Saturday, September 23, 2017

It Got Cold

It looks like it will warm up next week again, but the cold is coming.

Today was in the 50s while biking to the pool.  Too cold.  I tried, but it was a difficult experience.

I have used the metaphor before regarding a garden hose with kinks that have become near permanent.  When it's cold, swimming is like trying to water a lawn with such a hose.  Sections of my body simply can't get loose, kinks remain and cause problems to cascade everywhere.

About 80 minutes into the swim, I felt decent, but it was still clear I was not going to get things able to work, able to adjust.  I was not worth the extra pain and discomfort of the rough start, and it was a very rough start.

Now, it's weekends where the lap swim ends when it starts on weekdays.  So, there may well be a month still with some decent swimming, but I am dreading the eminent end of my swim season.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Ride the Wave, Stupid!

Okay.  I have not been able to pre-formulate a narrative for this one.  I have no real idea how to put it in prose.  So, I am not really going to try.  This one is much more so for me to help remember than any attempt to express it to others, but who knows?  Maybe it will be clearer to readers in this form than my attempts at writing.

Presumption: the path of a wave is a helix

I have written about the Illusion of Circles.  I do not believe things exist in two dimensions in this reality.  There are no lines or points on lines, no circles.  Things exist and move in 3 dimensions.

A wave does not travel the path of a sine wave or cosine.  Those are both two dimensional translations, interpretations, of a helix.

What I've Been Doing Focussed In Two Dimensions

Even when I have been conscious of my muscles and ligaments being connected in a helix path around my bones and through my body (expansion and contraction is a topic for another day, but a hint is that I'd bet it expands and/or contracts, size wise, or at least it ideally does, at a rate consistent with phi, a Golden Ratio type thing), I always focus on points to "unfold," planes to bend upon, etc, always in two dimensions.

Surf, Baby!  Surf!

My focus should always be along the path of a wave, allowing my muscles to ride the wave, and that wave is a helix.  Even if I am correct that my body has "kinks" or "folds" or some form of tangles like bunched up curtain cords, the way to correct the issues will not be found in two dimensions.  Movement should stress riding the wave, allowing muscle contraction and physical movement to occur more naturally.

Example: Kick Board Kicking

I am not going to try to write what happened in the pool or what I hope was progress, but I will give one example with how I found really interesting changes applying this to the kick board.

I focussed at the very tip of an ergonomical kick board, and I made little circles, tiny circles, with it, which, moving forward made a tiny helix.  This wave I caught with my arms, into the shoulders, through the body to the hips, and transformed into fluid kicks.  I could feel the oscillation.

I noticed, though tiny and possibly unnoticeable by others, I was slightly wiggling like a crocodile atop the water.  I had far less drag than normal.  I was moving pretty smooth and fast with relatively little expended energy.  I was surfing more than pushing through the water, after all.

Last Point: Oscillation

One thought which hit me during the swim I now want to add while I have in my head was regarding oscillation.  It also occurs in three dimension!

I return to the crocodile.  I would be VERY interested to see video of some swimming animals be analyzed and checked for a helix where we visually presume two dimensional oscillation.  I would not be surprised at all to find swimming animals do this innately, say the tip of a dolphin's nose makes tiny circles like the tip of my kick board, that type of thing.

I'm exhausted.  No more writing.  Hopefully, this line of focus will lead to more helpful changes before I run out of warm enough weather to swim in.