Learning in the Pool

Sue and I went swimming today, and my shoulders felt terrible. I was trying to change my style a little, to try to stretch out and lengthen the stroke. It wasn't working at all. But at the end, when we were warming down, two revelations came to me.
First, Sue had me just swimming very slowly, and she told me to put me head down. Then she told me to tuck my chin to my chest. When I did that, my hips popped right to the surface!
Second, for the last lap I did backstroke just to work different muscles. I felt great doing that: it felt like that finally loosened up my shoulders. So next time I'll do backstroke for warm-up. And I know that if I get tired during a swim, I can turn over and do backstroke for a while.