Oh My GAWD!!!!

If you have not ever seen yourself swim on video, I suggest doing so IMMEDIATELY.  I put my Christmas present, the underwater video camera, to use today with pals Joy, Laura, Nancy, and Jeremy.  

It left me with a feeling that was a cross between nauseous and hopeful.  

Nauseous, because I never knew how bad I really do swim.  I thought I had pretty good technique, I was just not strong.  Ha ha ha......tear drop.  I was oh so wrong.  

• My hips sink.  I always look around at other lanes and think how other people need to get their hips/legs up.  Well, in 4 years of swimming, no one ever told me that my hips sink too.  I thought they were up and I was leaning on my chest and yada yada.  Nope, they are sitting low and creating drag.  
• I have a very poor catch and pull.  My master's coach has us do drills to improve our catch and get that good, high elbow pull.  In my mind, my elbow is high, bent, and creating a lot of surface to catch water.  In reality, it is straight and sliding through the water.  

Hopeful, because as Dave said- if I really do have such terrible form, than I can only get faster as I improve.  

I highly recommend investing or borrowing an underwater camera.  Get with your friends and go in together on one.  I wish I had seen this 4 years ago- I have been swimming with some awful, awful bad technique for 4 years.  That is 4 years of muscle memory that I have to erase and retrain.  Yuck.  So, if you are in Memphis, you can use my camera to analyze your stroke.  

And, no video on the blog.  I think the girls + Jeremy would all agree that no one, and that is no one, needs to be subjected to the heinous form that floats across the screen.