How to Fly – Smarter Swimming with Swim Mastery

From Awareness to Application

You now understand the hidden forces at play in the water – the drag that slows you down, the subtle grip that propels you. But knowing how water works is only half the equation. The real magic happens when you learn to work with it.

In the last issue, we explored how water behaves around your body - why drag happens, how bubbles reduce grip, and why swimming just below the surface during push-offs and glides can reduce resistance. If you haven’t read that yet, go back. It lays the foundation.

That's where The Swim Mastery Way, developed by Tracey Baumann, steps in. This holistic approach to swimming technique prioritizes feel, efficiency, and injury prevention. It takes everything we just learned about hydrodynamics and shows us how to translate it into fluid movement. This method doesn’t rely on brute force. Instead, it teaches you to coordinate, align, and connect your body with the water - because swimming is a whole-body rhythm, not an upper-body brawl.

Let’s explore five Swim Mastery principles that help you swim smarter - not just harder.

1. Connect the Whole Body

To minimize energy waste and maximize propulsion, Swim Mastery teaches you to connect your entire body. The best swimmers don’t move in parts. They move as one connected unit. Power comes from the core - torso, spine, hips - and is transferred outward through arms and legs. Disconnection means drag.

• In practice: Try swimming with fins and your arms by your sides. Focus entirely on rotating your hips and shoulders together. You’re not propelling yourself with your arms, so you’ll feel exactly how your body rhythm affects speed and flow.

• Drill Variation: Add light dolphin kicks while keeping your hands at your sides. Feel the spine drive the motion.

• Cue: “Swim from the inside out.” Let the torso lead. Let the limbs follow.

2. Respect Joint Mechanics

To reduce resistance and build sustainable speed while preventing strain and injury, Swim Mastery encourages movement that respects how your joints are built to move. Many swimmers fight their own anatomy. They overreach, hyperextend, or lift from the shoulder instead of rotating. This leads to strain, inefficiency, and overuse injuries. A soft elbow (allowing for a more efficient recovery over the water and a better catch position), a rotating scapula, a relaxed wrist - all of it helps.

• In practice: Swim freestyle with one arm, holding the other at your side. Focus on the feel of the shoulder blade gliding, the elbow staying soft, and the body rotating underneath the arm.

• Drill Variation: Try recovery drills like zipper drill or fingertip drag to reinforce relaxed, aligned movement.

• Cue: “Let the joints lead.” If it feels forced, it probably is.

3. Feel the Water, Don’t Force It

To unlock true power, the Swim Mastery Way emphasizes developing a tactile awareness of the water. The most powerful swimmers aren’t the ones with the strongest pull. They’re the ones who know how to connect to the water before applying force. This tactile awareness - known as “feel for the water” - is a skill, and it’s trainable.

• In practice: Sculling drills (small, controlled hand movements that 'feel' the water's pressure) are the go-to here. Try 3x25m of front scull (arms extended, small sweeping motions near the surface). Feel the pressure change as your hands move. Follow that with 3x25m freestyle, eyes closed, focusing on the feel of water along your forearms.

• Drill Variation: Try breaststroke arms while floating. Just the pressure, no propulsion.

• Cue: “Hold the water before you move it.” Don’t rush the catch. Let the pressure build.

4. Practice with Purpose, Not Just Volume

To achieve real progress, Swim Mastery encourages short, mentally engaged sets with specific goals. We’ve all done long, mindless sessions. They have their place - but real progress comes from focused, intentional work. You’re not just moving laps - you’re training patterns. Drills aren’t about looking “drilly.” They’re about developing feel, rhythm, and understanding.

• In practice: Alternate between drill and swim to bridge technique into movement. For example:

  • Set: 8x25m

  • Odd: Fingertip drag (to focus on high elbow recovery and streamlining)

  • Even: Easy freestyle, cue: “Grow tall” Focus on length, stability, and alignment. Rest just enough to stay mentally sharp.

• Drill Variation: Add tempo trainer or snorkel to remove distractions and hone timing.

• Cue: “Train the brain, not just the body.”

5. Use Simple, Effective Cues

To guide your movement instinctively, Swim Mastery leverages simple, visual cues that your nervous system understands. Biomechanical explanations rarely stick mid-stroke. Good cues create feelings or images that your nervous system can act on. Try a few and see which resonate for you:

• “Swim on train tracks” – for alignment

• “Press the pool behind you” – for back-directed force

• “Soft elbow, strong body” – for relaxed recovery with structural connection

• “Zip the wetsuit” – for shoulder alignment and posture

• How to use them: Choose one cue per set or session. Repeat it like a rhythm. Don’t overload your brain with five at once.

• Cue mantra: “Say less, feel more.”

Bonus: Rhythm Over Rigidity

And here's a crucial mindset shift that underpins all these principles: swimming should feel fluid, not robotic. Drill work isn’t meant to install rigid technique. It’s meant to reveal patterns, help you explore them, and refine them with rhythm.

That’s why most of these drills use the body’s natural coordination systems - core-initiated motion, spinal rhythm, and cross-body timing. The idea isn’t to force yourself into a mold. It’s to help you discover what smooth, efficient swimming feels like.

Final Thought

What separates an efficient swimmer from a struggling one isn’t force. It’s coordination. Awareness. Timing. Feel.

You already know how the water works. Now you’re learning how to work with it. And this is just the beginning.

Ready to transform your swim from a fight to a fluid dance? In our next issue, we'll translate these physics principles into practical techniques you can apply immediately, diving into how the Swim Mastery method helps you cooperate with water, not brute-force against it. You'll learn to truly connect posture, pressure, and rhythm for a more effortless and powerful swim.

If you found this helpful, please share it with a fellow swimmer who's ready to transform their stroke. And I'd love to hear from you, tell me which of these principles resonated most with you.