Back in the day, when I was but a wee child, everyone in the ‘hood learned to swim soon after learning to walk. We had a neighborhood swim club and nearly all the kids around were on the swim team. I learned all my swim strokes as well as how to do a flip-turn way back then.
Since then, times have changed and flip-turns have too. But not mine. As inefficient as they are, they are all I have to swim continuously in the pool. Make that had.
My colleague from work and I got to talking about swimming, flip-turns, and such. When I told her how I did a summersault and then turned over AT the wall BEFORE pushing off, she explained how she does her flip-turns. She made it simple, explaining that after the summersault she begins her push off while still facing up and simultaneously turns over as she leaves the wall. It sounded simple.
So I tried it…
My 1st attempt was a bit awkward. Still, I managed to do the turn without much effort. The best part was that I wasn’t at the wall so long that I was air-hungry by the time I got my breath. Actually, I found that my swim was relatively effortless for the entire 1,500 yards. Certainly, I wasn’t breaking any records but it did make me wonder if it was the change in flip-turns or the fact that I’ve been working on my upper body strength. Regardless, it was pretty sweet. I felt like I could have swam for twice the time — except that I had to pick up YaYa from football practice.
Also, it proves that you can teach an old dog new tricks.