Karen's breaststroke clinic experience
by Karen Frindell Teuscher
This Monday we had the pleasure of learning about breaststroke from Penelope. I have to confess that while I was still in the locker room, and still in my PJ's, someone announced that the day's clinic was breaststroke and I almost went home. See, I am what they would probably call "breaststroke challenged". I've been swimming with the Masters for over 10 years, and I've managed to improve my swimming in all kinds of ways, but breaststroke has always eluded me. It's a mystery to me, really. But I thought better of my inclination to go home and went and jumped in the pool.
While we were working on this, Hermine remarked that, in her new article she wrote for Swimmer Magazine, there are three words she feels should be banned from a swimmer’s lexicon. The most vilified of the three is “rotating”, which she has repeatedly condemned over the last several months. “Twisting” is much more socially acceptable in swimspeak. The next word she denounced was “drill”. She explained that people think doing a drill 99% correctly is OK, yet she was quick to point out that if you aren’t doing it 100%, you are not doing it right at all. (I think this is when she mentioned again that she gets annoyed when people don’t do as she says.)
Butt up was the theme of the day. Hermine explained to us the importance of having ones derriere break the surface of the water and the positive effects it will have on our strokes. To reinforce her words Hermine had us start the lesson with 4-count butterfly…X Factor. As most of us know the kick board has a mind of its own and it will wander off if it does not like what you are doing so taking a more methodical approach was in order. As most of us struggled with this and chased our boards one could hear Hermine offer words of encouragement and further instruction as she rode her bike from one end of the pool to the other, inspiring thoughts of Miss Gulch from the Wizard of Oz!