I started swimming laps again in April. When I slipped under and pushed off the wall, I remembered how much I love being in water. My habitual practice set came back to me immediately, despite it being over a year since I last swam.

I signed up for an annual pass, and swimming is now part of my daily routine.

After two months of swimming four days a week, though, I saw no improvement in my stroke or my lap times, which seems like it shouldn’t even be possible. After two months, I should see at least a little improvement, right?

Perhaps this is obvious, but it became clear at some point that things wouldn’t change without me changing something. I watched some technique videos and started incorporating new drills into my practice.

Over the past week, I made one small change that cut 2 seconds off of my lap time: I paid attention to finishing the stroke. One thing I like about swimming is that it’s very technique-driven. This anchors me to the present moment. I’m paying attention to almost every body part as I move through the stroke: what is my leading hand doing, where are my hips for the kick, are my feet just flopping around, is my recovering arm relaxed and actually recovering?

Before I watched the technique videos, when I swam, I primarily paid attention to my pulling hand as it entered the water, then my elbow to make sure it was at the best angle to get a good strong pull; as soon as that hand was under my body, my attention would shift to my kick or my recovering arm that was out of the water. What I neglected was the follow-through of my pulling hand, which needed to complete its cycle. That hand still had a lot of water it could push against to propel me forward.

As soon as I paid attention to the follow-through, my performance immediately improved.