Why going shopping for clothes can improve your swimming

Whenever I hear a recording of my voice I am always astonished, and terribly disappointed at how I sound.  I pity all you folk who know me and must suffer this odd strangled delivery with a faint West Country twang.  In my head I assure you I have a deep rich, fruity baritone.  The sort which should, but strangely doesn’t, make the opposite sex go weak at the knees.  There is a biological reason for this I understand.  It’s to do with the fact that your ears hear your voice not only through the air but also as a reverberation around your skull. Or something like that.  I didn’t really understand it.

On a different but related note, I was recently striding manfully across a beach on holiday when I happened to look behind me.  I was rather dismayed to see the imprints of my purposeful gait in the sand.  Clearly, I realised, my DNA comprises 60% duck.  And one without a clear sense of direction at that.

My third little tale goes back some years when I rang a client contact towards the end of the day and spoke to her secretary who put me through.  The first words I heard were “Oh no, it isn’t it?.......erm, hello?”.  I comforted myself with the thought that the secretary was already out the door and that my contact probably had one arm into the sleeve of her coat as well.  It couldn’t be that talking to me was always a pain in the rear end could it?  Of course not!

The thing that all these events have in common is that, just occasionally in life, we get to see ourselves as others see us.  And sometimes, that reality is a bit like a bucket of cold water being poured over our head.  Not so much a wake up call as a marching band parading around the bedroom at first light.

Recently I was able to coach in an endless pool which is something of a rarity for me.  Before my client arrived I was familiarising myself with the equipment and setting up the cameras to make sure they were at the correct angles.  I recorded a bit of my own swimming. 

I was horrified. 

I know my stroke is far from perfect and that I have much which needs improvement.  No matter how proficient we become that will always be the case.  One of the great frustrations but also one of the great joys of the SwimMastery way of coaching is the knowledge that there will always be improvements which can be made.  The coaching techniques are fluid and changing as our collective knowledge expands and evolves.  Obviously, some principles are set in stone and are absolutely key to any success.  However, one of the factors which makes SwimMastery so exciting to be involved with, is the way in which, from that base, there are no rigid inflexible rules which need to be followed.  Rather, the coach is free to assess and develop each swimmer according to their own level of current competence.  

I know all that.  I love it and embrace it.  Nevertheless I flattered myself to believe that most parts of my stroke were of a reasonable standard.  Boy oh boy, was I wrong!  My legs seemed to be doing some sort of Irish jig whilst my arms were off having a gay old time who knows where.  Meanwhile my head….and so on and so on.  I’m not going to embarrass myself further. I have learned enough to know that problems in those areas are indicative of corrections which need to be made elsewhere but what shocked me was that I had no idea that those warning signs existed.

Prior to seeing the video I could have given you quite an extensive list of bits of my stroke which needed work and, sad to say, I’m sure they still do.  But here were a whole new set of problems for me to work on about which I knew very little.  I always thought that I was reasonably aware of where my body was in time and space (what posh folk call proprioception) and that this was a skill which could be learned relatively easily.  But here was proof that what I was fondly imagining my body was doing and what it was doing were two very different things indeed.  I had slipped into some bad habits and failed to cure others that I thought I had conquered years ago.

A refamiliarisation with some fundamental principles is clearly required.  But I don’t have the benefit of easy access to the cameras of an endless pool. Nor do I have someone who can film me in a public pool, even if we could find one where this isn’t prohibited.  Thus it’s back to practising dry-land rehearsals in front of the mirror.

But, as a whole body movement, to do this effectively, it’s highly beneficial to be able to see your whole body.  (Did I really just say that like it was a profound statement?).  This is not always easy to do at home.  Therefore my advice, whether you are a coach or a swimmer, is to go shopping.  Not for mirrors. For clothes. You don’t have to buy them, just go and try them on. Or at least, pretend to do that. Choose a busy time when the store assistant is too hassled to notice much.

Because the great advantage of the mirrors in changing rooms in many stores is that, not only do they show you from head to foot, but often there are several of them, angled in such a way that you can view yourself simultaneously from the front and the side as well.  Sometimes, even from the rear too. Shops can’t install CCTV in the cubicles, so no-one needs to know what you’re doing.  It’s the perfect opportunity for you to try out your dry land rehearsals for a whole range of cues.  You can observe where your body actually goes as opposed to where you think it goes, as opposed to where its supposed to go.  Try rehearsals with your eyes shut first.  Note how it feels in your body.  Does that feel familiar?  Then open your eyes to see if you’ve really ended up where you intended. Does it look right from all angles.  If, for example, you are sending your cuticles to the end of the pool (or to the ceiling in the case of a standing rehearsal) are you both at the correct width and also at the correct depth?  When you rotate, is the same amount of your body showing (and hidden) when you do it to the right as when you do it to the left? Is the rotation all happening at the same time? Check the width of your recovery, the amount of tone in your body and the direction(s) in which you are sending your energy

 Make adjustments if necessary and note the changes in sensation.  You could be in there for hours doing this. You may have to visit several shops in or just be very brazen with the one shop assistant on the way out.  “I’m very sorry, I know I’ve been in there for an hour, but this necktie is a little tight on me.”  You could bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “trying it on.”

It may require a bit of a thick skin to get away with it.  But if it improves your ability to be aware of how and where your body is moving and how that translates into feelings you can recreate in the water this cannot help but result in tangible improvements in your swimming technique.

As for me, I think I need a whole new wardrobe…