Megan Sheppard put her spotlight on ‘Resolve to Swim’ in the Feelgood section of the Irish Examiner, 7 Jan ’11. So I did! Every time I slide into the pool I’m reminded of all my Alexander thinking. For those of you having difficulties in the water, I recommend ‘The Art of Swimming’ by Steven Shaw. Having been a competitive swimmer, he re-discovered the joy of being in the water and has found a way to communicate this to others. One tip; when I’m told by a new pupil that they swim and also have neck problems, it’s often because they swim breaststroke, holding their head out of the water all the time. Not good.
One client decided to have a swimming lesson because she had spent a year swimming two to three times a week but was not increasing her times. The instructor was quickly able to point out that she wasn’t kicking rapidly enough and was relying on her arm action too much. So she is going back to using a swim board to strengthen her legs, speeding up the rhythm of the kicking. Meanwhile she is to slow down the rhythm of the arms AND she is to think of lengthening the body. “Which is what you told me to do,” she said, “The Alexander Technique comes into everything!”
The morale of the story is that an objective observer can often see something we are not aware of in ourselves.
Go to Steven Shaw’s website for more tips and info:- www.artofswimming.com
In the blog there is a very interesting article on improving your stroke by varying strokes, ‘Break old habits with new strokes’.
http://www.artofswimming.com/index.php?option=com_easyblog&view=latest&Itemid=352
It has encouraged me to try the butterfly!