I am determined to study by myself because it is a highly convenient time to get information. Mobile phones, Tik Tok, Little Red Books, Baidu, all of which have a lot of swimming videos, and there is no shortage of resources. After confirming the tutorial of a beauty coach in the little red book, I started the course of self-study and self-tour.
The first is kicking. Like breaststroke, the first requirement is the leg. But I don't think freestyle leg is as difficult as breaststroke leg. Pay attention to the thigh driving the small retreat, don't bend your knees and keep your instep straight. With the experience of learning breaststroke, it is easy to understand such precautions. When people are in the water, the wrong method will increase the resistance and disturb the flow direction of the water, thus affecting the fluency of swimming.
After practicing playing for a few days, I feel almost enough, and I will enter the next learning stage. In fact, it is one thing to achieve, and it is another to master it well. In the later learning process, kicking is still a compulsory course for me every time I swim. With the deepening of study, I have a different understanding of playing football. I am constantly improving my kicking method and trying to improve the coordination of kicking and paddling. A lot of things are like this. It looks simple, but only by understanding it deeply will you find more hidden details. You can't improve without this process of gradually deepening your understanding.
Then hand movements. This is the difficulty of freestyle. Holding water, pushing water, moving arms and entering the water directly affect the movement and rotation of the body in the water. Each stage of the hand has its own details, which directly affects the success or failure of the next stage. I watched the video over and over again, remembering the movements in my mind while watching it, and imagining myself paddling in the water. Of course, this is not enough. Without a professional coach looking for mistakes by the pool, it is difficult to find your own problems in the water. Especially those details, such as the angle of elbow, the range of shoulder rotation and so on.
I've been practicing. Find someone to record my swimming process with a mobile phone, and then find out the problems and solve them accordingly. Then practice. Sometimes I suddenly make great progress and my heart is full of joy. Sometimes there will be obvious retrogression, which will inevitably lead to depression. Fortunately, at my age, I finally understand some truth. The trajectory of things is a spiral rise, not a beautiful straight arrow. Sometimes there will be setbacks, which is normal. The key is to continue this process, and time will give the answer.
Freestyle breathing is also much more difficult than breaststroke. When the breaststroke inhales, the human head comes out completely, and the posture of the head is almost upright at this time. But freestyle is not like this. When the hand paddles with the elbow in the water, the rotation of the shoulder will drive the body to rotate, thus driving the head to naturally come out of the water. When the head is above the water, it can't be all. The correct way is to show only half of your face out of the water and inhale at such an instant. Anyone who learns freestyle always drinks a full stomach of pool water at this stage, or choked on his nose and coughed up tears. However, it is necessary to inhale, and it is impossible to complete the whole process of freestyle without inhaling during the stroke rotation.
It is really difficult to learn freestyle. Kicking, paddling and breathing, beginners can only learn each stage one by one, and then try to connect them. When you spend a lot of time trying to combine these movements, you only solve the problem of swimming. Next, you find that you have to solve many small problems, such as whether you have enough water, whether you paddle with the strength of your shoulders instead of just your hands, whether you move your arms with the rotation of your shoulders, and so on. You can't swim freestyle unless you solve these problems.
I am born with a lack of sports cells, which I know very well. Physical coordination and balance are poor since childhood. Strength and endurance can be improved through training. But a person's motor cells are born. I love football and badminton, and I have made a lot of efforts. But the result tells me that my sports talent is really average. This is an indisputable fact.
Fortunately, I am learning to swim now, not for competition, but as an aerobic exercise suitable for me after my knee injury. And there is another truth I know, that is, quantitative change causes qualitative change. I think it doesn't matter if I'm not as fast as others or as good as others. I can wait for the improvement of quality, through constant practice and constant accumulation of quantity.
Learning freestyle is more than just mastering a sports skill for me. When people reach middle age, it is easy to fall into a fixed lifestyle, just like a bear sleeping comfortably in a tree hole in winter. Learning freestyle made me break this state. After learning freestyle, I will continue to teach myself butterfly and backstroke. In this way, I can move on with my life. I hope this state can be maintained for a lifetime.