Chicago Blue Dolphins

Program Payment Plans

1. How does the punch-card work?

You will receive a card about the same size as a business card with 10 markers. Bring the card on deck every practice. One of the coaches will punch one of the markers. Once you use up your ten markers, you can purchase another card or opt into the session plan.

2. Should I go for the punch-card or should I buy the entire session?

If you think you're going to show up for two or more days per week (about 16 practices per session), you are better off going for the full session plan. The punch card was created for those who could not make more than one day per week or those who expected a major scheduling conflict that will cause significant absences (e.g., a month of 5-day per week business travel).

3. What organizations sponsor The Chicago Blue Dolphins and what discounts do you provide to their members?

The Chicago Blue Dolphins provide discounts to the members of two triathlon organizations, The Chicago Tri Club and Team Dream. The members of these organizations will receive "team rates" for all private lessons, stroke clinics, and other add-on services such as video-taping and analysis. The discount will be roughly 20% off of the public rate for the same such services.

Program Levels

1. Do you have a class or program for people who have no experience in swimming at all?

For those with no experience in swimming, a series of "learn-to-swim" lessons should be completed before undertaking a stroke clinic. These learn-to-swim lessons will address the most fundamental concepts in swimming: breath management, buoyancy, deep-water, basic aquatic postures, and propulsion. This basic sequence can be followed by a Level I clinic after the swimmer develops greater comfort with being in the water.

2. How good of a swimmer do I need to be to take a Level I freestyle clinic?

The Level I class assumes that the swimmer is comfortable in the water and can swim a version of the freestyle stroke continuously for 50 yards. Beyond those requirements, the clinic starts from basic postures and movements. The course is taught in short drill repeats usually no longer than one length so speed and swimming endurance is typically not an issue.

3. If I've taken other stroke clinics, do I need to take the Level I class before moving into the Level II class?

The coaching staff prefers that swimmers have gone through a Level I freestyle clinic, a TI weekend workshop, or lessons with a TI-trained coach before beginning the Level II course. The class assumes proficiency with the Total Immersion drills and an understanding of how the drills build up to the full-stroke form. The theme of the Level II class is "Practice and Reinforcement", so, technically, it's hard to practice skills that you haven't learned yet.

If a swimmer has some experience with Total Immersion and can pick up the drills quickly, the student can by-pass the Level I clinic. If the swimmer is having difficulty catching on after several practices, the coaches will ask the student to complete a Level I freestyle clinic or its equivalent before starting the Level II course.

4. What distinguishes the Level II group from the Level III group?

The Level II course targets swimmers transitioning from the Level I workshops or those who swim at a slow enough threshold pace that a focus on efficiency will produce faster improvement than a focus on improving endurance. The Level II course will be more biased toward drilling over swimming, but it will still contain a significant amount of yardage for a developing swimmer (approximately 2400-2800 yards in a 90-minute period). Since many of the swimmers in the Level II course are new to group swimming, the class will serve as a "Group Swimming 101" course teaching such topics as reading the clock, understanding a practice schedule, circle swimming etiquette, etc.

The Level III course continues to reinforce good swimming mechanics, but it adds a much greater volume of training to the regimen. The program will present the swimmer with sets that train all of the energy systems, from light intensity aerobic training and drill work up to lactate and pure speed sets. The Level III program is intended to produce good swimmers who can swim all four strokes, can do starts and turns, and can do more advanced open water tactics.

Program Background

1. What is Total Immersion?

Total Immersion is the world's leading source of cutting-edge swimming instruction via books, videos, technique workshops, and a cadre of teaching professionals and coaches. Total Immersion's technical offering is a series of thoughtfully choreographed skill drills which teach fish-like swimming - balanced, sleek, and flowing. It's also know for being an approach to swimming that views the activity as a movement art to be practiced with the same precision as martial arts and dance.

The Chicago Blue Dolphins employ the Total Immersion skill drills in their practices to keep themselves focused on maintaining long, smooth strokes.

For more information, refer to the Total Immersion website: http://www.totalimmersion.net.

2. I hear that you do a lot of stroke drills in your practices. How much swimming can I expect to do during a typical practice?

The amount of drilling will vary by the time of the year. Early in the fall and early in the spring, we'll review the basic drill progressions for freestyle and other three strokes as a group. In these sections of the year, we could spend upwards to 30% of our time in practice doing drill work. During the competitive parts of our year, the winter months and the summer months, we'll do less drill work in the interest of practicing and training effective swimming movements for our races. In general, less experienced swimmers will return to the drills more frequently during the practices because they are still in the learning stages of swimming.

For the most part, the practices will probably be 85-15 swim vs. drill for most of the year. We typically do some balance/undulation and timing drills during warm-up to loosen up and to remind ourselves what smooth, long strokes feel like. The drills will establish the theme for the practice. We'll try to carry the themes from the drills into the main swimming sets.

Many of our swimming sets will have some sort of technique focus whether it's trying to hold good balance, working on timing, hitting a stroke counting goal, or swimming with equipment such as fist gloves. We always want to try to keep the stroke feeling smooth even at the end of a long yardage or high-intensity set. Grinding out yardage with bad form at best builds bad habits that we never want to take into our races and at worst can lead to injury.

Program Miscellany

1. Coach Rich Wolny is twenty-one years old?! No way!

Way. Just ask to see his driver's license. Then buy the guy a beer.

2. Who is the guy in the picture at the top of the web site? Is that Fitz?

As much as he would like to lie, no, that's not John Fitzpatrick in the picture. It's actually our web site contact in the LA area, Paul Carter. At forty-six years of age, Paul is trying to qualify for the Olympic trials in the 100 meter butterfly. He would be the oldest qualifier in US Olympic swimming history. We thought he'd be a good person to have affiliated with our web site because he shows the capacity for Masters swimmers to think big and compete at elite levels. His achievements and journey are a good kick in the butt for all of us. You can read more about Paul at http://www.paulcarterswims.com.