First 'successful' swim

Way to go.

Reaching that ah-ha moment in training is so rewarding.

Congrats, those break through moments are great!!! I was at the same place 2 weeks ago and this monday I swam 400yds in a mini tri in 9 minutes, about  10 people behind me I was very pleased!

I found the aha swim moment by allowing myself to trust the water long enough to rotate and breathe. now I feel I can get a breath no matter what, and that feels soooo good! good luck!

Congratulations,

I think I finally had my a-ha moment in the pool today. I read your post, and today in the pool I worked on gliding and breathing more and all of the sudden the 50's (the longest I have been able to go) became easy enough I was even able to do a couple of 75's , I am still hoping to be able to improve more but I know it will come if I just keep working

That's great! I'm glad my ' a-ha' moment was able to help you.

Boy I realized today how bad of a swimmer I must be. I went to the gym today and swam for the first time today with 'training' in mind, and boy was I lousy. I had to stop every 2-3 laps to catch my breath. I thought I'd be ok here, but I can see I'm going to have to spend some time on this. I've never had any training before but know the basic strokes. Unfortunately, a swim coach probably isn't going to happen for me simply because I can't afford it. If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear 'em!

-Tim

Being a total swim newbie (like I was) one of the things that will probably help you is reading Total Immersion.  It's a very good book for beginner swimmers, and will help to teach you the basics of a good freestyle. 

Since a coach is out of your budget, you'll have to work extra hard on being consistant and trying to get your form down well.  What can help a lot is to go to the pool at the same time for a while, especially if there are some good swimmers there at the same time.  After a while, you could maybe approach some of the better people about a little advice (but after they're done, not during their workout) and in my experiences, they're really helpful. 

Swimming is the most form intensive of the 3 sports, so getting that right is super important.  And fixing bad form is extra hard.

Good luck, and we were all there at one point.  You'll get it eventually and it'll happen soon enough.

Great Success!
I can share, I had my first moment as well Friday night.  I was doing sidestroke and breaststroke, then at about 800m, I then hit the smoothness of a good freestyle, and continued it for 300 more meters.
I too stopped kicking so much, focused on glide, kick for balance and stop concentrating on breathing so much, and let it naturally occur.  And I learned that by doing this I am not going to drown...worked well. Lets see if we can get to doing the whole 800m i need for my tri sprint in august.

This is really great reading to see all you guys that are having these a-ha moments. It makes me want to get back in the pool and KEEP WORKING! I know eventually I'll figure this out as well. If not, it'll be a long, 800 yard doggie paddle for me...heh.

For those of you looking to help reduce your kick and glide, this is a great thread with an amazingly helpful video of one of the best swimmers on BT.

The other benefit to not kicking too much is that you'll save your legs a bit.  When you figure out that less can be more with your swim, the "ah-ha" moment is very close.

I'm by no means a swimming expert here, or anywhere really, but I know where you're coming from as I'm not too far removed from my "ah-ha" moment myself.