— Where to Go for What — Your Directory to Resources for Better Total Immersion Swimming

Online Help

WWW.TOTALIMMERSION.NET

The Total Immersion Web site will be a priceless source of no-charge support and information. Important features include:

• Total Swim, a free newsletter featuring immediately useful articles several times each month. A key ingredient of this newsletter is articles contributed by TI students like you, sharing the insights that have helped them reach their goals. Please consider becoming a contributor.

• An online Discussion Forum for swimmers who are using this book and TI methods to improve their swimming. Use this forum to share your insights, discoveries, and successes, to ask questions and to tap the experience of others who are on the same Mastery path as you.

• Video clips spotlighting key refinements of TI drills and skills.

• Regularly updated samples of TI-specific practices for both technique improvement and effective training.

• A steadily growing directory of trained and certified TI Coaches available to work with you toward achievement of your goals and complete swimming fulfillment.

• Information on how you can become a certified TI Teaching Professional. You may have discovered how difficult it can be to find a qualified instructor who can help you with TI practice. You can be part of the solution. Most of our Teaching Professionals started like you, by learning TI, realizing how simple and effective it is, and wanting to share their discovery with others. Most had never before thought of teaching swimming.

WWW.USMS.ORG

The Web site for U.S. Masters Swimming provides information on joining Masters swimming, links to Local Masters Swim Committees in your area and to Masters Swimming organizations around the world. You can also find a calendar of pool, open-water, and postal swimming events. One of its most helpful features is a directory of thousands of places to swim.

Total Immersion Self-Help Tools

If this book has piqued your interest in developing yourself further as a swimmer, TI offers a growing selection of books and videos/DVDs that distill the complex movements of swimming into simple concepts and progressions that can help any swimmer achieve satisfaction and maximize his or her potential. TI books and videos are fully guaranteed to improve your swimming. If at any time you’re not satisfied with their quality, contact TI for a full refundand you get to keep the book or video. For complete information, visit www.totalimmersion.net or call 800-609-7946 or 845-256-9770.

Total Immersion Videos/DVDs

FREESTYLE MADE EASY

Visual reinforcement is priceless in learning physical skills. This 45-minute video illustrates the chapter 8 lesson sequence; each step is examined from above and below water, and in slow motion and stop-action. It also includes special learning refinements from Total Immersion Weekend Workshops to aid “struggling” swimmers, such as the TI Buddy System method, which shows you how to learn faster by collaborating with a friend or partner at any stage of the learning process. Also instruction in freestyle turns, both the relaxing open turn and the fast flip turn. $39.95 VHS or DVD.

HAPPY LAPS: TOTAL IMMERSION FOR BEGINNERS

If you’re a nonswimmer … if you can swim only a few strokes … if you’re intimidated by deep water, this is the TI video for you. Illustrates a simple, clear, commonsense approach for learning to be completely at home in the water, experiencing Flow, ease, and real joy—in just a few hours—with a combination of partnered and self-guided “discovery exercises.” Lesson One will teach you to be completely comfortable in the water and how to breathe comfortably. Lesson Two teaches you how your body naturally behaves in the water. Lesson Three will teach you to move through the water as fish do, with balanced, slippery, whole body movement. $29.95 VHS or DVD.

ALL FOUR STROKES MADE EASY

This DVD illustrates step-by-step skill drills (described in Swimming Made Easy) that anyone can master for improved comfort, form, and speed in the four strokes of competitive swimming: butterfly, back-stroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. Also includes combo drills that cut learning time in half and help you improve with unprecedented ease and speed. All essential positions and movements illustrated with slow-motion, surface, and underwater views plus advice for the self-coached swimmer with vivid descriptions of how your strokes should feel when you’re doing them correctly. $29.95 DVD only.

Total Immersion Books

SWIMMING MADE EASY: THE TOTAL IMMERSION WAY FOR ANY SWIMMER TO ACHIEVE FLUENCY, EASE, AND SPEED IN ANY STROKE

If you are encouraged by the development of your freestyle from the guidance in this book, SME provides similar guidance on applying the principles of Total Immersion to all four strokes. Refine your form and increase your pleasure with ten lessons, illustrated with 150 surface and underwater photos. Ten chapters on self-coaching show you how to be your own best coach. $19.95.

TRIATHLON SWIMMING MADE EASY: HOW ANYONECAN SUCCEED IN TRIATHLON OR OPEN-WATER SWIMMING

If you think you’d like to venture out from the pool to tackle a triathlon or try your hand at open-water swimming, TSMEprovides a step-by-step learning plan that will help you swim with ease and confidence for any distance in any body of water. $24.95.

From My Bookshelf

Six well-thumbed titles from my bookshelf have been a priceless source of guidance for me on staying strong and supple at age fifty (or any other age).

Staying Supple: The Bountiful Pleasures of Stretching, by John Jerome
(Breakaway Books).

The Supple Body: The New Way to Fitness, Strength, and Flexibility,
by Sara Black (Thorsons).

Stretching, by Bob Anderson (Shelter Publications).

Yoga Mind & Body (DK Publishing).

The Pilates Body: The Ultimate At-Home Guide to Strengthening,
Lengthening, and Toning Your Body—Without Machines,
by Brooke Siler (Broadway).

Pilates on the Ball: The World’s Most Popular Workout Using the Exercise
Ball, by Colleen Craig (Healing Arts).

Q: Is there a “Total Immersion for Runners”?

A:Yes! ChiRunning, by Danny Dreyer.

For years I wished I could find the equivalent for running that has the approach and spirit that Total Immersion brings to swimming. In the fall of 2003, I finally found it. From my teens through my early forties, I had enjoyed running as a reliable source of fitness and the pleasure to be gained from endorphins. I was never a “serious” runner, but I did enjoy participating in the occasional 5K or 10K road race. But from age forty-three to fifty-two I was frustrated by a chronic injury that kept me from running—and triathlons. Whenever I ran farther than about two miles, the soleus muscle (deep tissue at the base of my calf) on my left leg would go into painful spasm. But after reading a pre-release copy of ChiRunning (Simon & Schuster), by Danny Dreyer, and attending a one-day ChiRunning workshop (see www.chirunning.com) led by Danny, within weeks I was running six miles and more without pain, injury, or fatigue.

Like Total Immersion, ChiRunning takes an activity that many of us do by rote and turns it into an examined activity, developed by mindful practice of intelligent, thoughtful movements. Like Total Immersion, the emphasis is on improving your speed and endurance through more effective movement, rather than more and harder miles. And best of all, like Total Immersion, it works! So if you have been encouraged by how Total Immersion has affected your swimming, and you’d like to have a similar experience with running, I recommend you check out ChiRunning.