Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way To Swim Better, Faster, and Easier Book

Surprisingly (seriously - as in, wow, I didn't expect that) gratifying and effective, with the Goodreads caveat that this is a how-to, instructional book (again, to be clear, it's not literature and there's no real story going on here), and I wouldn't recommend for anyone who isn't looking for some help with their (duh) swimming. Conversely, I can't remember ever having read a how-to book that generated such immediate results (which, frankly, is kind of cool).

Throw me into the category of folks who've swum, on and off, for decades, with unimpressive results. I lost interest in triathlons because my swimming was frustrating/disastrous, and I rarely, if ever, saw improvement. (Swimming was great for cardio and injury recovery, bad for ego and self-esteem.) But, having decided to give swimming another try, a little bit of research led me to this book (now in its 22nd printing), and I'm glad I bought it.

Assuming you buy into his approach - and, otherwise, why would you buy the book? - his guidance and descriptions are clear, and, more importantly, they seem to work (almost immediately). What I found particularly valuable, however, was that he frequently anticipated my problems/pathologies and offered concrete solutions (or, what I might describe as workarounds) to address them. Moreover, as cynical as I was about many of his (almost breathless) claims about how much more comfortable I would feel in the water, how much more smoothly I would cut through the water, and how much better I would feel after my workout, he was pretty much spot on (at least so far). Who knows? Maybe he duped me into thinking I'm doing better, but, then again, who cares? (Of course, time will tell.) I'm not so delusional that I expect this book will turn me into an age-group elite competitor, but - at least to my mind - it (almost immediately) did exactly what it claimed it would do, help me swim better, faster, and easier, which, again, is pretty cool.

Like many folks who read and enjoyed the book, I'd love to find a way to attend one of the author's clinics - my sense is that's he's an excellent coach/teacher.

The strangest aspect of the book is that so much of it (it felt like the first quarter, maybe the first third) is spent convincing you to buy into to the system or the different approach or the paradigm shift or the author's way of thinking/coaching. And that's all fine, but - gee - I already bought the book, so I'm willing to try it - so let's get to work already... I also agree with the folks who say that the book has a tendency to be (extremely) repetitive, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing (from a pedagogical standpoint). Also, I found the line drawings to be relatively easy to understand, but I don't think there's much doubt that a few dozen photographs would have really helped. Conversely, the author also wants you to buy the video(s), and that's OK, because that's his business model, and more power to him.