Having been following lane lines for months now, we’re at the beach for a few days, and getting in some open water swimming.
Looking for some ideas on ‘sighting’ in open water, I thought that this video clip of Terry Laughlin from Total Immersion Swimming was particularly good:
An article on their website by Suzanne Atkinson she makes the point:
Rather (than) try to fight the water lifting your head up for several seconds at a time in order to get a clear and unobstructed view of your landmarks or buoys, accept that it’s OK to only see a little bit of information at a time. In a few more strokes you can take another peek and gather some additional information. You only need to see a little ways in front of you, or that you are mostly headed in the proper direction.
The actual sighting technique, which I’ll talk about in detail in the next article and an accompanying video, requires just a “peek” above the water. A small slice of visual information. in a brief moment, the light hits your retina and travels to your brain faster than you can process it. By the time you’ve thought about what you have seen, there is already new visual information streaming into your brain.
Off to the ocean to give it try 🙂
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