Semi-Charmed Life

Swimming

One thing that I've realized about learning to swim at such a late age is that my approach to learning is very analytical. I was talking about my swimming progress to a friend of mine and he said he found it odd to think of swimming in such a technical manner because swimming is so natural to him. I'm willing to bet that many people who learned at an early age probably feel this way. It's like trying to look at walking or running in a technical manner. We don't do it because it's second nature to us and does not require much thinking on our part to perform.

The private lessons I took this past summer were great, but honestly I think I will be able to do a much better job teaching an adult non-swimmer how to swim than they can. Sounds a little pompous, especially considering that I can't swim competently yet, but I've had 3 different instructors and I found all 3 instructors to be very lacking in their teaching methods. The methods are probably more suitable to teaching young children as opposed to adults.

One bad habit I've built up is my reliance on swimming aids like kickboards. I think the use of these swimming aids have not taught me how to develop proper balance in the water, which is essential to swimming.

I've been browsing a lot of Youtube videos and I found one particular channel to be especially excellent:

 Swim without stress

THIS is the proper way to teach and learn in my opinion. He also offers a lot of insight in his youtube comments. I'm very excited to try out some of the things I picked up from his videos. I especially recommend the breast stroke video. FANTASTIC video that will be beneficial to you even if you already know how to do the breast stroke. 

His relaxed method of teaching in incremental progressions is great. I can't wait to hit the pool this weekend to practice. Eventually I want to become lifeguard certified and become a swim instructor.