Swim Smooth Swim Type guides?

[Becky]

Have any swimmers or triathletes here used the Swim Smooth Swim Type stroke correction guides (http://www.swimtypes.com/guides.html)? Overall, I'm pleased with the progress that I've made since the beginning of the year, but it feels like there's something still missing from my stroke that's keeping me from being truly efficient. Lessons or coaching aren't in the budget....

Any feedback?

[ThinkTwice]

I am not familiar with stroke correction guides. However, I was a competitive swimmer from age 9 through all 4 years at NCAA level and when I was in high school and college I used to teach private swimming lessons for $15/30 minutes. Usually it was just little kids, but I also taught efficiency and stroke correction... after all, I spent 3-4 hours/day listening to my coach talk about it so I knew what I was doing. If you have one nearby, I would go to a local elite swim club (http://www.usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=2078&Alias=rainbow&Lang=en) or university and advertise "Swim lessons wanted" and specify college-level athlete/instructor. I would have thought that was my lucky day to find that 5 years ago. College swimmers come cheap and there's no substitute for one-on-one, real-time stroke correction, even if you can only afford 1-2 lessons.

[Pax]

Agree with ThinkTwice 100%, an adult swim coach should be able to fix your stroke in a very short time. Try your local US Masters (http://www.usms.org/)team too.

I've worked with two former marathoners who were transitioning to Tri's and since I was dealing with individuals who had good cardio fitness AND some athletic ability to begin with, it was a quick fix both times.

[Melalvai]

We're about to start a peer-coaching thing. We're all fairly equally clueless, we've read Total Immersion and watched Mr. Smooth. Our plan is, one swimmer says to a peer-coach "Watch my form, I want to know if I do this or that".

(and hopefully some more experienced swimmers will get involved and give us a little guidance!)

I'll let you know how it turns out.