Coached by · weekly sessions, Oct 2025–present · SwimGym Amsterdam
Final edit in progress
One cue per length, and the whole thing reorganises — without ever feeling like more effort.
Natasza is a swim coach who makes technique feel precise without making it heavy. She has that rare ability I associate with great dance instructors: She can see what this individual needs to do next, right now, and then give a cue that is sharp and alive because it comes from embodied experience — not abstract rules. In the water, that shows up as hands-on clarity: she can literally grab my arm and transmit the missing rotation feeling so my body understands the shape immediately. What I value most is the way she cuts through wrong steering (power, forcing, trying harder) and brings the key point of view first — for example on catch: start with timing rather than power. In a group lane she still watches each swimmer and gives a specific correction that the swimmer's form is ready to absorb (entry, line, rotation, catch,...). Swimming becomes a series of clear experiments, neither vague effort nor overwhelming instructions
Freestyle catch timingEarly high elbowHand entry (anti-crossover)Head position & lineRotation & breathing timing
Body
About
Natasza Obuchowicz is a swim coach at SwimGym in Amsterdam, working on all four strokes technique. Her signature is timing before power: she cuts through "wrong steering" — forcing, grabbing, trying harder — and sequences the stroke so the shape starts earlier, the shoulder sets, and the high elbow arrives on its own rather than being hauled down. The result is a swim that feels deliberate, rather than vague effort.
Open the armpit and the right-side crossover stopsCatch starts with timing, not powerReverse paddles — a right catch lights up the absEars sink, and horizontal stops being a lieWait for the glide and the forearm sets itself
Guide Notes
First Impression
Natasza coaches the way the best dance instructors do: she watches one length and sees the single thing my body needs next. The cue is never abstract — it's sharp, physical, and it lands the same set. Even in a group lane she finds the individual correction, and it changes my stroke immediately.
What I Felt
The work reorganised my stroke from the inside. On entry in freestyle, opening the armpit and committing to rotation killed the crossover on my right side. In backstroke, she exposed the lie that I was horizontal — I was still "sitting in a chair" until I put weight on my head and let my ears sink into the water. On timing, waiting for the glide before the pull let the forearm set itself, and my core engaged without needing to think about it.
Breakthrough Details
The biggest shift was on catch. I'd been keeping the arm in the water too long, adding an angle, and only finding a high elbow at ~90° — already too late. Natasza's correction wasn't "pull harder," it was "start the shape earlier": straighten the arm, set the shoulder, and the high elbow rises upward into place rather than grabbing down. Using paddles without elastic bands (in reverse or specific like I had but did not know how to use) made the error undeniable; when it was right, my abs lit up instantly. She also showed two valid ways in — wrist rotation or elbow rotation — so I can reach the same mechanic depending on attention and fatigue.
The lateral "mermaid" twist I first met in Pilates is what finally made my difficult-side turns workable; the neck-and-chest alignment I learned from bodywork carried straight into holding my head in the waterline; and the "wait… glide… then pull" rhythm maps onto the 1-2-3 phrasing I'd met in Effortless Swimming. With Natasza these stopped being separate methods and became one connected sensation in the water.
Edition · June 2026
✦ Practice Notes
2 field notes · 2025
Focus on Shoulder Rotation to Keep Head Still in Backstroke
When I started adding my arms later in the 6x50 my head starting moving in all directions like I do in FC. So I really tried to focus on the shoulders, the shoulder rotation so that the head would not move. This was the trick for me. I had been told many many times to not move the head, but I was not sure how. Having felt the shoulder rotation in backstroke on Thursday with the first session I was able to focus on it again and that enabled me to get the head still. Tried to apply the same thing in Freestyle but it is much more difficult because of the breathing movement so it would really be good to try and practice with a scuba.
From Sitting Position to True Streamlining in Backstroke
So as written in the comment below, I really focused on kicking in horizontal position. By being in penguin, maybe I did not have the help from my arms like in streamline. Anyway I did my best to have the head in the water and to not offering my back against the water. First feedback was a shock: I was still too high and my back was sloping against the water (the chair image). I was able to really look for the extra weight on the head and the sign of having the ears immersed in the water (cue from Natasza Obuchowicz). And Natasza Obuchowicz confirmed I got it … but only for the 🐧 exercise.