Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Any Swimmer to Achieve Fluency, Ease, and Speed in Any Stroke

267 Pages·2001·11.09 MB·English

by  Terry Laughlin

Swimming Made Easy
Also by Terry Laughlin:
Books:
The Swimmer's Bible
The Swiminar Workbook
The Guide to Fishlike Swimming
Total Immersion:
The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier
Triathlon Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Anyone to Master
Open-Water Swimming
Videos/DVDs:
Freestyle Made Easy - DVD
Four Strokes Made Easy - DVD (Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke and
Freestyle)
Happy Laps - Video and DVD
Drill Cards:
Freestyle Made Easy Waterproof Drill Cards

This book is dedicated to all of those Total Immersion swimmers who have
welcomed our books and videos, and particularly those who have attended our
clinics, camps, and workshops since 1989. They have taught me far more about
swimming than I ever imagined possible, and their curiosity and eagerness to
learn have been a constant source of inspiration, allowing me to spend countless
fulfilling hours working on deck at what I consider to be the best swim-coaching
job in the world. Thank you.
F
OREWORD
T I : T N S
OTAL MMERSION HE EXT TEP
Total Immersion has been publishing guidebooks for swimmers since 1991.
We started with a slim book, immodestly titled The Swimmer's Bible, followed in
1994 by the Swiminar Workbook, which in 1997 was updated as The Guide to
Fishlike Swimming. In 1996, Simon and Schuster published Total Immersion:
The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier. The reaction by
readers to each of these books has been the same: "Thanks for writing about
swimming IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE!" It has been my constant goal to
do just that. After reading far too many books and articles (and hearing countless
coaching-clinic presentations) that portrayed swimming excellence as rocket
science, I really hoped to provide a swimming-improvement method that anyone
could understand and follow.
Feedback from countless "TI fans" has confirmed that we're on the right track.
Enthusiasm for the TI approach - from all manner of swimmers, from novices to
elites (and coaches and teachers, too) - has been greater than I've ever witnessed
in 30-plus years as swimmer, coach, and student of the sport. There is only one
reason for this: OUR METHODS WORK. It doesn't matter if the swimmer is
age 3 or 43 or 73 — or whether they've never swum before or have swum their
way to the Olympics. What we teach — and the simple, clear way in which we
teach it — can turn anyone into a swimmer or make them a better swimmer than
they are now.
TI for Every Stroke
Our previous books have focused exclusively on freestyle - though many of
their lessons could be applied to any swimming style. This book is our first
comprehensive written guide for becoming "fishlike" in all four strokes. The
learning process that produced it is precisely the same as the one that preceded
our books about swimming a fishlike freestyle: We went to the pool and taught
hundreds of swimmers of all types. Since 1997, we have taught summer camps
for swimmers age 8 to 17 and have added four-stroke weekend workshops. In all
cases, we've had to get across the essentials of fluent swimming - the techniques
that really matter - in just a few days while also preparing our students to coach
themselves, and we had to do so for four strokes, not just one. So the need to
streamline and simplify (and eliminate steps that are not truly essential and
productive) has been even greater for the other strokes than it has been for
freestyle.
At the same time, dozens of coaches who have adopted TI methods in their
own age-group, high school, college, and Masters programs have shared their
insights and discoveries to help us refine what we developed in the workshops.
And finally, from 1996 to 1999,1 coached Division I collegiate swimmers at the
US Military Academy - West Point. I worked primarily with the sprinters,
coaching and teaching all four strokes, and found that the TI approach was
equally effective with already accomplished college swimmers who needed to
compete on the highest level.
One of the best rewards of teaching the other strokes is that our understanding
of how to teach a fishlike freestyle has also improved, both generally and
specifically. The exercise of teaching four strokes, rather than one, has shown us
many additional ways to teach swimmers to be fluent. It has also brought an
unexpected benefit: We have found that improved awareness of how to flow
with and through the water can help any swimmer learn to swim any stroke
better.
So, the good news is that if you've already learned to swim a better freestyle
with our previous books and videos, this book - and the accompanying Four
Strokes Made Easy DVD — will bring you a whole new series of methods and
approaches that can make you a more complete swimmer and make your
freestyle faster, easier, and more fluent.
Finally, our thanks for allowing us the opportunity to help you improve your
swimming. Without the thousands of faithful TI followers coming to us for
instruction and providing invaluable feedback, we certainly would not have been
able to learn all we have about how to make swimming a more joyful and
satisfying experience.
Acknowledgments
To my family -- Alice, Fiona, Cari, and Betsy -- for their patience, support,
and love.
To my dozens of TI coaching colleagues for contributing priceless ideas and
insights and for sharing in the spirit of exploration of how coaching can be done.
To John Delves for acting, once again, as my "surrogate reader" and in helping
the text in this book flow like the strokes we are teaching.
To the swimmers I coached at West Point from 1996 to 1999 for helping me to
demonstrate that TI works just as well with fast and accomplished swimmers as
it does with novices, and for helping refine its application to all four strokes.
To Brian Williams, head coach of the SUNY New Paltz swim team, for
generously allowing us to use the SUNY facilities for our filming.