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Master the Art of Swimming: Raising Your Performance with the Alexander Technique
 
 

Master the Art of Swimming: Raising Your Performance with the Alexander Technique (Paperback)

by Steven Shaw (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Collins & Brown (27 Jul 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1843403498
  • ISBN-13: 978-1843403494
  • Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 17.5 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 136,959 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #50 in  Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Water Sports > Swimming & Diving

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Product Description

Product Description
Swimming improves your flexibility, tones your body and can help to boost your self-esteem and produce a sense of well-being. It is the nation's most popular sporting activity with 11.9 million people swimming regularly. However, most people don't know how to swim properly. This book is based on a 35-year voyage of discovery into the art of swimming. Steven Shaw's method takes the Alexander Technique into the swimming pool - focusing on releasing tension from the head, neck and back. Steven has evolved a unique way of breaking down strokes into a series of therapeutic movements, which can be practised individually or with a partner, in a pool or on dry land. These provide the building blocks, which combine to make it possible for anyone to recraft their own strokes in a way that promote good body use and avoid injuries. Instead of performing physical actions in an automatic way, you begin to learn body awareness. This way of swimming not only feels freer and more open, it is graceful and has a sense of flow, often absent from the way many people swim. Shaw looks at the most popular strokes - front crawl, back stroke, breast stroke and butterfly - focusing on maximum efficiency and minimum strain.

About the Author
Steven Shaw learned to swim at an early age and soon became a competitive swimmer. In 1990 he started the three-year Alexander Technique teacher training course and during this time he explored his relationship with the water which has led to his new and very successful teaching approach: The Shaw method. This method has had huge acclaim over the past 10 years and Steven holds workshops and courses all over the world. He lives in North London.

Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars It works!, 30 Jun 2008
By Fiddler (France) - See all my reviews
After several years of unpleasant struggle to learn to learn front crawl as an adult, this book has brought me the success that I have been looking for and much more besides.

I work as a professional in ski teaching in the mountains in France and so I am very aware of many aspects of learning and teaching physical activity. 20 years in full time teaching has demonstrated to me that about 90% taught in any subject is guaranteed to be wrong information and that if a person is struggling and suffering then the fault is nearly always in the approach taken in either the learning or the coaching.

Swimming seems to be the same as in skiing in that instinctive movements cause a great deal of trouble and only learned movements work properly. Shaw bases his approach on this principle by directly relating it to Alexander Technique - which is about awareness of the body.

Swimming is also similar to skiing in that much is normally left down to natural selection. Awareness and understanding in both cases can circumvent this issue and bring amazing results with both adults and children - who would otherwise be sidelined. I was personally in the process of being sidelined as a swimmer and no friend or coach could really get me close to where I wanted to be. Shaw's book did the trick 100%. Suddenly I'm really enjoying my swimming. A kilometre of crawl isn't long enough or tiring when before I started the book 100m was my comfort zone limit.

It's a whole new universe of excellent experiences being just given to you. I was already a competent swimmer in general and a qualified open water diver - but was always reduced to zero by the crawl. I can also see now how incredibly inefficient most of the other swimmers are around me. How they strain their necks and their shoulders. All this was invisible to me before reading the book. The feelings of gliding and how all the actions coordinate are just great. I never thought I'd discover that water could be so much enjoyment and that it could be related to in this way.

I think there are very few swimmers at any level who would not get something out of this book.

UPDATE 20 Nov 2008
I've been using this material for almost 6 month's now and I still stand by all that I wrote before. However to go further I bought "Swimming Faster" by Maglischo. Swimming Faster is a massive text book and it is packed full of really useful information. I have found this necessary to add to my understanding. Without the foundation built on Steven Shaw's book I would not be able to make use of the detailed technical information in "Swimming Faster". Swimming Faster gives essential additional information and I'm sure there is no other book on the market that comes close to it - but the difference is that it doesn't teach you how to swim when you are at a fearful or demoralizing stage - and Shaw's book really does. Once you have passed the difficult stage then I strongly recommend Swimming Faster.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars The book's good ... the real thing is better, 7 Feb 2009
By Nick (Lancashire, UK) - See all my reviews
Steven Shaw is an inspiring swimming teacher, who applies the Alexander Technique to his methods. I bought the book after a one-day workshop on the crawl with Steven, which was really good. The book's useful for reinforcing some of the ideas, but it's no substitute for proper, real, in the water tuition. Trying to understand the different elements and stages of a swimming stroke is very, very difficult from a book.
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