I posted recently about the “more you know, the more you realise you don’t know“. The thing I didn’t mention at the time was that it is also possible to theorize yourself into a corner, hence the title of this post (A Bruce Lee rip-off from Enter the Dragon). Along those lines, I had a minor breakthrough at swimming this lunchtime.
I’ve been trying to elongate my stroke in an attempt to become more efficient, and I’ve been struggling to get used to a new breathing pattern. I’m no champion swimmer, but I figure if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it properly. Anyway, there’s one guy at the pool I always struggle to pass. He swims a little bit quicker than me, but he turns slowly, which allows me to catch up, and ultimately pass him, but it’s a real struggle. Before I got into the pool today I spent a few seconds watching him swim and I noticed his stroke rate was significantly quicker than mine. I decided that I would match his stroke rate and see what happened…
The quicker stroke rate seemed to complement my new breathing pattern, which suddenly felt more natural than the old one had, and I just felt like I was practically sprinting, but I wasn’t getting tired. I managed to keep up the same stroke rate for the whole swim and took about 90 metres out of the guy by the end.
I realise I wouldn’t have been able to do this without the specific work I’d been doing on the stroke and breathing pattern, but if I hadn’t just forgotten all that today, I think I would have spent the next few weeks still struggling.
So I guess the moral of this post is, like it’s title is, Don’t think. FEEL… 🙂
Cheers
Tim…