DAY 45: TI Backstroke and Competitive Backstroke Are Different
Hello. I am Kinny, a swimmer with water trauma.
Today, I made significant progress in swimming. I separated the sensation of 'floating' from propulsion. The theme was to grasp front balance through skating drills.
Breaking the link between fear and the sensation of sinking
In freestyle, seeing the water surface was a trigger for fear, but I realized that backstroke triggers a more serious trauma response. When the fear of 'I'm sinking!' arises, I end up stroking in a hurry. I strained my neck trying to lift my face, so my neck muscles cramped (lol).
As soon as I sense a weight balance that feels like I might sink, I panic! This must be because I was likely pushed into the water while on my back in the past...
After confirming I could float, to avoid stroking forcefully,
(float) -> (rolling) -> (float) -> (rolling)
I repeated this.
If I do it while finding the floating position, Total Immersion (TI) style backstroke might be faster to master than freestyle because it isn't interrupted by breathing.
Freestyle: Starting TI
I realized that for freestyle, I hadn't mastered TI freestyle, but rather a standard two-beat freestyle. I am just starting with the TI style now.
Butterfly: Becoming an intermediate swimmer
Butterfly is a repetition of dive -> relax -> dive -> relax. It has become completely free of difficulty or struggle. It is simply a matter of waiting for the point where you float up.
Breaststroke:
Breaststroke is the same. You just have to wait.
Capturing the timing of sinking and floating
The reason I stroke in fear during freestyle and backstroke is that I cannot wait for the timing of sinking and floating. The reason I 'cannot wait' is that the muscle reflex switch for 'I'm going to sink!' gets triggered. First, I have to convince my body that 'you won't sink, it's okay.'
Today, I also made a lot of progress with TI-style freestyle. By repeating skating drills, I learn the balance of having my head down and feet up through side kicking.
In general competitive swimming, it is considered that side kicking too much leads to over-rolling.
Also, regarding the theory of propulsion and swimming theory, TI is about gliding, whereas in competitive swimming, the amount of water you stroke is important. However, once you are able to catch the water, it is naturally heavy.
Paradoxically, if you don't pull the water more than necessary, you can swim forever without getting tired.
You often see elderly swimmers swimming endlessly for about an hour, but their arms aren't extended and they aren't pulling the water, so when waves from someone swimming next to them come, they get pushed around and swept away. That swimming style is correct in the sense that it keeps them afloat, but because they aren't catching the water at all, they don't make any progress. It doesn't even count as exercise.
Conversely, in competitive swimming, you catch the water, so the water feels very heavy, and because your muscles consume oxygen intensely, breathing becomes difficult.
For butterfly, I have also become able to switch between the flat-style butterfly of competitive swimming and the effortless, relaxed butterfly. When I do competitive-style swimming, it's fast, but it feels like, 'Goal at 25m!' However, I think young men prefer this style. The effortless butterfly doesn't feel like much of a workout. Men want to expend their excess energy.
Three styles: Competitive, Easy-going, and TI
…In other words, I've realized there are three styles: competitive swimming, easy-going swimming, and TI. Usually, many people progress to TI after going through competitive swimming, and I think the technical secrets are the same, but while competitive swimming uses speed as a benchmark for improvement, TI uses glide as the benchmark.
Competitive swimming (speed-oriented): Overpowering the 'heaviness of catching the water' with muscle strength and oxygen. It provides a sense of accomplishment, but energy consumption is intense (a 25m explosion).
Elderly swimmer (buoyancy-oriented): Doesn't get tired because they don't catch the water. However, they are vulnerable to environmental changes (waves) and have abandoned autonomous control.
TI (glide-oriented): Uses 'low resistance' and 'balance of buoyancy' as the yardstick. An intellectual sport for adults that converts 'potential energy' and 'balance' into efficiency rather than muscle strength.
Differences in yardsticks
This difference in the yardsticks used to measure improvement—being different for young people versus adults—might be the same as the difference between using grades as a yardstick in climbing versus using risk avoidance as a yardstick.
When an older climber uses grades as a yardstick as if they were a teenager, the grades they can climb just keep dropping, and it's not fun at all. That might be why men are sulking (laughs). If you keep measuring yourself with a 'teenage yardstick,' you end up staring at a decay curve instead of a growth curve.
The moment you switch your yardstick to 'risk avoidance and refinement of movement,' both swimming and climbing turn into a 'lifelong pursuit.'
…Thinking about things like that, I swam today, and it was very empty, so I was able to swim in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
In a crowded pool, all sorts of people talk to you, but in an empty pool, it's just you and the water. For an HSP-type person like me, an empty pool without distracting thoughts is worth driving to.
It's no longer just a sport; it's in the realm of physical mindfulness.