Total Immersion Freestyle Swimming

I am in the process of learning to swim. I taught myself to swim when I was 14, and did a very poor job of it. In fact, because of an incident at the city pool, I have a very strong aversion to getting my face in the water, and that has hampered me forever.

I swim by keeping my head above water, like a dog or a horse. So it exhausts me to swim, and I don’t do it very often. I heard about this new technique for learning (well, not brand new, but new to me) from Tim Ferriss. So A week ago I began.

I first read the book. But not one of those nice, new ones from their store, but an old copy from the library. It’s well written, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. I then bought one of the DVDs, and that is definitely the way to go. The DVD breaks it down even more simply, and I am able to mimic their behaviors.

I have one thing to add to the great canon of learning about Total Immersion swimming. I followed Tim’s advice to buy serious goggles and trunks. I bought the knee length Speedos, and love the feel of them in the water. Much better than baggy trunks. The goggles kept fogging up until today, when I remembered a trick I used in my youth. I spit in the goggles and rubbed that into the inside lens. For whatever reason, it prevents the fog.