Teaching Swimming

It is common that when you start learning swimming to make mistakes even if you have a swimming instructor on your side. These mistakes are made in the order of learning the various skills that are needed in swimming. Sometimes you learn in the wrong order or even skip some of them. I will try to provide you with the correct order and explain why you need to follow this order.

Swimming is widely recognized as one of the best activities because it provides exercise for all the muscle groups of the human body (increase in strength, muscle tone, endurance and lung capacity) and is injury free because of the levitation that the water provides. But in order to take all the advantages of swimming you must learn how to do it correctly. Why is that necessary? Just imagine yourself swimming in a pool. How long will it take until you feel exhausted? 10 - 15 minutes tops. A lot less than the time it takes to have the same feeling while walking or running. You should know that swimming does not require its own special form of fitness. So, it all depends on your technique which depends on the way you have learned swimming.

The skills you need to learn to start mastering swimming are:

• familiarization with the water
• buoyancy
• breathing and kicking
• sculling
• the 4 different strokes
• body position and motion
• kicking
• arm technique
• breathing
• starts and turns

Familiarization with the water is the first step to success and the one step, along with buoyancy, that is skipped because it does not sound important enough. It is very important to be comfortable with water streaming down your face, and submerging under the water in move into the next step smoothly. Using games and playing is the best way to do it for kids. Adults need more self-motivation and determination to go through this phase of learning.

Next is buoyancy. Water is not our natural environment. To move through water, we must learn to be relaxed and to have the water support our natural buoyancy. It is fundamental to get the maximum buoyancy (by positioning our body) with minimum effort. Buoyancy drills: enable us to feel how our body is positioned in the water, imrove our ability to relax and have our body supported by the water, improve our ability and efficiency to move through the water. While buoyancy drills may seem simple to perform, they provide a trasformational foundation for how swimmers experience their bodies in the water.

Proper breathing and kicking are very important for swimmers to feel comfortable in the water, maintain good body position, and move through the water efficiently. They are the simplest skills to perform and their drills can result to dramatic results. Kicking in a streamline position and breathing properly can result in swimming with less drag and friction which leads saving energy. It is the next step in the foundation for excellent swimming technique.

Sculling is used to improve the effectiveness of arm action, and swimmers need to learn how to generate propulsion through the shape of their hands and forearms as they move through the water. By modifying the body's position and the direction of the sculling, swimmers can feel how to apply pressure in the water and position theis fingers, hands, wrists, and forearms for the most effective movement. These drills improve also the feel for the water and strengthen the hands, forearms and wrists.

There is a certain order to learn the four swimming strokes. First you learn backstroke (because you do not have to breathe in the water), then the freestyle, and then comes the breaststroke and the butterfly. Some people believe that breaststroke should come first but in my opinion (and my experience) backstroke is the first to learn. When you start learning a swimming stroke there is also a proper order for doing so. First comes body position and motion, then is kicking, arm technique and last but not least is breathing. When you have learned these four parts you try to blend them all together. In this part you will need a lot patience and determination as this is stage that will take most of your time. To be honest, the time you will need is infinite. There is no such thing as excellence in swimming, but there is continuous improvement.

Starts and turns may not be of use for most recreational swimmers but they make a significant difference in competitive swimmers if they are performed correctly.

Lastly, I would like to say that there are differences when a child and an adult are trying to learn swimming. Children seem to learn skills spontaneously, even when it seems they are not paying any attention. Adults have to overcome common frustrations that include: stubbornly ingrained inefficiencies, discomfort in the water, stiff joints, skills that are eroded by decades of neglect, and a lack of kinesthetic awareness. That is why they need to be highly motivated and determined.