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Terrence James Laughlin (25 March 1951 – 20 October 2017), was an American swimming coach and founder of Total Immersion, a popular swimming technique that emphasizes form before speed. He also became a best-selling author and the producer of swimming videos that drew millions of views.
His teaching emphasized efficiency in the water through balance, streamlining, drag reduction and energy conservation. He targeted Masters swimmers and triathletes, stressing the benefits of finishing the swimming leg of competition with a low heart rate. Many coaches of age group, collegiate and elite swimmers adopted his approach.
Trainer Christopher Drozd described the book as "gold" in a review at SportFit.com, "Just as there is more to weightlifting than pushing some iron from point A to point B, swimming is a subtle and complex endeavor. A potentially dry (no pun intended) subject – learning to swim – becomes an entertaining journey through hydrodynamics and physics.
Laughlin also wrote "Extraordinary Swimming For Every Body - a Total Immersion Instructional," "Triathlon Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Anyone to Master Open-Water Swimming,” "Swimming Made Easy: The Total Immersion Way for Any Swimmer to Achieve Fluency, Ease, and Speed in Any Stroke" and "Swimming Made Easy.”
He also produced numerous instructional videos, swimming in many of them. His most popular video, "Total Immersion Freestyle Swimming Demonstration,” has accumulated more than 2.2 million YouTube views.
"He was on a mission to change how swimming was taught all over the globe – the business was a byproduct of that passion. Terry stood tall in stature and influence, and to some he appeared larger than life. But those who knew him well were struck by his child-like curiosity about the world, and the optimism with which he confronted life’s challenges and rewards," wrote Laughlin's friend and business associate Keith Woodburn.
“After living with metastatic prostate cancer for two years (about which he blogged widely), Terry died on Friday, October 20th, 2017, of complications related to his condition. He displayed his characteristic optimism, wit, and passion for life—and swimming—until the very end," wrote his wife Alice and daughters Fiona, Carrie and Betsy, in a news release carried by slowtwitch.com.
Following his death, The Economist wrote that Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion "has become a bestselling book, a much-watched series of videos, a coaching business and a catchphrase among hydrophiles the world over. It turned even the most timid novices into smooth, confident strokemakers, and honed the technique of champions."
His lifelong passion for swimming involved multiple roles—student, athlete, coach, teacher, technician, author and producer—while his career took him all over the world, from Hawaii to Thailand to the Caribbean. Although he trained national-level swimmers as well as top-ranked triathletes, Laughlin found much satisfaction in teaching people who were afraid of water — who were 20, 30, 40, even 90 years old, who had never learned to swim.
While he improved swimming for thousands, Laughlin also paused to focus the individual. "He never dismissed an honest inquiry with a curt response and would spend hours each day returning emails," wrote his longtime Master's Swimming lane mate David Barra. "Terry always sought new ways to quantify and communicate the relationship between effort and efficiency in terms accessible to the novice and expert alike. He did so with a contagious enthusiasm."
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