Terry introduced the concept of 5 if not more paces or speeds.

Perfect:

gentle aim for perfect form

Cruise:

can do this all day

Brisk:

bit faster, streamline thoughts elongate

Race: 

use hold, hip, kick

Race2:

just on the borderline of loosing form.  Only do for short distance

Started with revision of floating arm forward with gentle soft feel, open the armpit and get the round shape and aim to hold the biggest volume of water you can.

We then tried something very foreign to me.  We swam flat. We were still aiming to do the above skills but while we were swimming flat.    Stable hips were the go. It felt very odd. We needed to concentrate on our hips and nothing else.  Were the stable hips moving? Yes it is virtually impossible to swim with no hip movement.  We then felt what happened as we nudged our hip forward while opening our axilla. No huge rotations here, but a simple hip nudge forward in company with our open axilla to drive us forward.  Finally we added a toe flick. First we used the midsection, then the hip and then the foot. It is a bit more to digest than simply letting the top hip fall down. The concept was forward motion at the hip contributing to forward propulsion. For me a new idea for the hip, I was used to the hip only playing a part in a rotary fashion to drive the arm forward to the new target. No longer only a side to side motion of the hip but a forward one as well.

Introduction of the tempo trainer: TT

Terry spoke of speed as a math problem. SL (Stroke Length) x SR (Stroke Rate) = Speed. He explained that the slowest possible SR was not the goal. You need to find your own most efficient range.

We set the TT at 1.30 and swam 25yds and took our SR (stroke count)         

If we could hold the same rate for 2 repeats we then decreased the TT by 0.05.  We worked our way down to TT 1.00.

Mine   SR

TT

               14

1.2

               15

1.1

               16

1.0

 If your TT is 1.10 and you can hold a SR of 15 for 25yds, can you hold it for 50,100,150 etc.     Practice your rates without the TT.

What did I learn from this session?

 That there is an awful lot to learn.  As I was just starting to appreciate that maybe I could exert some control over speed other than pulling and kicking harder, here was someone saying why not have five speeds that you can control, manipulate, measure and play with. Wow. 

The tantalizing little taste of the TT left my mind reeling with practice possibilities.