How a Documentary About my favorit Artist Ended Up Changing How I Coach Freestyle

Every once in a while you watch something that sneaks into your life and doesn’t leave.
For me, it wasn’t a coaching seminar, or a biomechanics course, or some high-performance training lecture.

It was a documentary about an artist —The Beauty of Questions, which follows Robert Irwin.

Most people in swimming have no idea who Irwin is, and honestly, before I watched this film, neither did I. But it completely rewired the way I think about movement, learning, and how to teach freestyle. What I coach today — the opposite-quadrant timing, the focus on ribs and posture, the obsession with feeling over memorizing — all of that traces back to Irwin.

That film is the reason I coach the way I do, even when it doesn’t look like what’s floating around online.

Irwin’s Big Idea: The Question Is the Work

Irwin wasn’t interested in painting for the sake of painting.
He was interested in perception— what happens in the moment when you actually see something. His entire artistic life was built around asking questions that lead to deeper questions. He thought answers closed things down too quickly.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s coaching.
That’s teaching freestyle.

Most technique advice you find online is basically a set of commandments:

• Keep your elbow high

• Rotate your body

• Kick from the hips

• Don’t cross over

• Breathe like this

Lists are neat. They feel productive. They give you the illusion of mastering something because you can repeat the words back.

But lists don’t teach you how to swim.
They teach you how toremember instructions.

And Irwin’s whole philosophy — the idea that the question is where the real growth happens — made me realize why so many adults struggle when they try to fix their technique by watching YouTube breakdowns.

You can’t “answer” your way into good swimming.
You have to learn to notice.

Freestyle Isn’t a Set of Parts — It’s an Experience

Irwin made work that changed depending on where you stood, how long you stayed, what the light was doing. The piece wasn’t the object — the piece was theexperienceof perceiving it.

Swimming works the same way.

Two people can attempt the same drill and feel completely different things. One person’s “high elbow” is another person’s shoulder pinch. One person’s “kick from the hips” is another person’s lower-back tightness. Nothing lands the same way.

That’s why sensation matters more than memorizing a cue.

When I’m coaching, I’m not just watching your stroke. I’m watching what changes inside your body when we change a single detail:

• How does your breathing change when your posture settles?

• Do your legs react differently when your ribs drop?

• Does your catch collapse when your head turns?

• What happens to timing when anxiety kicks in?

This isn’t about chasing a perfect picture. It’s about understanding what your body is telling you.

That’s Irwin again: the work is perception.

Why I Don’t Copy What Elites Do in Races

A lot of technique videos online use footage of elite swimmers — usually racing or filming a clean demonstration with perfect lighting and zero fatigue. Those videos are interesting, but they don’t show how that swimmerlearnedthe movement. They don’t show the internal questions, the mistakes, the thousands of small adjustments.

Trying to teach an adult to swim by showing them elite race footage is like handing someone a finished Irwin installation and saying, “Here’s how he made it.”

You’re skipping the part where learning actually happens.

So yes, the freestyle I teach looks different from what’s common on the internet. That’s intentional. I’m not trying to recreate the final snapshot. I’m trying to help you build the internal experience that leads to sustainable, efficient movement.

Why My Approach Is Different

Everything I teach — the opposite-quadrant timing, the emphasis on posture, the refusal to use the word “glide,” the narrower catch, the rib position, the breathing strategy — all of it started with Irwin.

Not because he was a swimmer, but because he understood something most people miss:

If you want to learn something deeply, you need to learn how to ask the right questions.

When I coach, I’m not looking for the “right” stroke. I’m looking for the rightinquiry:

• What keeps this swimmer the most stable?

• What reduces drag fortheirbody, not “the ideal”?

• What timing pattern gives them breathing control?

• What cue helps them feel connected rather than confused?

• What makes the movement simpler instead of harder?

Those questions are why my coaching looks different.
Those questions are why swimmers who’ve been stuck for years suddenly start making progress.

Freestyle Isn’t Something You Fix. It’s Something You Tune.

Irwin never believed in finishing a work. It was always evolving.
Freestyle is the same.

There’s no “final stroke.”
There’s just a growing sense of awareness — a sharper sensitivity to pressure, rhythm, timing, posture, and ease.

The moment you shift from “memorize this list” to “feel what’s happening,” everything changes. The stroke becomes intuitive. You stop fighting the water. You start controlling your pace instead of reacting to it. Anxiety drops. Efficiency rises. You finally feel like you’reswimminginstead of surviving.

That’s the beauty of questions.
And it’s the foundation of how I coach.