Today's lesson was similar to the other lessons in regards to my being totally discombobulated. But, as I saw with the others lessons I'm sure that I'll pull it together in a relatively short period of time. I am not going to schedule another lesson, yet, though. Even Danny suggested that I hold off on setting up my next lesson until I have seen that I have had enough time to practice this large change and incorporate it with the other skills I have learned.

I'm in for a big switch (no TI pun intended) this week. Danny has me working on a two-beat kick now. The good news is that I had basically mastered the rhythm of the two-beat kick previously. The bad news is that I had it 180 degrees out of sync. So, I'm having to learn to do the opposite of what I had worked hard to learn to do before. D'oh!

Reprogramming my brain and body to use the new stroke and kick combination -- that is which leg is going down while which arm is pulling -- is causing all of my technique to fall apart again. It takes me so much effort to keep track of what's supposed to be going on with my legs. So, I'm going to have to relax and allow my brain and body time for the right sequence and timing to become automatic. While that is happening, I'm not going to worry about all of the other numerous things that are wrong.

So, for example, while I'm working on getting my arms and legs in the right rhythm, the first focus is to do just that. I need to get my arms and legs in the right rhythm. It doesn't matter if I'm splaying my legs apart or bending my knees too much. None of the other things matter. All that matters in that exercise is to get my arms and legs in the right rhythm. Get it? Don't try to do everything at once, Mr. Man.

It's okay that things I was doing well previously have fallen apart while I learn this new skill. I have to learn things in some order and I can't focus on everything at once. I was able to learn the other skills quickly before and I can relearn them quickly again once I've instilled this new skill. I need to be willing to focus on just one thing and not worry about the fact that I'm doing other things wrong while I'm working on that one thing. Eventually I won't even have to think about that thing anymore and I can then pick a new focus to incorporate.

I have the distinct recollection that when I was first learning the TI technique I had visited the forums and decided that I was doing things backwards. Therefore, I taught myself to switch things around. Well, if I was able to reverse my technique one time I can reverse it back again. I would bet that at some point I will have enough mastery over my stroke that I would even be able to switch between the right way and the wrong way just for demonstration purposes. It will be kind of like an actor being good enough to be able to impersonate being a bad actor without actually being (or becoming) a bad actor. Does that make sense?

And while I'm making a metaphor, I want to remind myself to think of the drills as metaphors. If one metaphor doesn't make sense to me, then I just need to find a different metaphor that does make sense to me. There's no shame in not connecting with a particular metaphor and there's no shame in not connecting with a certain drill. The point is not for me to master any one drill. The point is for the drill to serve as a tool for me to master a particular technique. If the drill itself is creating too much struggle and cognitive dissonance for me to be able to learn the technique, then there is no point in me doing that drill. If one drill is not working for me, then find a different drill that does.

During the lesson Danny had me do a bunch of different drills. However, there is no reason for me to practice all of them. I'm going to practice the ones that moved me in the right direction. I think that Danny was doing a bit of experimenting during the lesson to figure out how to get me to experience the right technique.

What I'm going to need to do this next week (or however long it takes) is to cycle through different drills and be much more experimental and playful. Last week it worked extremely well for me to do 100 yards of each drill working from one to the next. That's not going to be good in learning this skill. It will be more helpful to do a small amount of some isolated part of the arm / leg relative position and then test it out in more complete contexts. When I get to a context in which it's too much for me to keep all the pieces in place, then I will simplify the context and return to doing more isolated work.

The drills what I will experiment with are:

Going from Superman glide to a rotation onto one side after I have swept both hands back to my sides.

Going from Superman glide to a skate after stroking just one hand back to my side.

Swimming without using my legs at all. Just let them remain in the draft of my body and let them rotate with my core rotation.

Swimming almost without using my legs at all. When I'm feeling good with my legs just remaining in the draft of my body, try adding a small "cheater" twitch. The idea is supposed to be like I am trying to get away with kicking while the coach isn't looking even though I was told not to kick.

Going from Superman glide to a skate with one hand at my side and then slowly practicing three switches, concentrating on keeping my recovery wide and relaxed, letting gravity drop my arm into the water (as opposed to thrusting my are forward and shallowly into the water) and driving the switch from my hips and the little flick of my leg. The key is to make sure that I my stroke rate is slow enough that I have a chance to think about what I'm going to do next. The goal is that each switch will give me enough propulsion that I can easily keep my balance and alignment in the water.

I'm going to give my body a chance to relax into doing things the right way instead of trying to force it to do them the right way. I need to give my body a chance to feel the right way to do it. I want to reach the point that I don't have to think about what I'm doing and instead I just do it that way naturally. (I'm talking specifically about my the relationship between my legs and arms. I'm not saying that I will suddenly stop practicing mindful swimming)

I'm going to make sure to continue to limit my practice to 30 minutes. I don't want to drill myself into the ground.

While it's definitely frustrating for me to have to go back to square zero (or at least feel like I'm there), I think that when I can improve the major flaw I should see another quantum leap in my swimming ability. So, overall there is no reason for me to fret over this. In the end it will all work out splendidly.

I think that I will wait until I can do at least the ear-hop drill with all of the pieces properly in place before I schedule my next lesson.

In addition to practicing in the water, I think it will be good (at least initially) to do some dry land practice to help my brain and body imprint the right positioning.

As I sit here right now, I'm confused about what the right technique is. The point is that the kick is supposed to work to support the rotation to the other side. So, that means I need to kick with the leg that is opposite the side to which I'm going to rotate. The side to which I'm going to rotate is the side whose arm is recovering and about to drop into the water. I think I've got this correct. I'm going to leave my explanation intact here and have a look at some videos. If I can't tell from the videos, I'm going to have to see what I do in practice tomorrow.

I have watched a bunch of TI videos that I found on YouTube. I can't say that I definitely have the answer from watching the clips of swimming. But, I do believe that Terry did say in one of the videos essentially what I said above. I think he said that you kick with the opposite leg of the hip that you are driving down.

So, of course to be able to kick with the leg, it can't be already in the down position. It's got to be drawn back ready to kick. Therefore, whatever side I'm skating on (whichever side has the hand already forward) is the same side that I need to have my leg drawn back on. I think that my confusion arises from the fact that even though that's the leg that is below the other leg, it's the one that is doing the kicking. I think what I've been doing is kicking the leg that is (relatively speaking) stacked on top.

I think that mabye the misconception that caused me to learn to do things backwards is that I was picturing that I was stroking with arm to the side to which I was rolling. When I read that you are supposed to stroke with the same arm as you are kicking I interpreted that to mean that I was supposed to kick with the leg that was on the side to which I was rolling.

I just need to think about this like walking. The leg comes forward on the same side as the arm that is moving backward.

Do I have this correct in my mind now?

As I just experimented with an exaggerated form of walking, I'm realizing that one difference is that when I walk, I'm not actually putting one leg back; I'm putting the other leg forward. So, I do end up in the same relative position. I may have just found the key that was tripping me up. And, I wonder if I ever have been doing this right. Now I'm not so sure that I did end up reversing anything. I may have just thought that I reversed what I was doing when in fact I just did it in a more extreme fashion than I did it before while at the same time confusing myself about which arm was actually stroking.

Talk about beginner mind! I think that I'm basically learning to walk all over again. I'm just doing it in the water.

I'm going to swim on the floor for a while now and do some more work in my School of Funny Walks.