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The thing about swimming that keeps experienced swimmers coming back decade after decade:

There is always something to work on. The sport never becomes easy.

Better swimmers have harder problems. More subtle technique issues. Smaller margins. Faster fatigue thresholds.

The challenge scales with your level. You never run out of things to improve.

Something that's genuinely true about the catch that most descriptions miss:

You're not trying to grab the water.

You're trying to anchor your hand and forearm so that when you pull your body past it, the water stays still and you move through it.

The hand is the anchor. Your body moves past the anchor. The water doesn't move — you do.

That mental model changes how the catch feels completely.

For the swimmers who have never tried fins:

Fins give you a feel for what correct body position and rotation feel like by artificially lifting your hips and giving your kick more propulsion.

Swimming with fins for 10 minutes and then removing them is one of the fastest ways to understand what efficient body position should feel like.

The contrast is immediate and instructive.

A thought on the difference between training and practising:

Training is doing the work to build fitness and endurance.

Practising is deliberately working on a specific skill until it's automatic.

Both are necessary. But most adult swimmers do too much training and not enough practising.

You need both. Schedule both. Don't let one crowd out the other.

What it feels like to finally swim 1500m without stopping for the first time:

Not triumphant. Not explosive. Just quiet and solid.

You get to the wall and you realise you've been swimming for a while and it just kept going. Your body found something sustainable and stayed there.

That steadiness — that discovery that you can just keep going — is one of the best feelings in the sport.