DVD Review: Richard Quick's Underwater Swimming, "The fifth stroke" (Thumbs Up)

[SCAQ Member]

Thumbs Way Up.

Lot's of discussions regarding technique, and drills on how to obtain it.

Though the guy drawing stick-women to illustrate complex concepts is back, there is plenty of footage to illustrate various ways to atttack after launching off the walls. There are drills, styles, even demonstrations of Misty Hyman's way of doing a "sideways" dolphin kick off the wall. I tried it today in workout and got farther away from the line than usual.)

Fins are shown, even the monofin which now I have to get, cords and such too.

This purchase was worth the $35.

[breastroker]

Don't tell me Clay will let you try something new. I am amazed.

Breaststrokers have always known about the fifth stroke

I coached a high school girl a few years ago. A natural butterflier who's bad shoulders prevented her from swimming fly. I had her do dolphin kick on her side, she was a natrual.

We started her with 2 dolphins off each wall in the 500 free at the first high school meet. By league champs she was doing 5 dolphins on her side off of each wall. I figure she swam freestyle less than 300 yards and the rest was the pushoffs and dolphins.
She did a lifetime best.

[SCAQ Member]

Don't tell me Clay will let you try something new. I am amazed.

I do appreciate your imput and your anecdotal confirmation regarding your high school coaching experiences. It is very good to know :-)

However, I don't feel a need to defend Clay Evans' accomplishments either in or out of the water. You should address the above comments to Clay himself rather than a public message board.

Take care.


Tony

[breastroker]

Clay and I are old friends. But he can be old fashoined. He will argue for hours about not needing a water bottle on the pool deck. And he hated the first mens full body suits, until he finally wore one.
So I like to kid Clay.

As for acomplishments, Clay is great both in the water and as a Coach and swimming promoter. No one promotes swimming better. He is always getting on TV here in LA, and every time swimming gets a boost. I have seen Clay do some amazing swims in competition, just amazing. Like his 28 seconds last 50 of a 200 backstroke to win Nationals one year. Or his 1:01 100 breaststroke, and of course his IM's.

Tony, are you aware that as a registered masters swimmer, you have free access to many swim DVD's? The local LMSC, SPMA has many new DVD videos, as does USMS. You can get these for the cost of postage, and then decide on purchasing your own.

And if you like reviewing these DVD's, SPMA would love to publish your comments on the videos in our newsletter. We need reviews of these DVD's. Not all videos are good, your reviews will help prevent people from buying ones that don't help and can promote the better videos.

For ten years I was Librarian for SPMA, I carted the videos and books to each meet and mailed them out between meets. And I viewed every one, and did some reviews for Swim magazine. They helped my swimming and my coaching.

Swimming technique has changed and so the new DVD videos show the latest techniques. For the most part production values are better, editing is better. But there were some great VHS videos too, unfortunately many were not put into DVD format. And many are just not available any more.