Learn How To Swim 101: Overcoming Fear - Christmas

Learn How To Swim: Overcoming Fear - Christmas

The thing about fear of the water when you learn how to swim is that, unless it is a genuine phobia, it actually has more to do with fear of not being in control rather than the water itself. This reminds me of Christmas.

Photo by Lynda Hinton on Unsplash "Santa On The Beach"

For example, when a student or their parents wanting them to learn to swim, one of the first things that I teach them is how to float. usually in order to teach them how to float I first have to teach them how to stand up.

I may struggle to gain the confidence of the swimmer but that usually all changes the moment the swimmer learns that they have enough control to stand up on their own.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

It's the same with a swimmers fear of the deep water in most cases as soon as they learn that in the worst case they can roll over onto their back the deepwater loses its threat.

Each of these cases is cause for great celebration one mastered.

Christmas is also a cause for great celebration. It's the celebration of the birth of a child that would end up giving us the ultimate control. That of our own destiny.

Merry Christmas

And to all of those that live in Australia where Christmas is in Summer, don't for get to slip slop slap (slip on a shirt, slop on the sun screen and slap on a hat).

And as Laurie Lawrence would say:
Fence the pool
Shut the gate
Learn to swim
Supervise (and watch you mate- parenthesis mine)
Learn to resuscitate

Enjoy     
Richard

Swimming Stroke Correction – Backstroke, Freestyle Exaggeration

The Irony Of Exaggeration in Swimming Stroke Correction

Exaggeration is the key to fixing many swimming faults. Which is ironic because overreaching is one of the main faults and it is an exaggeration in itself.

Backstroke Over reaching

For example: a swimmer is doing freestyle, Zig zagging in the water or doing backstroke and Zig zagging. What could be causing it?

The most common cause is over reaching (left) in backstroke and the arm going past the centre of the body whilst doing freestyle.

Defining the Problem

Now sometimes the solution is to tell the swimmer to keep their head still as inevitably they are moving their head in order to accommodate the arm as it extends past the centre of the body. This has the advantage of allowing the swimmer to keep the full extension of the arm and thus maintaining maximum reach and therefor their best efficiently.

However, it is not often that effective, in that most swimmers don't know they are moving their head and therefore have no feedback in order to stop it.

You can, of course, walk beside them on the deck of the pool calling out to them each time they do it and eventually they come to feel it. However, that is not always practical.

The problem often arises when swim teachers have, often quite correctly, instructed their students to bring the hand up past their ear as they have their hand enter the water.

The Idea Behind This

The idea behind this is that it causes the student to fully extend their arm, allowing them to catch as much water with their hand as they can, giving them more water to move and therefore more propulsion. More propulsion means easier flotation (as long as everything else is in the correct position of course) and easier flotation means more efficient movement through the water.

Unfortunately, unless a close eye is kept on the swimmer it is all too common for the student to put so much effort into getting their hand to their ear, they end up overshooting the mark and then it becomes a habit.

Exaggerated Arm Movement

The Solution I Find To Be The Easiest

The solution I find to be the easiest, as I have already said, is to get the student to exaggerate the movement (Right) in the other direction. The effect is that although the swimmer feels like they are exaggerating the movement their body is so used to overreaching they end up more-or-less in the correct position.

Exaggeration works just as effectively with correcting freestyle faults such as a swimmer overreaching past their head and swimming their arm under their chest past their centre.

You must keep this as a drill however otherwise you end up with the opposite problem: the arm not reaching far enough and not, therefore, catching enough water.

Now take a look at Breaststroke or Freestyle

Enjoy
   Richard

Things To Say That Help Beginner Swimmers Understand

Communicating To Beginners

No one statement or term alone when trying to teach swimmers will do the trick of communicating what is needed, to correct faulty action in swimming technique. This is because each and every term is going to bring it's own set of problems.

Child Listening and Blowing Bubbles

Lets take floating for example:

If I say "tighten your bottom" this tends to force many people to raise their hips but if a person is very nervous then they are also going to tighten their stomach muscles and that will have the opposite effect.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

For kicking and floating:

"push your toes up" is a good way to get a swimmer to bring their legs to the surface of the water but for some people it will also result in them also lifting their knees out of the water. So a set of instructions is often needed.

If a swimmer is sinking in the middle I might say:

"tighten your bottom"
"push your bottom up"
"relax your tummy muscles"
"push your tummy up"
"push your toes up"
"push your knees under"

All according to what is being done wrong.

Always Be On The Look Out For Other Ways To Say It

I am always on the look out for other ways of saying things. When I talk to children and I want them to put their face under water, I might say "put your face in the water" only to have them put every part of their face in the water except their eyes. This no doubt is mostly due to fear but it still pays to be more specific. Hence:
"put your eyes under water"
"put your whole face in the water"
"get your ears wet"

Take The Torpedo Position

When it comes to a torpedo it is not uncommon, when asked to "take the torpedo position", for the student to put their arms by their side.

Thus:
"put your hands over your head" (often resulting in hands going on the swimmers head)
"make your hands like a rocket"
"put your arms over your ears"
"put your ears under your arms"
And sometimes even "here let me show you" is the only thing that works :)

Freestyle or Backstroke

When it comes to getting a swimmer to start freestyle or backstroke:
"Lift your ams out of the water"
"make big circles with your arms"
"lift your arms high in the air"
"reach with your arms"
"use big long arms"
"stretch your arms"
"you need to grab more water so you can push your self harder/faster"

What's my point?

The best way to be a good swimming teacher or student is to be creative with you language. I say student because it's not only teachers that need to learn other ways to say things. Sometimes if you want your teacher to help you, you may have to learn to ask the question in a different way.

Enjoy
   Richard

Freestyle Improvement: Breathing Action Correction

Freestyle Improvement Through Breathing Action Correction

Aside from kicking faults, one of the many very common faults in freestyle is looking forward or worse, taking a second breath forward before putting your head back in the water after a breath. I want to now talk about freestyle improvement through breathing action correction.

Taking a breath to the side and then looking forward to taking another breath (seen below) messes up your whole timing and the result is that your breathing becomes problematic.

It seems simple enough to tell a swimmer not to do it because it's actually making their breathing more difficult, but even if they believe you, a habit is a habit and has to be untaught or it persists.

The Solution Depends On The Cause

If the cause is that the swimmer is not blowing all their air out underwater (blowing bubbles, lots of bubbles, getting rid of all their air underwater) the is just a matter of showing the swimmer how to blow bubbles. This can be done by getting them to practice breathing at the side of the pool or with a kickboard.  If they have been only doing it for a short time, as in the case of a beginner then this should fix the problem.

If the swimmer has been doing this for some time, then so is the solution. Going to take time that is. All too regularly do I get students with this problem that have come up through a swimming system and the fault has not been corrected for, in some cases, years.

The solution in this case is exactly the same. The swimmer will spend time on the side of the pool practising correct breathing and then with a kickboard and then repeat until the problem goes away.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

This May Take Many Sessions.

This may take many sessions or it may only take a few. I have one student that is a beginner but because of their hairstyle has learned to flick their hair on one side and then look forward out of the water, for so long that they do it when they breathe. It is taking a very long time to fix it. But they are getting better.

This is what your breathing should look like:

If You Have Tried Every Thing Else

If you are having a problem with your breathing and you have tried everything else I have suggested on this blog (look under breathing in the navigation bar), get someone to look at your breathing and if necessary try practising your breathing on the side of the pool and then with a kickboard.

You may want to read up on Breaststroke or Backstroke next.

Enjoy     
Richard

Improve Breaststroke Kick: Learn How To Swim 101

You Can Improve Breaststroke Kick

As you get stronger in your breaststroke and you have established a reasonable breaststroke action there are some minor changes you can make to improve breaststroke kick that may significantly improve your overall stroke efficiency.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

These are:

• Pointing your toes at the end of your kick
• Bringing your feet together at the end of your kick

I've waited till now to discuss them because, I find that if I introduce these concept too soon the swimmer does them too soon in their stroke.

Pointing Your Toes At The End Of Your Kick

Because most swimmers learn the freestyle first they are used to pointing their toes and so they try and do the frog kick with pointed toes. Whereas the kick must be done with, what I call a flat foot. That is the swimmers toes need to be pointing towards the torso of their body during the main kick.

So why introduce them now? Because once the frog kick has become established the student is able to add another element without compromising the main kick. Also because their are minor but significant efficiencies to be gain by pointing your toes at the end of the kick.

Basically by pointing your toes at the end of your kick you increase you streamline and move easier and often a little faster through the water.

Bringing Your Feet Together At The End of Your Kick

Because most students are concentrating on the stroke as a whole, to introduce the concept of bringing their feet together too early in their practice, only gives them too much to think about. The result is the swimmer gets confused and has trouble mastering the main kick.


So again why introduce bringing your feet together now? Because again there are minor but significant efficiencies to be gain by bringing your feet together at the end of the kick.

So how to do these two? Both are very simple to implement.

How To Bringing Your Feet Together

Bringing your feet together at the end of your kick is just that. At the end of your kick make sure you have your feet touch. This causes an eddy in the water and the eddy is forced out between your feet thus giving the swimmer a small but sometimes significant boost in their forward motion.

Breaststroke Kick: Bringing Your feet Together

How to Pointing Your Toes
Pointing your toes at the end of your kick again is just that. Making sure that you complete a full frog kick first the swimmer then straightens their legs and points their toes just as they begin their stroke. The result will be an improvement in your streamline and thus movement through the water.

The two work in unison. They are both performed at the same time at the end of the kick.

I know that I've said at the end of the kick a lot of times, but I can't over emphasize that element. If you try to do these things too soon in your kick you will muck it up and loose the advantage.

On the other hand do this right and you will gain improvements in your stroke efficiency.

If you haven't already you should now be developing yous freestyle or backstroke.

Enjoy
   Richard

Swimming Lesson Ideas: Teaching the Back Float

Back Float: Swimming Lesson Ideas

Teaching new swimmers or swimmers who just never learned Back float swimming, is a great responsibility and a tremendous privilege. Nevertheless, it is a very necessary skill to learn if a swimmer wants to improve or learn to swim.

There are many ways to teach a Back float. One way I have shown in a teaching floating video at the end of a previous post. But as I said in that post it's not as easy as that because most in cases your student is terrified about being on their back.

Here are some alternatives that I have found work when the method in the video doesn't (which is most of the time).

Start with the student's head on your shoulder.

Talking to them all the time.

Assuring them that they are safe.

Maintain a firm grip to make them feel safe.

Next whilst encouraging them to breathe in through the nose and out through their mouth (with the head out of the water of course), slowly move them away from your shoulder.

Once They Are Comfortable

Once they are comfortable with the above, which may take a few sessions (in some cases many sessions) then you should help them to lay crosswise in front of you.

In this position, your student may start to bow sideways usually in your direction. You should ignore this at first. As the student begins to feel safe they will usually straighten out.

Wrong Position: How To Help Some Learn To Float On their Back

If they don't straighten out you will have to change positions. If you have the head on your right side sometimes laying the swimming students down with their head on your left side will do the trick. If not try holding them under the arms with their head in front of you and feet away from you.

How To Help Some To Learn To Back Float Step 1

Once Your Student Starts To Relax

Once your student starts to relax you can then encourage them into their float. Say "Hands up above your head, head back (not underwater), tummy up (sometimes bottom or hips up communicates best), legs under and straight.

When you feel them begin to float off your hands you can then release them momentarily (tell them you are going to do it first and get the permission if you can). One second to start with (or the count of one). Then progress to 2 etc.

DON'T BREAK YOUR PROMISE!

DON'T BREAK YOUR PROMISE! Do what you say you are going to do. If you do something else you will lose their trust and that will take a long time to restore and make your job that much harder.

Help them to feel what you are going to do by using only one hand to do the action whilst your other hand remains supporting the swimming student.

How To Help Someone Learn To Float Step 2

The next step is teaching the swimmer to Sit up and Stand in the water from a floating position

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Enjoy
   Richard

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Feel free to write about any swimming-related subject you like. From time to time, however, I may request that you write on a different topic if I have more than enough on a particular subject. If you would like to write something but need a subject, I can usually help with that.

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Simply submit your article to richard_roper@swimteaching.com with the subject heading "Suggested Swimming Article".

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All articles are reviewed by me personally and acceptance of the article is entirely at my discretion. I will let you know if your article has been accepted or rejected as quickly as I can.

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Enjoy     
Richard

Breaststroke How To Fix Common Faults - Learn How To Swim 101

It's not much good improving your breaststroke kick if you have other faults that interfere with a proficient breaststroke. This time we are going to deal with what I've called "Breaststroke How To Fix The Most Common Faults".

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

Fortunately there are not that many common faults in breaststroke.

Breaststroke How To Fix: hands down to your hips; club foot; flutter kick

There are only three that immediately come to mind however.

1. Hands Down To Your Hips

Taking your breath at the end of a stroke that has involved you sweeping your hand down to your hips instead of your shoulders.

This is the most common fault of them all.

Remember this is wrong:

Hands To Hip Is Too Far

A breast stroke is a short stroke and should finish at your shoulders like this:

Breaststroke Breathing Arms Recover Under Chest

The solution is to shorten your stroke. It may take some practice but it should fix your problem.

2. Club Foot

What I've come to call a club foot. This is not the physical disorder that some people are borne with. I'm talking about the way some swimmers have one foot doing something other than what the other foot is doing. Both feet in breaststroke must be doing the same thing. Toes should be pointing towards the torso.

Breaststroke Kick Viewed From Above

This one can be difficult to fix because often swimmers can't feel that they are moving their foot in different directions. You need to get someone to look at your feet and get them to tell you if both feet are doing the same or different things.

Sometimes all you need to do is to tell the swimmer every time they do it wrong. For example someone stands on the edge and says "right, right, wrong, right, wrong, wrong, every time they kick. Eventually the swimmer gets more right than wrong. But it only works if you tell them every kick.

If that doesn't work one of the easiest ways to fix this - if it works - is for the student to do their frog kick with a pull boy between their legs. It's not easy to do but with practice it usually shortens the kick and fixes the club foot. Remember a good frog kick is not necessarily a wide frog kick.


If this doesn't work the only thing left that I know of to do, is to get someone in the pool with the swimmer and whilst holding both their feet working through the action of the frog kick until it becomes smooth and feels normal.

3. Flutter Kick

The swimmer does a flutter kick at some point during their frog kick.

The solution? I only have one. You need to tell the swimmer every time they do it wrong. For example someone stands on the edge and says "right, right, wrong, right, wrong, wrong, every time they kick. Eventually the swimmer gets more right than wrong but it only works if you tell them every kick.

Once you have fixed these little faults you may want to change your kick to a whip kick.

That's it

Enjoy
   Richard

How To Swim Breaststroke For Beginners – Arms & Legs Together

The final stage of how to swim breaststroke for beginners is getting the arms and legs to work together.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

If you have been following this series on breaststroke you should now be quite comfortable with the breaststroke arm action, the breaststroke arm action and breathing and the breaststroke kick as separate units. Now its time to put it all together.

How To Swim Breaststroke For Beginners - Making It All Work

Putting your arm action together with your leg kick in breaststroke is quite simple really. I have a drill that I use to help correct the breaststroke of my swimming students and it works just as well for new swimmers to breaststroke.

The thing about breaststroke is that it should be performed in such a way as to make sure that there is always something moving. When your legs are still your arms should be moving when your arms are still your legs should be moving. And so on.


The reverse of that is that your arms and legs should not be moving all at the same time. Now when you see good swimmers it looks like everything moves simultaneously but the is a moment in any good breaststrokers stroke when there is a glide and only the legs are moving and the legs are still when the arms are moving.

Trust me on this if there is no glide then you will be moving too slowly in the water and you will not be moving as efficiently as you could. So make sure you do this drill as I describe it as best you can. As you get better at it you can get faster and faster. The faster you go the more it will look like you are moving things together but if you have done it right there will be a glide and there will be times when you legs are not moving but your arms are and you arms are moving but you legs are not.

This is the drill:

You must only do one action at a time.

Torpedo

Start in the torpedo position like this:

(Fig.#1) Start Breaststroke Torpedo

Legs and Breath

Next bring both your legs up at the same time and perform a frog kick. Remember that both legs must do exactly the same thing at the same time.
Like this:

(Fig.#2) Breaststroke Kick Action Whilst Breathing Out

This is where you breathe out. Blowing out all your air out, under the water (Fig.#2).

Torpedo Again

You then return to the torpedo position like this:

(Fig.#3) Return To Start Breaststroke Torpedo

Arms

Then perform your arm action like this:

(Fig.#4) Breaststroke Breathing Action

This is where you get to breathe in (Fig.#4). You get to breathe in at every stroke if you want to when doing breaststroke. That is why some people mistakenly call it breath stroke. But it is breast stroke as the arms cross the breast when you stroke. When you get better at it you may want to breathe less often in order to move faster. But for now lets do it at every stroke.

As the swimmer (Fig.#4) moves his arms into position to take a breath his legs naturally start to bend. This is natural and should not be interfered with because as the stroke gets faster the middle torpedo (Fig.#3) will effectively disappear and legs in this position are ready for the kick phase. But this should happen naturally and should be allowed to do so. That is don't correct as the second torpedo disappears, unless it is affecting the stroke or the kicking action.

The swimmers (Fig.#4) head starts to come out of the water at the start of the stroke so that it is in place to take the breath by the time the arms get to the position they are at in the Fig.#4. New swimmers should not be allowed to build up a habit of lifting their head to breathe after their arms are under their chest. To do so will result in breathing faults that are harder to fix latter on.

Back to Torpedo

Now return to your torpedo position like this:

Return To Start Breaststroke Torpedo

Now all you have to do is repeat the whole thing all over again for every stroke you want to make.

The sequence is: Torpedo, Legs and breath, Torpedo again, Arms, Back to torpedo (TLTAB).

As I said as you get better, move faster and over time you should have a reasonably proficient breaststroke.

Enjoy
   Richard

Breaststroke Kick: Learn How To Swim 101 - the Leg Action

Breaststroke Kick - The Next step

Once you have established your breaststroke arm action and breaststroke breathing, the next stage is to work on your leg action, The Breaststroke Kick.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

This is the hard part because you are teaching your legs to do something that they have not been doing till now. So we are going to teach the action separately from the arm action and put it all together later.

Often called the frog leg kick because of it's resemblance, some would say, of the way frogs kick, the best way to learn this kick is on your back with a kick board. Please make sure you do learn this with a kick board because you are not allowed to do flutter kick at all in breast stroke. A flutter kick (another term for the standard kick you do when you are doing freestyle and back stroke) even of the slightest, will get you disqualified in a competition.

Don't Plan On Competing?

"But I never plan on doing competition" you say. I've heard that before from some who are now very good competitors so you never know. And even if you don't compete isn't it better to do things the right way. Who knows you may become a swimming instructor one day and you wouldn't want to teach what you can't do because you didn't practice would you, (trust me I've seen some really bad teachers).


Apart from that the frog kick is a very useful stroke if you ever need to rescue someone.

The picture below is a good example of how you should practice your frog kick with a kick board on your back:

Breaststroke Kick On Back With Kickboard

The advantage of this is that you don't have to concentrate on anything else whilst you are practicing your kick.

The leg action it's self is: Bend your knees, open your legs and push.

Breaststroke Kick (Frog Kick) From The Side

From above it looks like this:

Breaststroke Kick (Frog Kick) From Above

You Don't Have To Spread Your Legs Wide

You don't have to spread you legs as wide as the picture for it to be and effective kick but this will give you the idea of what to practice.

Once you are feeling confident with this action, get someone else to look at if you have any doubt, it's time to start to put it into action.

Starting with a torpedo position, push off and move your legs with the action you have been practicing. Like this:

Young Girl Doing Breaststroke Kick In Glide Phase

Finishing in a torpedo position like this:

Glide Position After Kick

Remaining in the torpedo posistion repeat the above leg kick until you run out of breath.

Practice this for a while and next time we'll put your breaststroke all together

Enjoy
   Richard

Learn How To Swim 101 - Breaststroke - the Arm Action - Breathing

Breaststroke Breathing Arm Action

Once you have established the basics of your breaststroke it is time to start to learn to breathe.

By now you should be lifting your head out of the water. By that I mean you should have your head coming out of the water something like this.

Breaststroke Breathing Position Side View

Breaststroke In-sweep

If you are finding that you are not getting your head out more or less like this, it's probably because when you put your head under the water you are putting it too deep under water.

When you begin the stroke you should start in the torpedo position and end in the torpedo position and the top of the back of your head should not go fully under the water. I often say to my swimming students that they should try to keep the top of the back of their heads just on or out of the surface of the water.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

I sometimes get an argument from some of my students to the effect of "I've seen them at the Olympics having their head under water". Then I have to explain that if you look closely you will see that the winning swimmers are the ones that keep the top of the back of their heads skimming along the surface of the water and that whilst it may look like they have their head under the water it is actually just the wake forming over their head that they can see.

Then I tell them that they need to practice to get it right and that the start of the practice is to keep the top of the back of their head just out of the water.

The other thing that may make it difficult for you to get your head out of the water is that you are not  finishing the sweep at your shoulders.

Lifting Your Head At The Start of Your Stroke

It is very common for those new to breast stroke to finish the stroke at their hips and trying to lift their heads at the end of the stroke rather than the beginning. The result is that the swimmer has no more lift in their stroke in order to get the head out of the water. Thus there is no way to take a breath.

The lesson is keep your strokes short and lift your head at the start of the stroke and you should be doing fine. The moment you've mastered that, you are ready for the breathing.

All you have to do now is blow all your air out (lots of bubbles, big bubbles, blow everything out) under the water. Then lift your head at the beginning of the stroke and breathe in. This way you will get a full lung of air and you won't run out half way through your stroke.

You are going to get this wrong and occasionally take a mouthful of water. Don't get discouraged. When this happens reread the above,  practice the lifting of your head out of the water the correct way and after some practice try again.

With enough practice you will get this right.

Next time we will talk about the breaststroke leg action.

Enjoy
   Richard

Learn How To Swim 101: Breaststroke - the Arm Action:

Learn How To Swim Breaststroke Arm Action

The breaststroke video give a good over view but now I want to go into more detail.

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

The breaststroke arm action it straight forward. If you can do a doggie paddle (i.e swim like a dog) using both arms under the water (like paws), you can do the breaststroke arm action.

I start to teach my students the breast stroke arm action the moment they are able to do the dog paddle. I start to teach dog paddle from the moment they first enter the water at about 6 months old.

Don't worry though you don't have to have been doing dog paddle from that tender age in order to be able to do breaststroke. I find that most adults pick up a dual arm action very quickly and in fact some find breaststroke easier to start there swimming with.

I think the reason is not that it is an easier stroke because in my view it is one of the hardest, but that the motivation to do it is higher because if you pull hard enough you can swim with your head out of the water.

You can learn to do freestyle with you head out of the water but it is much harder then breaststroke and way more exhausting.


The problem is that keeping your head out of water when doing breaststroke is wrong and even though it is easier to learn to keep your head out of the water than freestyle, it is still much harder to learn that way than with your head in. In fact I recommend that you start to learn breaststroke whilst swimming under water. it's much easier to concentrate on your arm action when you don't have to lift your head up to take a breath.

Obviously you can't do this if you are afraid to put your head underwater. If you are, you will need to refer back to previous posts and learn to put your head underwater.

To start breaststroke:

Begin with a torpedo position.
From a torpedo position (Fig.#1), glide for a moment and then start your arm pull - catch (Fig.#2).

(Fig.#1)Torpedo Position

(Fig.#2)

After you have gone about a meter pull you arms back to about your shoulders (Fig.#3).

(Fig.#3)

Then bring your hands under your chest.

(Fig.#4)

Now push your hands back out to a torpedo position again (Fig. #5)

(Fig.#5) Return To The Torpedo Position

This is the basic breaststroke.

Once you have got the hang of basic breaststroke, you need to learn to lift your head.

(Fig.#6)

You do it like this:
From your "start of catch" position (Fig.#6), pull your hands back to your shoulders as in Fig.#3 only this time pulling harder, then lift you head as you do your insweep (Fig.#7). 

(Fig.#7)

Don't bother about taking a breath at this point. You almost certainly will have your head in the wrong position. We'll talk about breathing in your breaststroke next time. Concentrate on getting you arm action right.

Enjoy
   Richard