Control or Adapt?

One day last week I was in the community pool in 31 C (87 F) water. This was quite comfortable when entering and just floating. No effort needed to be at ease. But if I tried to move around at all it was anything but envigorating. Within an hour I had lost all ambition. The [...]

Don’t Forget To Play

Have any of us gotten so serious in our swim training that we have forgotten to play? Good swimming involves having a relationship with water. To swim well and swim long a swimmer needs to know the water intimately, to know its ways and how it likes to move and carry us and how it [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- The Mindset Of An OW Swimmer

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming The Mindset Of An Open-Water Swimmer By no means do I want to suggest that there is a Correct Mindset for an OW swimmer, and that others are wrong. With the variety of humans and sports out there, there are also a variety of motivations and values for why [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Familiarity With Your Self

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming Part 8 of 9 – Familiarity With Your Self Along this sub-theme of increasing Familiarity as part of the strategy for overcoming fear in OW, I would like to point you inward. As in the previous sections this also is not an exhaustive list of things to examine, but [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Familiarity With The Environment

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming Part 7 of 9 – Familiarity With The Environment The third part of our strategy is Familiarity: Familiarity with the environment (water, surrounding terrain, and weather) and familiarity with the swimmer (yourself) that is swimming in it. It might be helpful to use this simile- As a swimmer in [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Focus For The Mind

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming Part 6 of 9 – Focus For the Mind FOCUS Your mind needs positive, productive, prioritized things to dwell on while you are swimming, especially under stress (voluntary stress of racing or in fearful situations). Again, what you practice is what you will perfect. What you train your brain [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Automate Good Technique

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming Part 5 of 9 – Automate Good Technique Good technique enables you to swim with control over your speed and energy consumption, and to do this without injury. But to be of value under a stressful OW situation, that technique needs to be so ingrained that even under strain [...]

Overcoming Fear in OWS- Managing Real Fears and Dangers

Overcoming Fear In Open Water Swimming Part 4 of 9 – Managing Real Fears and Danger Fear is a healthy response to danger. We don’t want to do away with the necessary triggers and healthy responses to it. We need it to survive and to succeed. What we want to do is train so that [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Removing Irrational Fears

Overcoming Fear in Open Water Swimming Part 3 of 8 – Removing Irrational Fears There’s an ocean of suggestions and help out there for all sorts of mental ailments and fear. I will simply present some ideas that may appeal to those who don’t feel they need professional help to deal with their irrational fears [...]

Overcoming Fear In OWS- Separate Phantoms From Real Fears

Overcoming Fear in Open Water Swimming Part 2 of 9 – Separate Phantoms From Real Fears We want to take a daunting or even a seemingly insurmountable challenge and break it down into small, more easily conquered pieces. This is a simple approach to tackling all kinds of overwhelming tasks. (Check out this essay on [...]