and stroking your arms: Drive the same hip to extend your arm. Drive the opposite hip to travel past your anchor. (Note: You always drive the ‘high-side’ hip – the one at the surface.) By isolating one arm, SA drills help you make better use of weight shift.

Hold Your Place: In SpearSwitch you learn to use the lead hand/arm to ‘hold your place’ rather than push back. To hold water, your hand and forearm must face back and your elbow must be rotated up and out. This is an exacting and counter-intuitive action. Isolating one arm allows you to focus on creating the Soft Hook arm-shape to a greater extent than any other drill. When you’re satisfied with its shape and position, just hold it there while driving the opposite hip.

LESSON TEN: Tune Your 2-Beat Kick (2BK) In Perpetual Motion Free (and for virtually all adults who swim distance) 2BK should be the preferred option. Compared to faster kicks, it maximizes propulsion while minimizing effort. Many swimmers do a form of 2BK, but few do it effectively. Many former strugglers have “busy legs” syndrome. And some who’ve practiced earlier versions of TI drills, where kicking was more emphasized (to maintain momentum between drill cycles), have found it difficult to calm and integrate their kicks. The exercises in Lesson 10 accomplish the following in this order: (1) Calm and streamline the legs; (2) Allow the legs to respond naturally to weight shifts; and (3) Add a compact, well-tuned ‘toe-flick’ to propulsion.

Lesson Ten exercises all begin as Tuneups. Practice initially for only a few strokes without breathing. Then extend practice, starting each rep with several non-breathing strokes to create the imprint, then try to maintain the action as you begin breathing. The principle of adding one successful cycle at a time applies here as it has elsewhere.

Documents

Pmf User Guide