Swimming is not fighting...!?!

I used to have the nick name: „best swimming stone on earth“!

I was a really bad swimmer and took about 16 minute to finish 1000m which sounds o.k. but I was totally dead after that. My arms were shattered and I felt totally exhausted. Even worse: I never had the feeling I was really swimming… it just felt shit (ooops, sorry for that word, but that’s the way it was).

...am I fast enough? Uaaaaahhhh....!?!



My problem had been that all the swim coaches had always tried to teach me how to swim as if there was a formula on how to do so. I was controlling and checking myself to see if I was doing everything “right” more than I was actually swimming. Every 100m I swam was like making a construction drawing of the technic I was supposed to swim.



Don't think... just glide...



After my crash 2008 (see the blog) I started swimming from scratch and because I couldn’t swim very hard I had to try and swim “soft” without doing too many extra movements. I discovered that I moved through the water very smoothly and without fighting the water. So I just started stroking easily and feeling comfortable WITHOUT LOOKING AT ANY WATCH OR CLOCK!!!! After and after I felt that I was developing a very nice way to glide through the water. So all I did was to keep the strokes going by putting more strength and stroke rate into my swim. I got more and more endurance in it and got faster and faster. But I wasn’t evaluating my swim style any more. I was just relying on that if you once get the body gliding you just need to keep the impulse going.   



...and keep the impuls going...!!!



Today I swam the last 1000m of my 4000m swim test in 14:30. It felt really good and I DID NOT NEED TO MAKE A TECHNIKAL DRAWING ANYMORE….!!!

Now my nick name is “FoliFlipper” (as some might know…..)

Feel the water and don’t fight it / don’t always evaluate every stroke you do because you will forget the actual swimming…..!



Blubb, blubb…..