XHOG Review (Total Immersion Workshops)

Total Immersion sells itself as a new approach to swimming that is foolproof and can help any student master a fluent, beautiful and economical style and brings results far faster than conventional methods that do not rely on endless lengths and countless sets of pulling and kicking.

But the question is “DOES IT DELVER?”

Well the short answer is “YES” and here is why I think so:

The weekend started at 9am on the Saturday morning with a class room session that covered the traditional introductions of the coaches and the trainees and this boded well from the start with 6 coaches to just 19 trainees. Most the others on the workshop were either triathletes or swimming coaches looking for that “something extra”. We moved quickly on from the introductions to an overview of what we would be doing in the first pool session (using video examples and explanation from the coaches”

The first pool session (just over 2 hours) started with swimming some warm up laps then being videoed doing your normal swim, to be analysed later – then into the first drills. The early drills were to teach how to find perfect balance in the water and to help you feel comfortable with balance in the water – for this session we worked in pairs and the coaches were in the water helping us get into the right positions for the different drills, so we new what it felt like to be correct in the water etc… (Balance is one of the most important elements in TI)

After lunch it was time for video analysis – my video reviled that my speed was down to strength and aggression along with the fact I swam “Up Hill” and used over 20 strokes to get up the pool (along with a few other dodgy areas). We then discussed the next pool session.

Back into the pool and more drills starting with and building on what we had done during the morning session with added emphasis on being long and streamline in the water again with great attention and direction from the coaching – again over 2 hours in the pool

End of day 1

The Sunday started at 8:45 with a drill pool session, refreshing what we had done on the Saturday and building on the drills again – by now I could see the importance of all the really basic drills we had done and how the drill were building towards actual swimming – again about 2 hours in the pool with the coaches helping us ‘get’ the drills.

An early lunch was followed by a class room session, which included a question and answer session followed by explanation of the advanced drills we were about to try in the pool.
The afternoon pool session we were introduced to a TI training aid FIST GLOVES (the only training aid we were encouraged to use – TI does not use Kickboards OR pullbuoys as these mess up balance and streamline position in the water). Fist gloves are a bit like marigold gloves with their fingers cut off and stitched up, they allow you to do drills with your hand in a fist but at the same time remain relaxed (relaxation is another important aspect of TI) The drills build up till a point when you are almost swimming, but not quite

Then it was time to remove the gloves and for the second video analysis session – we were given time to swim a few lengths before the videoing began and then we were asked to swim concentrating on just one of the many things that we had learnt over the weekend – I chose looking straight down to help with my bodies balance.

The classroom analysis showed me swimming a lot smoother, relaxed and streamlines within the water, not perfect but miles better than I had been, and I was now swimming at a stroke count of 13 per 25m – a VAST efficiency improvement in anyone’s books

A final question and answer session and advice from the coaches on how we could take things forward with TI in our training completed the workshop – and I left feeling very good and that it had been well worth the price for the workshop

The workshop did not turn me into a TI swimmer over the weekend but that is not what it is intended to do, it did provide me with the drills and the knowledge of how to correctly execute those drills to help me on the way – something a feel that can not be fully gained from the books or videos – Doing the drills over a period of time is what will turn me into a TI swimmer

The coaches were both professional and enthusiastic on what they were teaching and the ratio of coaches to trainees meant that you never felt that you were being neglected.

And watching one of the coaches demonstrate TI swimming in all its glory was like watching visual poetry – smooth, quite and effortless as he (a rather large American) swam up and down the pool using only about 10 strokes per length

In TI you do not pull and kick your way through a swim, instead you use the water with a streamline balance and the use of our core body to move forward (a bit more complicated than that – but I’ll not go in to it here) it is a way of having a good swim and at the same time conserving energy (which makes sense in TRI) – to me it all made sense and I will be devoting a lot of my swim time to TI drills to help re-programme my swim style, I also bought the DVD to keep the drills fresh in my mind and may in the future do another workshop to advance even further.

So would I recommend the workshop - Yes