| First published in The Alexander Journal, no. 16, 1999. |
Steven and Limor Shaw are to be commended for their work in pioneering an approach to the teaching of swimming based on the Alexander Technique, which has led to the production of a book and video and the training of teachers (240 hours of instruction over one year, qualified to hold the Diploma in Aqua Development and Health endorsed by the Amateur Swimming Association).
Steven was a competitive swimmer whose sport became a pain in the neck - and back - and by the age of 17 he wanted to give it up altogether. Lessons in the Technique greatly helped his condition. However, it was only when his Alexander training course director questioned what Steven believed was his good swimming style, and his wife, Limor, observed what he was actually doing in the water, that the initial experimentation which led to their radically different approach, began. Extreme end-gaining - ploughing up and down the pool in his childhood - was gradually replaced by the joy of being in the water and the opportunity to free himself of residual strain and muscle tension.
In this review I shall focus mainly on the video but will start with the book, which came first. (The book’s co-author learnt to swim in a few weeks with Steven’s instruction and then was inspired to teach others.) The book is a critique of the usual ways of teaching swimming and an outline of how economical swimming technique can be acquired. It opens with a clear description of the basic ideas of the Alexander Technique and their relevance to swimming, followed by a chapter on the importance of being at home in the water. The influence of head position on the balance of the whole body in the water is illustrated and explained and leads into a short description of breast stroke, back stroke and front crawl.
Breathing is not addressed in detail until after stroke production is discussed. Since breathing is often the main concern, I think that the thorough analysis which is given would ideally be placed before consideration of strokes. There is a valuable account of the importance of the “oral seal mechanism” in preventing entry of water into the windpipe even when the mouth is open under water. Mention is also made of the ‘dive instinct’, first observed in seals, which tends to slow down metabolic processes when the mammal is under water. This may contribute to the calming effect of being in water; and there is evidence, shown in a recent QED programme on television, that it is operative to some degree in humans.
The problem of raising the head out of the water to breathe in breast stroke without stiffening the neck - and the pros and cons of different approaches - are not adequately discussed. In fact when I read the book on publication I understood that the Shaws’ solution was similar to the one I had proposed in Body Know-How five years earlier. I now know, having worked with them, that it wasn’t and that their solution is almost certainly a better one. This review, then, is partly a plea for us to be less inhibited about criticising our colleagues’ proposals! Such criticism does not have to be taken ad hominem. Karl Popper’s theory on the development of knowledge is that we make bold conjectures and then expose them to refutation; our faltering attempts at applying the Alexander Technique beyond the chair might then be developed and refined further.
The video was professionally produced, at a cost of £40,000, filmed at a private health club in North London and at the Red Sea. It is interspersed with interviews with champion swimmers including David Wilkie, an expert on dolphins, a newspaper editor who finds this way of swimming better than whisky as a form of stress relief, a physiotherapist who extols its health benefits and our own Chris Stevens (backdrop a fish tank, the wacky scientist!) talking about startle reflexes and so on.
The first section is about letting go and having fun in the water and shows something called Ai Chi, a Japanese method of hydrotherapy, but its relation to the Shaws’ method is not developed. The core of the video, and its great merit, is a detailed demonstration of the basic strokes - breast stroke, front crawl and back crawl. The common errors are shown - but perhaps in a contrived way - and then follows a step-by-step analysis and development of the constituent movements towards a fully-integrated and effort-free stroke. I would have liked more use of slow-motion photography: not everyone has a video recorder which can be run at slower speeds. The video ends with a scanty demonstration of the Alexander Technique on terra firma. Surely this should have been more fully covered at the beginning?
The first step towards mastery of breast stroke is shown as the releasing glide through the water, arms and legs extended, head supported by the water. But should the eyes tend to look directly down to the bottom of the pool, or slightly backwards? Then the arm movements are shown, directly guided by the instructor to give the student the correct experience - very different from the shallow wide arm pull previous generations were taught. Head movement is then added, raising it out of the water to breathe in (and blowing bubbles under water on expiration). The problem is to avoid stiffening the neck and retracting the head. It is not explained that we have the possibility of 10-15 degrees of extension of the head on the neck, followed by neck extension. Here I think a demonstration of the location of the head-neck joint, and the thinking needed to make this movement without strain, would have been helpful. The leg movements are then shown, each leg movement separately while balancing on the other. Confusingly what is demonstrated is not the same as the actual leg kick used in the stroke: flexion at the hip and then external rotation and abduction is shown when external rotation and then abduction/ flexion are deployed in the full stroke. And what is the viewer to make of the fact that Wilkie and the Israeli swimmer interviewed appear to demonstrate different breast stroke swimming techniques from what the Shaws advocate?
In front crawl, the importance of the hip-roll in turning the body to breathe in is emphasised, the head then leading the body back into the (brief) central position; the legs are mainly for balance, rather than propulsion. In back stroke, the value of allowing the shoulders to roll with the arm pull is clearly shown. We are encouraged to point the toes, which could lead to stiffness in the leg; perhaps it would be better to think of letting the whole leg extend out of the hip to the toes?
The Shaws have trademarked their method, an amalgam of Alexander principles applied to the best elements of current swimming teaching. I understand that this is to ensure that students trained in their method cannot be understood to be teaching the Alexander Technique per se. Nonetheless, the value of their approach is to be experienced in the water, in the same way that there is no substitute for the experience of Alexander lessons. Only after I had done some work with both Steven and Limor in the pool was I able to see more clearly what is conveyed on their video and to discover deeper levels of release in the water. The Shaws’ courses, book and video are for anyone who wants to improve their swimming and find more freedom within.
© Jonathan Drake. Reproduced with permission.
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This edition © Mouritz 2005. All rights reserved. |
