Lesson Six: Making the Transition to Swimming

Your swimming movements are all in place now. All that remains is to take out the Sweet Spot pauses and replace them with rhythmic breathing. Your goal here is to make breathing a seamless part of your body-rolling rhythm. (A secondary goal can be to breathe smoothly on either side.) Let’s review what has prepared you to do this.

1. You learned to breathe by rolling your body to the air (rather than turning your head) in all three variations of Skating. Use Skating, UnderSkate, and ZipperSkate to reinforce that habit.

2. You learned to keep your head connected and aligned as you rolled to the air in UnderSwitch and ZipperSwitch. Use those drills to reinforce this habit.

3. You developed your sense of core-body-rolling rhythms in Triple Zipper and Triple Over. Use those drills to reinforce your rhythm awareness.

4. You’ve worked on balance in all fourteen drills. Improved balance will allow you to breathe without driving your lead arm toward the bottom. Focus on balance to “stay tall” as you breathe. Extensive use of fistgloves® (see chapter 13) in your practice—both drilling and swimming—can be particularly helpful in developing the “weightless arm.”

We’ll use Triple OverSwitch for the transition to swimming. Do a series of 25-yard repeats. Rest as much as needed (five or more yoga breaths) between reps to start each completely fresh. Start each rep with a normal (but water-piercing) pushoff and begin stroking with at least four switches before your first breath. This should not be a breath-holding effort, but a measure of how relaxed and effortless you are. The purpose of beginning with several uninterrupted switches is to establish your rhythm with core-body rotation and not with your arms. Once you feel an effortless, relaxed rhythm, you are ready to fit a breath into that rhythm with no interruption. Here’s how.

1. Take your first breath simply by rolling right to where the air is and immediately back in the other direction.

2. Try to do that with no interruption of the rolling rhythm you established on your switches before the breath.

3. If that breath goes smoothly, do another the same way, several strokes later. If you sense a slight interruption in your rhythm, try to smooth it out on the next stroke cycle.

4. If you lose control, go back to Sweet Spot on the next breath and think about how to improve your breathing technique on the next 25.

Be patient. Some swimmers will fit breathing in seamlessly right away. Others, particularly those who have the most delicate sense of balance, may need to spend weeks learning to fit in a rhythmic breath without breaking down the control and coordination they have worked so diligently in drills to develop. Here are some tips that may help:

1. A weightless arm is important. During multiswitch drills focus on having your arm float forward after entering next to your goggles. When you take your first breath, put particular focus on keeping that weightless-arm sensation. Your hand should keep inching forward while you breathe. Fistgloves® will help!

2. Keep the timing of every switch exactly the same. Maintain that timing as you fit in your first breath.

3. Roll as far as necessary. Old habits may be causing you to lift or turn your head. Keep everything connected and aligned as you roll your head, neck, and torso as one unit to air. Roll all the way to the air. If you’re having difficulty getting air easily, roll farther.

4. Slow down. Any time you feel a loss of control, slow everything down. Be quieter and more gentle. Don’t let yourself feel hurried. And finally, did I mention that fistgloves® will help?