7.1. What is “sculling”?

Sculling is the royal discipline of swimming. In Czech, sculling is sometimes called paddling or rowing, but the term isn’t used much. These are special drills to develop your feel for the water. The core idea is to “catch” the water at the start of each stroke and tilt your palm in such a way that you don’t lose grip on the water at any point during the stroke.

The sculling motion looks like a horizontal figure-eight that you draw with both hands in opposite directions.

There are dozens of sculling drills, and they all help develop your sense of pressure in your palms – your “feel” for the water. That means your palm naturally and automatically finds the right tilt when pulling – the angle that pushes you forward most effectively and with the least effort.

Now imagine you’re in a boat and paddling with a big oar to move forward. Now imagine you’re holding just a stick, without a paddle – and trying to move forward with it. That’s the wrong angle, the wrong palm position, the one we don’t want – because there’s no surface to push the water with.