Woohoo!

I am sore as hell at present, but this morning, 2:40 minutes into my swim, I freed my right shoulder, a section of it, anyways.  A huge chunk of pain, a slab of frozen shoulder, blocking full range of motion for freestyle arms is gone.

I’d love to write more, but I am spent.

Swimming in Bong Water

Much has happened.  Many adjustments, and I sometimes find myself shocked just how much parts shift.

But this is just a trivial post . . . 

I managed to get a bad ear infection coinciding with the Camp Fire.  I missed one swim day from the ear, though the air was so bad I may not have gone anyways, and then the pool closed from bad air quality in the Valley for a week.

This morning, the air was still pretty horrible, but rain was coming, and began falling an hour before I left to swim.  An hour into the swim, it was pretty clear the rain was cleaning the air, but also covering the pool with little drops of bong water, basically.  You could smell it.  Ugh.

I’ve lasted into much colder weather than years past.  No idea how much longer I will last, but I’m going push on as long as I can.

The Monkey King and Standing, Two Ways

Much and more has happened, too much to express, but what a ride...

The Monkey King

So, in the middle of one of those monster weekend swims just two days ago, I mentally pictured a monkey swimming.  If you have never seen it, do so.  It’s pretty damn cute.

At first, my focus was on the legs, and the manner they push/kick, but then I thought about the tail.  I began a meditation focus of giving myself a tail, the balance and usage in the water.  It caused changes, quickly.

It relaxed, maybe dragged, my lower back, as if letting the tail take some water drag.  This altered my hip angle, lessening drag and raising my hips / lower torso in the water, dramatically lessening overall drag.  In turn, muscles were able to adjust further up my back.  It even reached my armpits, finding a new kink point, one too hard to explain, but wow, oh wow.  It feels like a reversal point for the arms to connect to the torso properly (we’ll see).

Standing, Two ways

As the monkey tail practice continued, I soon found the ability to alter my breaststroke kick in a significant way, though this has been hard to repeat without much time and effort.  Imagine that when the legs come up, the monkey’s tail likewise does, only behind you, almost arching the lower back.  Then, when kicking, both converge in something similar to say a three armed octopus (tripus? 🙂).  Both sides converging was a totally new sensation, as if discovering Yin and Yang.

Now, even out of the water, I can sometimes find this convergence just standing.  It’s worth noting, just like the monkey swimming, it also sends focus/force up the torso!  

As far as changes go, it’s like I am in a crescendo.  Obviously, I have felt like I am nearing a breakthrough so many times before.  I am not letting myself get too excited, but damn if I am not a bit excited.

I can’t wait to get back in the pool.

Monster Weekends

Last weekend and today, I did 3.25-3.5 hour swims, trying to make up for the 3 weekday swims that are limited to 2 hours.  There is something about not paying attention at all to time that helps me find adjustments during the swim.  Today, I had great success.  I have never been more certain that I am doing something right with all this.  That said, I am also quite confident it’s going to get cold on me and stop/retard my progress too soon, before I get some stuff “reversed.”

Exhausted.  Time to waste away in front of college football.

Go Bears!

Setbacks Galore

The pool broke and I followed.

The circulation pump broke, the first weekday of non-summer.  Coincidence?  No, no, I won’t suspect anything without more, but ouch.

It’s day 5 of no pool now, they await a part for repairs, with no announcement of when they expect it fixed.

I hurt on Monday.  I hurt on Tuesday.  Then, things started cramping and contorting and I lost all memory of my center, well, the approximate one I had been striving for.  I am miserable.  I have tried some short 2 mile walks.  They did not go well.  It’s mentally difficult to remain focused on form so intently when the world bombards with stimuli, not to mention requires monitoring for safety purposes.  Add the solitude of a swim lane to the list of reasons rehab in the pool is so much easier.

I imagine I must keep walking, and maybe try it more come winter, but those are plans to dwell on later.

Pain has led to binging on food for distraction, and that pipe dream weight goal is probably well out of reach by now.  Damn.  Damn.  Damn.  I really was beginning to think I had a chance of getting under 200 before winter.

Maybe next year...

Presuming the pool is fixed by then...

Oh, but there will be rec swimmers and lessons again, so it will be a priority and be maintained, unlike now.  Sigh.

Quick Thoughts on Waves and Centers

For so long, I have focused on finding my balance, my center, and the importance, the abundance really, of waves and their effect on everything.  I am starting to grasp how they interact.

The center is the correct startpoint for the waves you use to move.

Wrong center, your waves create disbalance.  They promote incorrect muscle memory.  This, in turn, cascades throughout as the body tries to remain in tune with itself.

A Eureka Moment

The Short of It:

I realized how to swim and why I have been doing it wrong.


How to Swim:

Like everything else, it’s all about waves.  First simplify it.  There are 5 waves (disregarding the neck and head as a 6th), torso, 2 legs, and 2 arms.  These waves should be in tune with each other [though that is a more complicated aspect given they are 3d waves arching toward endpoints of each’s Period].

Apply the same theory I used to figure out how to walk properly [aka How to Walk on Water].  So, ideally, the waves just oscillate.  Granted, friction from the water is much more substantial than air, which means a larger amount of acceleration is required to counter it.

However, I do think the friction is not nearly as large as one would presume.  Think about a Sea Lion.    Most of the friction will be focused at the nose and sides of the head at the starting point of it’s oscillating Periods.


What I Have Been Doing Wrong:

 My Periods have been shifted, wrong starting points, wrong end points, well, at the joints.  I am a Sine wave when I need to be a Cosine, lol.  This is to say (and maybe I have those reversed, lol), if the joint “centers’ are endpoints of Periods, they need to be on their X-axis, not at 1.  Mine are at 1, or near it.  I have some shifting to do.


Other stuff was realized today.  Other things, good things, happened, too, but I am spent, and I have written the most important aspects down.  Yay, me.