Advice for Swimming Plateau?

I can't help, but I can second your post.  I've experienced almost the exact same learning curve you have, although I started in Oct and my "lessons" have come only from research and reading BT.  I'm at the exact same times you are and I'm wondering if I would have to devote more time than I really want to to get much faster, or if the speed will come with time.  Right now I'd say I have deceptive speed.  I look a lot faster than I am.

Thanks for starting this, I can't wait to see some of the responses.

that's about where I am now too.

My swim workouts have been incorperating speed work and I've noticed that my 50 yrd times droped fast and then leveled out, but my 100 yrd times are now following the same curve. So I might be noticing little improvment in my 50 ytd time, but I'm beginning to be able to hold that pace longer and longer, so my splits for the 500 and 1000 are steadily leveling out and I'm getting more consistant.

So assuming your form is correct, start doing some speed work on the short distances and work on increasing the distance of those sprints. Ladders and negative splits work quite well. Ladders are when you go like 50, 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50. Build and come back down. Negative splits would be swimming the first 25 at a brisk pace, pushing off the wall on your turn and sprinting back. Or do one lap quick and go immediately into a sprint lap. I'm a big fan of doing speed work after putting in a long set, so my arms are well warmed up and somewhat fatigued. The last few sprints I do usually suck pretty bad and I'm hurting from the effort, but I have been slowly getting faster.

If you happened to invest in a Silver Membership (or gold membership), Mike has some really good swim workouts that focus on this sort of thing.

 Like I said, I started swimming in late June and probably put in about 2-3 times per week June-Aug.  Then, Sept-Dec I only got to the pool about once per week.  Jan/Feb I've put in a solid two times per week.

 Thanks to everyone for their advice!  I'd love to swim 4-5 times per week, but it's a little tough right now.  Once our park district pool opens (late May/early June), it's only a half a block from my home, so I'll be able to swim at least 4 times per week.  Can't wait!

Lots of good advice here.  I've been swimming at least 3 times a week since October and I've hit that plateau.  My paces are consistently around 2:15/100 on longer sets 2:05/100 on shorter ones.

I know I've got issues with form, and I'm working on that.  It does get frustrating though, because I've seen significant impreovement in my other disciplines.  

Anyone have any ideas on how to "shorten" that learning cureve or plateau??