This week I take a temporary detour from the relatively narrow focus of the past few weeks on the history, purpose, and effective use of drills to look, through a wider lens, at the process for learning new swimming skills. Today’s post was prompted by an email from an attendee at a Smart Speed workshop […]

In 1988-89, after nearly two decades of coaching young club and college swimmers, I had three life-changing experiences I resumed swimming after a 16-year hiatus. I met Bill Boomer—a coach who saw things as no one else had. I began to coach adults–most of them new to swimming. Born-Again Swimmer In August 1988, despite only […]

On January 30, on the iTunes/iBooks store we’ll release my latest book Swim Ultra-Efficient Freestyle.  While the original TI book has become the most popular swimming book in history, I believe Ultra-Efficient Freestyle is my best effort, as an author (and ‘explainer-of-swimming’) to date. But I’ll leave that to readers to judge, and I hope you’ll […]

On Sept 9, 1954, Marilyn Bell. a 16-year old Toronto schoolgirl, entered the annals of marathon swimming, and left an enduring mark on Canadian sporting history by becoming the first person to swim across Lake Ontario.  On January 28 of this year, I had the good fortune to meet Marilyn and, since then, the privilege of helping her return […]

Total Immersion methods for technique and teaching have been recognized as revolutionary for over two decades. Over the next few months, we will introduce a training methodology we believe is equally revolutionary. We call it Fast Forward Training. Because it’s forward thinking. And because it improves endurance, speed—and, yes technique too—faster than any other approach […]