Drills For Skills | Mediterra Swim & Run

Long Live ‘Slide And Glide’

by Coach Mat | 19 Jun, 2012

I’ve been prescribing the classic TI drill “Slide and Glide” a lot recently. I used this for hundreds of hours in my early self-taught TI days, and it is still my favorite warm-up or warm-down drill. It’s a great way to pull together the focus...

Sensory Swimming

by Coach Mat | 2 Jun, 2012

What is the purpose of drills? Yes, the drills we use will help us build a beautiful and effective stroke. But they are also there, as importantly, to help us build a deep sensitivity to the water and our body sliding through it. We are not a machine, though sometimes...

Simplified, Intuitive Practice

by Coach Mat | 10 Apr, 2012

Here’s an exerpt from an email I received from a recent workshop student. I felt his question and my response may be helpful to those who feel overwhelmed or confused by what to do with TI in your practice times… I`m a little bit unstructured in my swim...

Machine Versus Fish

by Coach Mat | 4 Feb, 2012

Next time you’re at the pool or waterway, take a look at the swimmers around you. It is not hard to see the difference between those who swim like ‘machines’ and those that swim like ‘fish’- those that are mechanical in their movements,...

Train For Brain Power

by Coach Mat | 11 Dec, 2011

A lack of understanding of how the brain and body work together to learn new skills and achieve high performance can sabatoge our improvement. To help explain I’ll define two kinds of effort, and their result, the two kinds of exhaustion that we need to be aware...

Learning Requires Trust

by Coach Mat | 8 Dec, 2011

Continuing on with the topic of Challenging Normal, I’ll share a simple example of how even I, a swimmer quite focused on the details of my body and each movement, can develop a ‘blind-spot’, and greatly benefit from some outside feedback… In...