Although swimming is an essential life skill, traditional teaching and coaching methods have made it difficult to master because they teach an awkward, exhausting style of swimming. Total Immersion (TI) is a foolproof approach to teaching, brings results far faster than conventional methods and helps any student master a fluent, efficient and beautiful technique. Our guest today is Terry Laughlin, who will discuss his swimming background and how he came to create Total Immersion. We will also discuss how TI differs from traditional methods of swim training as well as how kaizen (continuous improvment) swimming can sharpen the mind-body connection and achieve heightened self-awareness and self-mastery, leading to greater physical and mental well-being. Terry is the founder, Head Coach and CEO (Chief Executive Optimist) of TI Swimming. Without him, we'd all still be kicking and churning our way through some seriously unhappy laps. Terry continues to live, eat, breathe and sleep swimming on a daily basis and he is completely in charge of the "wet" aspects of TI. In his 50s, Terry focused on demonstrating Mastery in swimming by trying to swim both farther and faster than he had earlier in life. He completed four marathon-distance swims--swimming 28.5 miles around Manhattan in 2002 and 2006, swimming the English Channel with two good friends in 2009, and crossing Maui Channel and completing the Tampa Bay Marathon in 2010. On the speed side, he won five US Masters open water national championships and broke national records for the 55-59 age group on three occasions in the 1- and 2-Mile Cable Swims.