Lesson 7 – Improve Every Day, The Rest Of Your Life
by Terry Laughlin
As you read previously, Tim Ferriss progressed in just eight weeks from being exhausted after 20 yards in a pool to feeling fresh and stress-free after 2000 yards in the ocean. For most aspiring or struggling swimmers, that would be the dream of a lifetime. But what if it was just the first step toward decades of continuous improvement?
The skills described in these messages are the ‘starter set,’ not the last word. A committed learner could continue refining them for decades. And that’s just freestyle: TI has also developed self-coaching methods for butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke, each of which also follows the aquatic-skills sequence of Balance-Streamline-Propel.
Achieve Any Goal.
We realize you don’t just want an efficient stroke; you want to accomplish meaningful goals with it. Swimming offers a wider array of options than any other healthful activity for gaining the satisfaction of meaningful achievement. And Total Immersion—the program that pioneered self-coaching methodology—puts the means to enjoy all of them in your hands. Here are some of the most common.
Swim your First Mile.
In place of a tedious grind of mouse-on-a-wheel repetition, the TI approach builds seamlessly on the skills developed in the Self-Coached Workshop. As balance and streamlining improve, your ability to swim farther will grow effortlessly.
Swim two easy and stress-free lengths. Progress a bit more in skills and cover four lengths with no additional effort, and so on to eight, sixteen—any distance you choose. Never practice struggle. Always build on skill and ease. As you reach each milestone—first kilometer, first mile–you’ll feel energized, not exhausted, and eager to swim more.
Swim a Faster Mile.
As you progress to your first mile, you’ll learn your optimal stroke count. Height and skill mastery are part of it. Studied practice—including with a Tempo Trainer (an electronic audible tempo device similar to a metronome)—will give you a highly developed feel for it.
When you can swim a mile or more with little variation from your optimal count, we’ll teach you how to adapt to a range of stroke tempos, without sacrificing ease or efficiency, to work through a steadily improving series of Easy Speed thresholds.
Following this approach, you’ll be able to choose any reasonable goal, calculate the adjustments to stroke count and tempo that bring you there, then plan personalized practice sets that keep you on a steady upward path—and tell you when your nervous system and aerobic fitness are ready for the next threshold. Replace guesswork and generic workouts with satisfying and completely customized training.
Swim ‘Outside the Box’
Open water is in our DNA. TI technique was explicitly designed for tireless swimming in open water. TI Coaches have collectively won over a dozen National Masters open water championships and set numerous age group records and swum over 20 marathons, including three English Channel crossings.
Comfort and confidence in open water gives you access to the 70% of the planet that’s wet. It also lets you experience nature more intimately, participate in a triathlon, swim a marathon (5k and 10k are the swimming equivalent of running’s half and full marathons) or achieve the ultimate—swim from one land mass, or continent, to another. (In October, I’ll swim across Gibraltar Strait, from Spain to Morocco, in company with three fellow TI Coaches.)
As with skill, endurance and speed, TI teaches a smart, thoughtful, purposeful method for open water. You’ll achieve more and enjoy it more.
What is TI?
This introduction has described our aquatic technique and thoughtful methods. We encourage you to explore the TI web site and learn more. Here’s some of what you’ll learn about TI there.
A Cadre of Teaching Professionals
Though this series of messages has emphasized self-coaching, we know you may sometimes wish to have a trained professional assess your progress. TI has a growing network of Certified Coaches in over 20 countries. Every TI coach learns the same skill-development process; more important they learn the same set of principles and values. When you work with a TI Coach, you don’t just learn movement skills, you also learn thinking skills, practice habits, and the behaviors and mindsets of high achievement. In short, a TI Coach will equip you to continue actively learning and improving on your own. Find a Certified TI Coach here. Find a coach-led workshop here.
A Learning Community
The salient quality of a TI Swimmer isn’t the striking grace of his or her stroke; it’s their excitement, enthusiasm and optimism about swimming. Overcoming a long-term frustration, developing problem-solving skills and learning self-reliance in a highly valued activity leads TI Swimmers to a sense of passionate curiosity about swimming—and a desire to share their discoveries with others.
TI Swimmers also share a commitment to Kaizen—striving to improve in some small way every day. They generously share insights, discoveries and practical wisdom with each other at the pool and on-line. They’re collectively spreading the essential knowledge of swimming improvement – formerly held by an exclusive group of professionals – to ‘regular’ people. Have a question or conundrum that’s been puzzling you? Pose it to our community of ‘passionately-curious problem-solvers’ at the TI Discussion Forum.
