Backstroke and dolphin kick practice

We practice today.
I did another 500 yard fluttery kick drill because I believe this is one of the several keys that can make me swim front crawl well. The timing is still from 2'40" to sub 3'.
My backstroke is not very good. I always turn to zigzag in the water. I also have a little breath problem while it is said in backstroke swimmers don't have to worry about breath. Water getting into my nose while I breath. I think the water is caused by hand movement. I think I still need to have breath rhythm cooperating with body movement in backstroke. This is what I am going to practice next time.

Dolphin kick and butterfly

We learn dolphin kick today. I am not sure about my form of movement, but I can move forward with my kick. I asked instructor to inspect me right before class end, and she said I am in about right form and if I can lift my hands in front above head, it will be easier to get deeper in the water and move faster. I will try to do more.
There is a girl in our class who swims every style well. she can swim butterfly, for at least 50 yards. I really want me to be able to, but I think I won't really seriously start to butterfly until my free style get well formed.

link 1
link 2

Backstroke

Today we learn backstroke. As finally comes my menstruate period, I did not get into pool. I watched the video with class, and did practice on land. I feel my hands movement are not very smooth even I do it without water.

Practice freestyle and menstruate period starts

I made some progress in my free style in sense of hand movement. I asked instructor to watch my free style, and she said my movement is sort of less of smoothness. Is it because I use front cross crawl which people use in long distance swim. The hand movement starts only when the other hand catch the hand in the front above head. I will ask her about it tomorrow.
[check the term, it is: Front quadrant swimming, it means The stroking arm is still in front when the recovering arm is about to enter the water in front crawl, here is an example.]

I prayed for my period starting during the weekend and with the writing exam, I can have 3-4 days rests. But unfortunately, it starts today right after class. I never swim during my period, and really doubt I can do it. I will try to see what happens tomorrow.

Freestyle

We started learning freestyle this morning. We watched video first, instructor summarized some key points after video show, then we jumped into (really) COLD water to practice. We drilled separate movement for each hand. I feel I did it better if I don't combine both hands movement together. But according to instructor, my elbows are still low when moving arm from back to forth above water. I am going to do more practice on this. I will try using one arm to go 50 yards and another arm back. I will try to do 4-5 laps tomorrow before I try to combine both hands movement together.

Today I made dramatic progress on flutter kick. I kick with board and head above water. First time, I just did what I used to do, and it took 3'09". Then I tried to think what was wrong with my movement. I watched a swimming instruction video clips during the weekend, and the instructor in the video said the kick movement start from hip, upper leg and then lower leg to toes, similar to trying to kick a soccer using back of foot. When I stand in the water, I try to do the kicking, thinking I am kicking a soccer and feel the water interact my moving foot. Then I started to time one lap flutter again, head up and same as the first time. This time, I shortened my time and finished 100 yard in 2'54". I never ever have done it within 3 minute. I was exciting. While resting at side, I kicked water like kicking soccer to remember the movement and feeling. Later I did flutter kick a 100 yards 3 times, the times are 2'50", 2'44" and 2'50" respectfully. I feel I can probably reach under 2'30" sometime with more practice.

A good website for learning swimming

We had writen exam today

25 multiple choice. I forgot about the exam, and did not go over it. I read some notes before during the term, but other notes I never read. To be honest, the exam was not hard, and should be easy if I read through the material posting online before exam. I did not do it well. What a shame.

Midterm assessment

We had midterm assessment today. The assessment is done one by one. I was just next to the last one in alphabetical order
The subjects include flutter kick with rhythmic breath, floating, treading water, front start, swim underwater and breaststroke formation.

Practice for midterm assessment and timing swim with Helan

I forgot to bring my diary today, and will print it out and bring to instructor tomorrow. I wonder how she can see the links I put in the diary. It could be a good idea to send her the URL of my blog.
We are going to have midterm assessment tomorrow. Helen, a girl from Taiwan, practice with me item by item. Later, she told me she was trying to get life guard certificate and need to swim 500 yard within 10 min. Because I timed my swim many times and had sense of how fast it mean for a 100 yard in 2 minutes. I told her it will be hard for her. But she still wants to do it. She is really a girl with determination. I lent her my watch and she starts swimming in breaststroke. I followed her but just swim casually. She finished with 13'12". It is not bad, but still have a long way to go to get into 10 minutes. I told her I will practice with her. 10 minutes 500 yards is also very very hard to me too. But it will be fun to train with somebody. I am look forwards to meet her tomorrow.

More on Breaststroke

We continue practice on breaststroke today. Teacher asked me to swim in breaststroke in front of her, and she said I did it well. I am happy. I also try to teach Wei, another Chinese lady to do breaststroke kick, because I feel she tried hard but made little progress. I am glad that I made her feel better with the leg movement.

Some more links on breaststroke:
individual frame by frame breaststroke (woman):
first,
second.

individual frame by frame breaststroke (man):
first,
second.

Breaststroke

Finally we start to learn swimming. We watched video of breaststroke at beginning of the class. I was a little bit late, but watched most of the part. I am a pretty good breaststroke swimmer, and my first style of swimming is breaststroke. I don't have problem in most part, but only my endurance is not very good, not endurance of casual breaststroke swimming, because I don't feel tired at all if I don't have to speed up. My problem is keep high speed for long distance, say, 500 yards, in breaststroke. I am going to train myself on this.
Some good breaststroke video clips:
first,
second,
third.

Brendan Hanson World Record Breastroke:
first,
second,
third,
forth,
fifth.

Underwater Practice

It was a fun class today, but I was a little frustrated. We practice underwater swimming, which helps us feeling more familiar with water and the effect brought by our body movement against water. I did not do a lot of this kind of practice before and I am not good at it. I don't know when my breath exhausts and have to come up and breath very well, and my body movement is not agile enough to getting through the circle underwater without touching the circle at the end. Some people who do not swim very well can do those practices easily. I think they have many experience to play in the water, but just need to learn standard swimming. I go to swimming pool only for swimming, but never have fun like this. This is the difference.
Later, I practice the figure-8 sculling a little bit.

Start: July 10th

We practice 3 starts: facedown, side and back. Some people do starts beautifully. I tried to slide on water longer. I can not see my starts, but I feel I am not very professional. The back starts is very beautify if somebody does it well, like a bow popping out. I sometimes still feel water getting into my nose if I don't concentrate to hold my breath. It is a lot fun.
The practice I did today is: flutter kick for 500 yards, imroved 2 seconds or so in a 100 yard time; arm stroke one arm at a time, 200 yards.

Rhythmic Breathing: July 9th

The technique we learn today is rhythmic breathing, the basic skill in swimming. We first practice at side of the pool, then using kick board to do it when doing flutter kick. For more detail of rhythmic breathing, this web page has detailed explanation.

To improve my speed of my freestyle, I need to improve the movement of my arm stroke as well as my flutter kick. I practiced flutter kick drill for 500 yard. I measure the time of 1 lap of flutter kick with kick board. With head in water and rhythmic breathing, it is around 3'5" to 3'20"; with the head above water, it is around 3'15 to 3"30. I am trying to improve the time and shorten 20" or each respectively.
I also practiced arm movement. I found to draw 8 by arms for freestyle, which is called Figure-Eight Sculling, my body flips a lot to left and right around the axis. I asked the teacher and was told this is normal. I am going to practice it more.

Game day

It is even more an exciting class today. We have competition. The people in my group are good swimmers. We finished most of the games 2nd place. Most of the time, I am the one who drag our performance. I fell a little guilty.

July 5th

We did not have class yesterday due to the 4th of July. So I was eager to jump into water.
We were taught how to tread water, which in Chinese is 踩水. Back in China, to obtain promise to swim in deep water, we have to pass an exam. The exam is swimming 200m in any style and then, without rest, treading water for 2 minutes and keep your breast out of water. I managed to pass the exam 10 years ago. But I feel I am not as good as I used to since I feel tired even without swimming 200m and no requirement of breast out. Less of other exercise cause me lose my endurance. I am trying to rebuild it.
After practicing of treading water, I went to swim and measure my time. The results are: free style 2 minutes 3 seconds, breaststroke 2 minutes 19 second. My goal is to improve my free style to 1 minute 45 seconds. and breaststroke to 2 minutes.

The First day in water

Before letting us get into water, the teacher asked us to measure size of ab, hip, arm, leg, etc. in group of two people. The girl in my group is called Helen, she is from Taiwan. It is very embarrassing since I am much much bigger than her. She is kind of a little too slim. I know I am overweight, and by far. One of my goal of taking the class is actually lose some weight and inches. I would like to lose 10-15 lbs.
Of course I have some other goals. To improve my swimming skill, correct my arm and leg movement of free style, and to swim faster. I am going to measure my time of 100 yards of breaststroke and free style tomorrow. I will then be able to compare at the end of the semester.
We learn floating today, Jellyfish, Tuck, Supine and Prone. I don't have many problems with floating. I practiced a little bit afterwards.

The first day

We did not really get into water today. The teacher made some announcement on class rules and schedules. The class lasted less than 20 minutes before we can leave. There are about 30 people registered, and I did not expect it is such a big class.