Having mastered Lesson Three, you should now have experienced two important elements of Fishlike Swimming: First, how to generate effortless propulsion by using your hand to simply hold on to a spot in the water while dynamic body roll takes you past that spot. Second, how to keep your body line long and to “lie on your lungs” while doing that rhythmically. Our next step will give you an even stronger sense of balance and start imprinting the muscle memory for a compact, relaxed recovery. Having painstakingly developed a balanced, aligned foundation for stroking, we don’t want to let an arm-swinging recovery upset that. This lesson teaches you an energy-saving, alignment-preserving, drag-reducing recovery.
DRILL 9: ZIPPERSKATE
Why We Do It: We used UnderSkate (Drill 5) as kinesthetic rehearsal for UnderSwitch (Drill 6) and to practice a slightly more dynamic form of balance. ZipperSkate will prepare you for ZipperSwitch in the same way. But it can be even more valuable in preparing you for whole-stroke swimming because it’s the ideal way to gain the most powerful sense of how to “lie on your lungs.” Once you feel that in your bones, you’ll know how to have a truly relaxed, unhurried stroke.
Follow This Sequence
1. Begin as in Drill 5. When you arrive at the Skating Position, rather than recover under water, drag your hand slowly along your side (as if pulling up a zipper). Keep your hand under the surface, as shown in the illustration.
2. Lead with your elbow for as long as possible, with your hand trailing until elbow and hand are alongside your ear. (Tip: It can be extremely helpful to practice this movement while lying on your side on the pool deck or on your floor at home.)
THE ZIPPERSKATE POSITION ALSO ILLUSTRATES SWITCH-TIMING FOR ALL ZIPPERSWITCH DRILLS.
3. Once your arm is in the “shark-fin” position, briefly check that your shoulders are still stacked, then slide your hand back down. Finish by rolling your needle shape all the way back to Sweet Spot.Take three yoga breaths, then repeat.
How to Practice: Over time this will probably be your most valuable balance drill and the one you should practice most often. It will give you a clear picture of: (1) how well you’ve mastered balance; (2) where your supporting “buoy” is; and (3) how to use that awareness to steadily improve your balance. After you’ve learned the basic movements (particularly the elbow leading the hand and the hand remaining underwater), I recommend you use the practice-’til-you’re-bored philosophy to fully develop your kinesthetic balance awareness and burn it into your nervous system. You could easily practice this drill nonstop for fifteen to thirty minutes once a week for the next month or two and learn valuable lessons on every lap. Here are a few focal points:
1. Are you stable or do you immediately begin to sink as your arm comes forward? If you begin to sink right away, make sure you keep your weight forward and the extended arm below your head. Your goal—if you sink—is to sink in a horizontal position with your armpit at the same level as your hips and feet. This is enormously valuable to learning equilibrium. If you’re a sinker, bring your hand to your shoulder and immediately slide it back to your side.
2. If your body position remains fairly stable as you draw your arm forward, “skate” for a few seconds with your elbow motionless above your shoulder. The weight of your arm in the air should give you a clear sense of how to balance by “lying on your lungs.” If you feel balanced while doing this, practice doing the recovery super slowly. This is the nearest sensation thus far of how you’d like to feel once you begin whole-stroke swimming.
3. Focus on sensing the water resistance against your hand on recovery. Don’t fight it. Instead, yield to the resistance by softening your hand and arm. How compact and gentle can you make that recovery action?
4. If you’re in the “sinkers” group on this drill, fins will allow you to sense the stable support a balanced swimmer feels when doing this drill.
DRILL 10: ZIPPERSWITCH
Why We Do It: The compact, relaxed, unhurried recovery you are learning will be an
important key to effectively linking your arm-stroke to the power of core-body rotation. This
drill will also teach you the front-quadrant timing that keeps your body line long throughout
the stroke cycle. The purposeful exaggeration on this drill is to slice your hand in alongside
your ear, before slicing it forward underwater. This corrects the nearly universal tendency to
overreach on the recovery.
Follow This Sequence
1. Begin as in Drill 9. Move deliberately from Sweet Spot to the Skating Position, then check that you are balanced—feeling great support—with your extended hand below your head.
2. Do a “Zipper” recovery with your hand under water, elbow leading as far forward as possible. Feel water resistance on your hand but don’t fight it. Soften your arm and hand and keep them close to shoulder and ear.
3. As soon as your hand catches up to the elbow, slice it in and forward as you switch and roll to Sweet Spot on the other side.
4. Relax and glide in Sweet Spot for as long as you want (three yoga breaths), then repeat in the other direction. As you practice, emphasize the following:
• A compact and unhurried recovery. Continue to focus on switching through the smallest possible space, but that space is now above and below the surface.
• Hand entry that is exaggeratedly early and close to your head. Drive your hand into the water alongside your ear to overcorrect the tendency to overreach.
• Practice silently, taking all the time you need to feel in your bones the right moment in your recovery to make the switch.
• Continue to feel “connected” to your core body as you switch.
DRILL 11: DOUBLE ZIPPERSWITCH
Why We Do It: As in Double UnderSwitch, Double Zipper introduces swimming rhythms to the movements you’ve just learned. You’re coming ever closer to actual swimming.
Follow This Sequence
Start as in ZipperSwitch, but do two switches before pausing in Sweet Spot again.
1. After you roll to the Skating Position, check your balance. Feel the water supporting you, then draw your hand forward. Feel the water resisting your hand at all times.
2. Switch when your hand is alongside your ear.
3. Keep your head “hidden” and look directly at the bottom through both switches.
4. Finish in Sweet Spot and take three breaths before rolling nose-down again.
5. Start the next length on your other side.
DRILL 12: TRIPLE ZIPPERSWITCH
Why We Do It: We’re right on the verge of whole-stroke swimming. Doing more ZipperSwitches primes you to transition from skillful drilling to beautiful swimming.
Follow This Sequence
1. When you feel good balance and timing and have an unhurried, relaxed recovery, progress to Triple Zipper. Focus on the same points as in Triple Under: head hidden, steady unhurried core-body rhythm, consistent “switch” timing. Here are some specific instructions you can give:
• Hide your head… Water should flow over the back of your head much of the time … Look straight down and watch yourself slide effortlessly past tiles on the pool bottom.
• Keep a low profile…Hug the surface, as if you were swimming under a very low ceiling.
• Pierce the water… Slip through the smallest possible space both above and below the surface.
• Soften your arms and hands… Feel the water resist your hand but try to recover without splash or turbulence.
• Feel the complete support of the water and use it to bring your hand forward as slowly as you can.
• And finally, drill without making a sound.
Lesson Four Practice Plan
The transition from drilling to swimming starts here. Lesson Four teaches you movements and coordination almost exactly the same as you’ll use in fluent swimming. I’d suggest you don’t divide your time equally among all three drills in this lesson. As suggested, spend lots of time practicing ZipperSkate to develop the great balance sense that will make you successful in the drills that follow. Spend just enough time practicing ZipperSwitch to master the switch timing. As your skills develop, spend more of your time with Triple Zipper because it teaches a range of valuable lessons and can do more than any other drill to make you a truly economical swimmer—able to practically float through a swim of any distance without even breathing hard. Here are some suggested sequences:
100-YARD REPEATS
• 25 ZipperSkate on your right side, 25 ZipperSwitch, 25 ZipperSkate left, 25 ZipperSwitch.
• 25 UnderSwitch, 25 Triple Under, 25 ZipperSwitch, 25 Triple Zipper.
150-YARD REPEATS
• 50 yards each (25 right, 25 left) of Drills 3, 4, and 9.
• 50 ZipperSkate (25 right, 25 left), 50 ZipperSwitch, 50 Multi-Zipper.
• 25 ZipperSkate right, 25 ZipperSwitch, 25 Triple Zipper, 25 ZipperSkate left, 25 ZipperSwitch, 25 Triple Zipper.
EXTRA PRACTICE: MORE ZIPPERSWITCHES
You greatly enhance your ease and flow with long, concentrated sessions of nothing but patient repetition of Triple Zipper. Do mainly 25-yard reps, resting between each for three to five yoga breaths. Referring to the menu of focal points for Drill 13, choose just one focal point for each repetition. Keep focusing on that aspect of the experience until you feel it becoming “grooved” into your movement pattern. As your movements become more relaxed and flowing, do more switches—as many as five or six—before returning to the Sweet Spot. But don’t turn it into a personal breath-holding contest. Truly efficient swimmers find they can do effortless, unhurried ZipperSwitches for nearly 25 yards because they are so economical they use little oxygen to do a full pool length.
