Yesterday's workout was basically boring and frustrating. So, going into today's workout I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the workout and accomplish anything productive. I thought about how I could approach the workout as I was walking to the fitness center.

I would say that I started out the workout in a similar pattern as I had finished yesterday's. But, at some point during the workout something changed. I don't recall when it changed or what brought about the change. I think that at some point I decided that I wanted to practice rolling to breathe and that it what brought about the breakthrough. Once I had the breakthrough I found that I was having more fun experimenting and playing in the water. I was testing what it felt like to swim totally flat and what it felt like to swim obviously over-rotated. Somewhere in between those two extremes lies the "sweet spot." I think that I started to get the feel for that sweet spot. I worked on sensing when I had enough rotation to extend my hand and when additional rotation didn't actually increase my length, but instead just created strain in my back.

I also experimented with how much I needed to roll to breathe and I found that I didn't need to roll as far as I thought. In fact, I found that if I held the position that I thought I needed to be in to breathe for a while I could actually rotate myself back away from that position and achieve a much more comfortable position in the water to just keep kicking while I continued to breathe.

I hope that I was sensing the right things and not ingraining bad habits.

I think I also started to get a better feel for how to utilize a compact kick.

30 minutes ended up passing by pretty quickly and I had to tell myself it was time to get out of the pool. I actually would have liked to continue the practice!

I think that the key I discovered today was that it's much more productive and enjoyable for me to experiment with getting the correct feel for things by allowing myself to test the extremes and not being afraid that I have to be doing it "right" the whole time. I think what I was doing by focusing on doing it "right" was that I was creating too much tension and stress in my body; I was trying to force myself into the proper technique instead of allowing my body to relax into the proper technique. It feels so much better to be able to be comfortable while practicing than to feel tense while practicing. After all, I think that what I'm supposed to be practicing is swimming effortlessly. I can't exactly swim effortlessly if I'm tense and uncomfortable.

I must say that it was a really interesting and satisfying experience to have completed a 30 minute practice without having taken a single stroke! At yesterday's workout I was frustrated that I couldn't just swim and take strokes. After today's workout I'm almost afraid to have to add strokes. It's fun to be able to play with my balance and rotation in the water. It will take me time to be able to think about stroke mechanics at the same time as I continue to pay attention to my balance and rotation. I'd like to get the balance and rotation automatic before I move on to strokes. Well, I've still got one more day I can practice before I have my next swim lesson. Then I'll just have to see what the coach tells me at that lesson.

Note to self: Make sure that you are having fun and remaining playful and relaxed during your swim practice, whatever the skill is that you are working on learning and whatever drill or workout you are utilizing to learn that skill.