Backed up squash with swimming lesson number 2 in the dark. Arrived a little early so jumped in and cooled down after squash and then warmed up a bit, trying not to let Julie see what I was doing...
On to the lesson and this week we started with the focus being on building on last week's session and really driving through the stroke from our hips, hopefully fuelling the glide part of the stroke as a result. The more drive from the hip, the longer the glide. Whilst Tim seemed to get this quickly, unfortunately whilst I was apparently gliding well, it was still a little listless with no oomph in the drive element. I just need to put in that effort into the drive from the hips, which is hard when you don't have anything to push off from!
What really helped though was using the float between my legs which stopped me from kicking, raised my legs higher than normal and really focussed on driving through the hips. I will have to buy one to practice with as it made things a lot easier.
After a couple more warm up lengths, the focus for lesson 2 was on the recovery part of the stroke and in particular the arm movement out of the water and the old finger drag drill, focussing on making sure that the elbow is the highest part of the arm out of the water during this phase.
Allied to that we also focussed on making sure that we get the full value of the pull under water and making sure that we pull all the way to our thighs rather than cutting it off at the hips...
So more structure to my swimming from now on. Thumb touch drill - finger drag drill - high elbows - driving from the hips - full pull under the water...
Overall a good lesson, but lots of things to think about before the next one which isn't until the end of May due to various holidays.
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