Swimming Blog

A Good Start

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 23:00:00 GMT

In water, as on land, in order to feel comfortable, be able to relax and breathe, you need to feel balanced. As humans, unable to fly, we need support either from the floor or the water.

When nervous swimmers set off to swim or glide, they typically launch themselves from the wall and brace themselves for a turbulent ride. Without feeling balanced or supported they take off across the surface (often above the surface!) hoping to 'land' safely. A deep breath and lurch forwards is a result of not feeling the support of the water and no longer being in contact with the floor. From this start, any movement will be erratic and the breath will be held or forced out in a gush. The experience won’t be a pleasant one. When movements are rushed, there's usually a panicky landing.

More confident swimmers also tend to set off without a thought to how comfortable their take off is, more interested in their first stroke than in a settled initial glide. They may be able to find a relaxed stroke but are unlikely to be aware of the tension caused by the wobbly start.

Think about your take-off

If both your feet are on the wall and your head is out of the water, you’re not comfortable! You've probably got your arms twisted behind you holding on (to the wall - and your breath) until you can’t help but throw yourself forward, trying to hold yourself up in mid air.

Make sure your first thought is where the weight of your head is. If you're dropping it into the support of the water, you'll feel balanced and able to organise your arms, in front of you, and your feet, for a gentle push, without the need to try and hold yourself up. If you're in your depth, the smoothest take off will probably be from both feet on the floor, rather than the wall. From this comfortable start, the outbreath will remain relaxed, movements will be freer - more sustainable.

This applies, perhaps even more so, when taking off on the back. Very often, swimmers will rise up backwards into the air, before coming down for a crash landing.

With your feet on the floor and your arms resting by your sides, you’ll find the support of the water by resting your weight into a nice open back. Keep everything as low in the water as you can and as you lay your head back, your ears remain under the surface as you set off. If your ears are above the surface, you won’t feel balanced – you’re in that ‘no man’s land’ place – not supported by the floor, not supported by the water and not able to fly!

A smooth take off makes for a comfortable, relaxed journey ending in a safe landing.

Non-swimmers: Know Your Needs

Sat, 24 Mar 2018 00:00:00 GMT

People who can't swim often have balance and coordination problems and, related to these, easily excited fear reflexes, an underlying lack of confidence, difficulty relaxing and anxiety. Being in water is something that appeals as an antidote to all these tendencies.

Non-swimmers may frame a picture of themselves in their mind, exercising in a pool with a graceful front crawl or relaxed breaststroke. What they don't always appreciate is the stress they're likely to put themselves through on the way to achieving that end. Because all the causes at the root of their being, as a non-swimmer, will be pushed to the surface as they try to accomplish skills like getting the face out to breathe.

Non-swimmers who’ve come for a course with us often say it's been life-changing. But I think it's because we’ve encouraged them to discover the support of the water, and gain independence in it, rather than taught them to swim. The sense of liberation in letting go and floating, and of being able to return to standing in a calm and balanced way, is the thing they feel has been missing.

From that floating foundation comes the possibility of swimming, moving the limbs to create propulsion and get around. But too soon, the new sense of freedom can be lost in an attempt to learn formal strokes, to become a proper swimmer. I’ve been guilty of teaching strokes too early, observing the sudden shift from the joy of non-doing to the despair of trying to get the head out to breathe etc.

“Can we have another go at this breaststroke breathing?” asked David, red faced and out of puff, desperate to learn, prepared to suffer in his efforts but no more likely for that to succeed. I had to say no.

At the end of the day, I realise, I'm an Alexander Technique teacher and the first job is not to put myself or other people under stress, in that order.

Even for comfortable swimmers like me, the best antidote to those key conditions - lack of balance, calmness, coordination - remains the same. Focus on floating about in the support of water, enjoying the integrity and calmness that keeping it simple in water brings. Don't allow yourself to cross that line into struggling coordination and panicky gasping.

Look for spaces to float about and explore movements that you really want to do, letting them happen instead of forcing them. Avoid environments like pools with lanes. Be like a child who's just learnt to swim. Stop when you're struggling, or not enjoying it. The water helps you free your neck and lengthen your spine, breathe, let go, relax and move. But not when you fight it, or fight yourself in it.

There's so much to gain from being in water without trying to achieve anything. The therapeutic benefits of non-doing in water, floating about with a free neck, are not well enough recognised, while swimming for exercise continues to be overestimated by people who don't really know the score.

Quality Time

Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Two things that put people wrong in water are the quest for the mastery of the strokes and the effort to swim faster. If you give up bothering about them, everything changes.

Because of human tendencies like being competitive, fearful, egocentric or wanting to fit in, and because of the way swimming pools are set up for swimming up and down, with fast, medium and slow lanes, form and speed become priorities.

But it’s liberating to stop caring. I’ve never been fast but I clung for decades to a belief that proper swimming means using the four competitive strokes. These have been evolving into their current form for probably less than 100 years, which makes them pretty insignificant considering the thousands of years people have been getting into water.

Once you’ve made the decision, you can let go of the worry of trying to coordinate the strokes like an athlete; of centering your swimming around the need for frequent, quick inhalations.

Competitive strokes are used mostly by fit, flexible and young people who want to get across the water as quickly as possible. It’s possible to learn to do them in a relatively stress free way, enjoying the journey, thinking about your neck, watching that you don’t over-tighten your muscles or overdo the breathing.

But using the competitive strokes isn’t the easiest way to move through the water. Even for the most accomplished swimmers, strokes aren’t particularly easy on the neck and back, or for breathing. For learners they can be disastrous in these areas, as well as being taxing on the brain.

An easier way is to swim with your face down for a good few strokes, using breaststroke or crawl type movements, but enjoying quality time underwater instead of always looking for the next breath. This gives you all the time you need to rest your head, let your back lengthen and widen and soften your joints and limbs. Think of letting your muscles lengthen instead of contracting them for effort. Let everything flow, including your breath and your blood, avoiding any constriction. Mentally, you can let it all go, melting into the support of the water, using your eyes to keep your mind lively, enjoying the present moment.

When you perceive the need for more air, come out gradually, moving your head into position gently. Swim with your face out of the water for a few strokes, using your eyes to connect with your surroundings, taking your time to have a breather. Or roll on to your back, which is a great place to let your body breathe. When your face goes back down, give yourself time to relax your neck before you start putting more movements together. Everything will be easier, including your outbreath, when you’ve remembered to free your neck and look down.

All of this can be a creative process. You have all the time in the world to reach your destination. The slower the better! Swim your own swim. Make it up as you go along. You can feel good about being the slowest person in your lane because, how many of the people overtaking you have a freer neck than you?

Here are some questions I find it useful to ask myself, before, during and after a swim...

Is my neck relaxed when I’m underwater?

Am I breathing freely or holding my breath/ forcing air out/ gasping?

Am I pulling my head back against my spine as I move from underwater to a breathing place?

Are my eyes lively or am I doing a thousand yard stare?

Am I tightening my muscles or allowing them to lengthen?

Do I need to strain myself in order to stimulate and increase the capacity of my cardiovascular system?

Am I counting lengths and measuring things?

Am I a recreational swimmer or a competitive athlete?

Am I enjoying it?

Also see: Freedom from Form / Searching for Still Water / Clock Sucker / Changing Lanes

Getting a View on Front Crawl Sighting

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 00:00:00 GMT

Swimming long distances of front crawl in the sea is increasingly popular at the moment. There's an established technique called sighting where you lift your head to look where you're going, to keep yourself on track for your destination, every couple of strokes. It's something every open water front crawl swimmer does and nobody seems to question.

There'll be lots of videos and tips on how to get it right. You can probably do it using the principles of the Alexander Technique, at least in theory.

'It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it' is a commonly used phrase to market the Alexander Technique. But sometimes it is what you do that causes trouble, it doesn't matter how you do it. Sighting in front crawl inevitably involves pulling your head back against your spine, hunching your shoulders and shortening your lower back. Being an established technique doesn’t make it a good thing to do.

I saw a video on Instagram today of someone swimming in the most exquisite of locations, the canyons of the American wild west. With his bright swimming cap and tinted Aqua Sphere Kayenne goggles, he had the right gear and looked assured in his technique. But how could he really enjoy the splendid view in that half-second window every 2 seconds, a moment of neck tension?

'Bliss' somebody commented.

I’d suggest that if he was pootling around with his head under water and coming up less frequently, to take his time both to breathe and to enjoy the view, without any other agenda, he'd be more able to absorb the magic of his surroundings.

But from what I could see, the most significant thing that was happening in that video, whether or not he was aware of it, was a bloke straining his neck and shoulders, and shortening his back. Being in beautiful surroundings doesn’t change what we do.

If you really want a view, it's no use blindly following everybody else with their established techniques. You have to find your own way.

Also see: Watching Where You're Going with Your Front Crawl? / Freedom from Form / A Sea Swimmer in June

June

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 23:00:00 GMT

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A Sea Swimmer in June

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 23:00:00 GMT

I came to stay at Croft Farm 2 years ago wanting to be able to swim freestyle - and to actually enjoy swimming!

I'm a runner who was going through a period of not being able to run and wanted to use swimming for cross-training purposes. But I didn't know how to swim front crawl, and breaststroke didn't feel right with my knee injury. So I came to Ian and Cheryl looking to learn how to swim for fitness… but discovered there is another way!

When I arrived I could already happily put my face in the water etc - but swimming made me breathe hard and I was ‘end-gaining’ - it was all a bit physical!!

The enjoyment benefits were immediate and enduring.

Now, two years later, I very much enjoy swimming, so much so that I wanted to be confident enough to swim outdoors...

And that is coming into place this year - I swam in Anglesey on a yoga and wild swimming weekend. And this video was me today in a tidal pool in Cliftonville, near Margate in Kent...

Thank you for helping me to get to this place!

See more Swimmer Experiences

Also see: Getting a View on Front Crawl Sighting

Following the Flow

Sat, 23 Sep 2017 23:00:00 GMT

When I’m teaching swimming I often hear myself saying “It’s about letting it happen, not making it happen”.

At Salsa class this week, the teacher gently reprimanded me for ‘trying to lead’ in other words for trying to make it happen.

When learning to swim strokes, as when learning to dance Salsa, it’s hard not to rush to the next movement, losing rhythm and flow.

As I’m not very good at remembering the dance steps, I was happy to hear that, “ If you’re following, you don’t need to learn the steps, you need to learn the technique.” Another echo of my regular refrain: “You don’t have to worry about your arms and legs, if you’re comfortable in the glide everything will fall in to place.”

The technique of Salsa dancing (I think!) is very similar to the technique of swimming strokes. Look at the similarities:

Learning to dance Salsa:

Use your eyes - Look at your partner and particularly back towards them when you’ve been turned away.

Connection. With the floor - use it to support your weight. With the rhythm of the music. And with your partner - letting them initiate each movement.

Poise – Don’t let your movements (steps) get too large and upset your balance. Keep your frame (elbows in front of body - relaxed but directed so the whole body can move when led and the legs move to stay under the weight of your body).

Don’t try to lead - Anticipation of the next movement and a preconception of what it should look and feel like makes you rush ahead. Ahead of the music and your partner’s lead.

Learning to swim:

Use your eyes - Look down at the ‘fish’ and particularly back towards them when you’ve rolled out to breathe.

Connection. With the water - use it to support your weight. And with the rhythm of the stroke - letting it initiate each movement.

Poise – Don’t let your movements (of arms and legs) get too large and upset your balance. Keep your frame (relaxed but directed so as the weight of the whole body moves, the arms and legs can fall in to line).

Don’t try to lead - Anticipation of the next movement and a preconception of what it should look and feel like makes you rush ahead. Ahead of the rhythm of the stroke and the help of the water.

So next time at Salsa class, I’ve just got to make sure I don’t fall into the usual trap of trying to get the technique ‘right’. The blank stare of concentration and the stiffness of trying to make sure everything’s in the right place – the one we often observe when we’re teaching the strokes.

Also See: Freedom from Form / Old Man River / Zen and Now / Meet Me at the Symmetry Gates / Diving into Breaststroke / Easy Adaptation / Waste of Space / Three Strokes and You're Out / A Man Made Pool's What You Make It / Control Freak? Can't Swim? / I Believe I Can Fly

Freedom from Form

Tue, 05 Sep 2017 23:00:00 GMT

Learner swimmers need to focus on enjoying the support of the water and develop a feel for it through play, instead of being restricted by the form of competitive strokes. They shouldn’t be too fixed on the goal of being able to swim lengths for exercise. Swimming up and down without freedom of movement does nobody any good.

I explain all this with enthusiasm to people attending our course and encourage them to be bold and do their own thing.

Then I go off to the pool and swim lengths, almost exclusively using the four competitive strokes, albeit with the intention of freeing my neck.

But if I want to swim with the Alexander Technique, the cornerstones of which are non-doing and direction of energy, I really don't need to be using conventional strokes.

I have photos of myself as an infant, always tilting my head to one side. The twist that causes this is related to mild hearing difficulty, left eye/ right hand dominance and a retained baby reflex which hinders independence of the head from the neck and back when turning. It persists in every activity of life for me. So swimming the four strokes, even though I can execute them well, with all the head movement it entails, creates problems for my neck. Floating face down on the other hand, and doing a bit of movement from that foundation, does me the world of good.

On my last swim of the summer holidays, I went for a 20 minute dip at Aberporth. I told myself to be creative and decided not to do anything that could be construed as a proper, conventional stroke.

I started with some crawl but rolled all the way onto my back every time I needed to breathe. It felt odd, stopping and starting, like a learner. But I knew it would be better for my neck and I kept going till I arrived at the last buoy from the shore. On the way back I began to play with breaststroke. At first, when I popped out of the water for a breath, I looked to the left and then to the right, to help stop my head from fixing in its twist as I rolled it out to breathe. Again, this felt a bit silly but there was nobody around.

Then, without any real planning, a new breaststroke sequence began to emerge. Face down, head resting underwater, I did a big arm sweep and a kick then a smaller sweep and another kick, before popping out for a leisurely breath on the third stroke. I was spending more time underwater, relaxing, and less time bobbing up for air. This produced a definite rhythm - my own rhythm. I felt like the ‘bloke on holiday’ I try to encourage non-swimmers to be. And my neck was fine when I got out.

“You were a long time,” said my friend Clive.

Also see: Just Floating an Idea / Old Man River / Sento / It's All Right Once You're In / Tame Swimming / A Timeless Swim Swimming Up / Outdoor Swimming - Going It Alone / Swimming With A Hangover / Transform Your Day In 10 Seconds / Camp Training / Head Away From Knees Away from Worries on the Beach / Following the Flow / Just What the Doctor Ordered / Surface Tension? / Mindfulness: Word of the Moment / Getting a View on Front Crawl Sighting / Quality Time / Authentic Movement

View Pirana Goggles Review

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 23:00:00 GMT

I was sent a sample of the mirrored version of the View Pirana goggles in April. I haven’t used anything else since then. I’ve worn them in the sea, river, quarry and pool.

Some mirrored lenses take away the sun’s glare but don’t help you see very much under water. On a very clear water swim in the Witch’s Cauldron (see video), the vision in these as I floated around over the seaweed and between the jellyfish was exceptional. In the river too, they have enhanced my vision underwater. Because of the way they performed, I actually mistook the mirrored lenses for polarized.

They’ve done a great job in the pool too, not making everything dark like some mirrored lens goggles do.

They weigh almost nothing and I don’t feel them on my face. They don’t give the sensation of tunnel vision that other small goggles do. The straps are hypoallergenic, soft and easy to adjust. They haven’t leaked for me at all and they’re still not fogging up after at least 3 months of kicking around in my swimming trug and coming with me on all my dips.

In my experience, mirrored lenses are more likely to fog up than clear lenses. I don’t know why this is but the lenses in these goggles haven't fogged up at all, performing better than any others I’ve used, clear or tinted, including ones from the View range.

I really like the mirrored version of these goggles and I feel quite attached to my current pair. No one swimming goggle works for everyone but this one definitely does it for me.

I, Ian Cross, Am Not A Swimming Instructor

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 23:00:00 GMT

“You’re not a swimming teacher are you? You’re a therapist,” a friend said to me on a bike ride. I took exception to this because I'm not a therapist. But he did have a point.

I would say the thing I do best is help people learn to trust the water to support them, by approaching their problem, of not being able to swim, differently. Learning to swim shouldn’t be about struggling across the water but letting it support you by stopping fearful doing. Not everybody can get it but if anyone can help a nervous non-swimmer become independent in water, I’m confident that I’m the man.

I helped someone float and regain her feet independently for the first time, before we broke up for the summer. I was quite proud of this achievement, for both of us, because her fear in water was so strong when she first came. She knew she needed to come out to Wales if she was going to do it. It took two trips and a lot of hard work.

This morning a friend I often see out walking sent me this link about the amazing benefits of swimming for exercise:

I responded:

Me: Thanks, this is the sort of thing people love. I doubt the truth of most of it. Scientists trot out the same old stuff about swimming and its benefits. In reality most people who swim are unaware that they are stiffening their necks, distorting their backs and gasping. This morning I was planning to go for a pool swim with Cheryl. I did a bit of Alexander Technique work in the kitchen and this helped me to decide that a long walk in the woods would do me more good (and I think it was the right choice).

Friend: I am a pretty hopeless swimmer, stiff necked gasper probably sums it up. A long walk in the woods sounds more pleasant to me than a pool swim.

Me: You don't look like a stiff necked gasper when you're walking and that's the main thing, I reckon. Swimming is too popular at the moment. Think jogging in the 1980s!

Friend: You don't do a very good job of selling swimming, Mr. Swimming Instructor!

Me: People are keen to learn to swim but need to be shown that in water, less is more. Just floating about is the most beneficial thing most of us can do. I don't mind selling that. I have less and less enthusiasm for swimming distances. Maybe I'm not a swimming instructor but I can and do help fearful people learn to trust the water to support them. That's what I do most of. Cheryl is more enthusiastic about teaching movement than I am.

The trouble is, when someone like you who isn't a great swimmer looks at an article like that, it seems like a no-brainer that you should swim. Really you're probably better off walking, even if you decide to become a good swimmer through taking lessons. Because we're land based animals and we've got enough work to do on dry land!

So this morning, I went for a walk in the woods with the dogs, had that quick exchange on facebook messenger and am now sitting here, with a sense of well-being, quite clear that I am not a swimming instructor. It feels like a good morning’s work.

Also see: Floating Foundations / When Movements Muddy The Water / To the Wall / Control Freak? Can't Swim / Floating is a Feeling / Rescued: Learner Lost with Woggle at Leisure Centre / Learn Not to Swim / Landing Before Standing / Stopping the Fight for Survival / All You Need Is Love / Helping Hands / Positions and Decisions / Searching for Still Water / Authentic Movement

What’s Welsh for Puddle?

Sun, 23 Jul 2017 23:00:00 GMT

I’ve lived in Wales for 18 years, my dad’s Welsh and a friend recommended I put myself in the position of learner starting from scratch, like a lot of our pupils. So I’ve started learning Welsh.

The internet course I’m doing, Say Something in Welsh, involves constructing a sentence, using the language you know, before the teacher says it. Trying too hard to get the words out in those few seconds freezes my brain. But when I don’t worry about speaking and just listen, understand and absorb, like a child does, it’s much more relaxing. I often fall asleep halfway through a lesson or ‘challenge’ and am woken by Aran, the teacher, telling me how well I’ve done to make it to the end!

Babies ideally crawl a lot before they walk and do lots of listening before they start to talk. Non-swimmers need to enjoy floating around and playing with movement before learning strokes.

Watching the growing confidence of our two year old grandson Gruff is inspiring. With limited language he manages to communicate what he wants very effectively and he understands a lot. When we go for a walk with him, we don't get far. But he’s always learning. The other evening he spent about 10 minutes dropping stones into puddles.

While I wouldn't be able to string two sentences of Welsh together in the real world, I do feel engaged in a learning process. I wake up in the morning, knowing how to say, “I met your sister in the pub last night’ or ‘I’ve got a friend who knows your brother”. And when I listen to Tommo on Radio Cymru I’m starting to recognise more and more words.

I might do a residential Welsh course but I’ll have no expectation of being able to communicate in a natural setting by the end. That would be like a non-swimmer coming to us and expecting to be ready, on course completion, to enter a triathlon.

Learning without caring about results, without crippling yourself with expectation, must be the best way to learn anything. With Welsh, I remind myself to give up the idea of getting anywhere, but not to give up.

Also see: Floating Foundations / Floating is a Feeling / Sing When You're Winning / Rescued, Learner Lost with Woggle at Leisure Centre / Learn Not to Swim / Stopping the Fight for Survival / Landing Before Standing

Don't Leave Home Without...

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 23:00:00 GMT

Packing my one cabin bag for my trip to the Montenegro Fjords I was distressed to find I didn't have room for my Aqua Sphere Aqua Skin wetsuit, even though the Strel expert, Borut, and everyone else I asked (given the predicted sea temperature of 24 degrees), said I wouldn't need it.

Still at least I'd have my Gul Evotherm top. Nobody would think I was a whimp in that, would they? I tested the water, in private in case it made me howl a bit (that's what I'm used to) and found I didn't need the thermal top either.

The sea really was warm enough and so was the sun. For ease (and to make my flight size sun cream last) I wore a Gul rashguard and Bohn jammers with my costume and on one occasion when the back of my knees were looking a bit pink, I wore some three quarter length Bohn leggings. Towards the ending of the week I was able to risk swimming in just my Zoggs costumes. I knew they'd be reliable - lifetime guarantee, good coverage, excellent freedom of movement, and quick drying (although it was sensible to have more than one).

As for goggles I wore my favourite Aqua Sphere Vista. You can't beat it for visibility which I appreciated even more in the beautiful setting and clear water, and the Maru Groove - also watertight and comfortable and with mirrored lenses which weren't too dark.
During one swim, I was irritated by some leaking (it was the Vista) which I think was caused by sun cream upsetting the seal, as they were fine next day after a rinse in fresh water.

Lastly I was very happy with the Lifeventure towel. So easy to pack and quick drying but large enough to wrap myself in while drinking tea on the boat. I'd chosen the World Words design thinking that as I was travelling alone I might have time to swot a bit for the pub quiz.But time-fillers in case I was lonely or bored were definitely something else I didn't need.

Three essential items I didn't need were my earplugs, glide cap and anti-fog solution. But they weighed nothing and took up no space.

Photo shows Cheryl back home in her vista goggles and glide cap.

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Zen and Now

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 23:00:00 GMT

I thought I knew what to expect when I embarked on my 8 lessons of ‘Swimming Without Stress’. I was wrong.

It’s almost the exact opposite of the normal experience of learning to swim. For me, this had entailed a few lessons to stop swimming with my head out of the water and to try to learn front crawl. I had to give up after I injured my shoulder and thus ended my swimming career. I felt disappointed and a bit hopeless. I’d always felt that swimming would be an ideal exercise because of the water supporting your whole body thus giving a sense of ease to the ‘exercise’ experience.

Fast forward three years and I decided to bite the bullet, smile as I put my hand in my pocket and book a course of 8, one to one lessons with Ian and Cheryl at Croft Farm.

The whole experience was delightful.

Both Ian and Cheryl are generous, kind and intelligent beings who share their wide knowledge and experience with the student swimmer, and start slowly but surely to build up the confidence and ability needed to swim without stress.

Cassius Clay may have been able to, ’float like a butterfly’! I, however, can now float like both a jellyfish and a mushroom and I can tell you that the experience is soooo relaxing that I was rendered speechless, which, if you know me, is some feat!

Starting to take on board the whole sensation of allowing the water ‘to support me’. Letting go of my ideas and concepts and allowing the feelings to be foremost. After discovering how the water can become ‘home', a place of comfort, and only then, being led by the teacher into using my cognitive ability to think about the position of the head, the neck, the back, the hands, the feet, all in their rightful place.

Back on dry land, whenever I hear the word, ’HEAD’, I think of Cheryl, who is not a shouty sort of person, as she shouted it at me. (She had to shout as I was both under water at the time and also a bit deaf.)

All in all it is a very Zen like experience, as you find that quiet, calm place, within and beneath the water; you find your natural body alignment, and then the ’mindset’ settles as a wondrous harmony throughout your whole being.

It’s about being not doing. Mindfulness within the water. Noticing what is Now. That to me is ‘Swimming Without Stress’.

It was truly wonderful. Thank you so much.

See more first hand accounts of swimmer experiences

Which End of the Pool Were You in at School?

Fri, 19 May 2017 23:00:00 GMT

In the school swimming lessons people tell us about there were two areas of the pool: the deep end for kids who could swim and the shallow end for non-swimmers.

Adults learning to swim with us often recall being left to their own devices in the shallow end as kids, not knowing what they were supposed to be doing and feeling more each week like non-swimmers, like this must be a genetically inherited condition. In their peripheral vision, at the other end of the pool, were the swimmers, the ones having all the fun.

But the lack of a meaningful plan which caused suffering for the nervous kids was liable to be a problem for the swimmers too. Some of those envied deep-enders, including the more confident, sporty ones, were just swimming on instinct. They would willingly jump into the deep water if that was required and, with muscular effort and adrenaline, race from one side of the pool to the other. As adults they tell us they know they were able to swim as kids but now feel a lack of confidence, especially about the breathing.

The really good swimmers in the deep end, the effortless gliders, had gained their skills somewhere else. But at those school lessons which people tend to look back on with disappointment, everyone was in the same boat.

All the adults that come to us needed but tended not to receive the same basic skills as children: to relax and let the air out; to float by letting the water support them instead of trying to “do” something to make themselves float; to rotate from one plane to another without losing balance.

Without the right kind of guidance, kids will either shy away from water, which is easy for anyone to recognise, or be overexcited in their response to it, which the untrained observer is likely to perceive as fun.

All learners, children and adults, need to be encouraged and guided to make friends with the water instead of reacting to it with fear.

Also see: Play Comes First But What Next? / Kick Kick Kick / Need for Speed / Rotation Rotation Rotation / In At The Deep End, Sink or Swim/ Rescued: Learner Lost with Woggle at Leisure Centre / Don't Pass It Up, Pass It On

Meet Me at the Symmetry Gates

Sun, 26 Mar 2017 23:00:00 GMT

The thing I want maybe most from a swim is symmetry. I like to emerge from the pool into the fresh air with a feeling of balance.

All human beings tend to be asymmetrical, to twist to one side, though most of us don’t feel this when we’re moving. Any form of exercise tends to exaggerate our tendency to twist, even walking. So what about in water? What happens there?

If you have symmetrical aspirations, like I do, it’s useful to remember that there are symmetrical strokes and asymmetrical strokes. Breaststroke and butterfly are symmetrical, the two sides of the body do the same thing at the same time. Front crawl and backstroke are asymmetrical and, like when we walk, our left and right sides balance each other through opposition.

A free neck makes for a beautifully balanced breaststroke, if you organise the stroke in the right way. While butterfly may be difficult to learn, its main advantage over crawl if you want a more dynamic, muscular and cardiovascular alternative to breaststroke, is symmetry.

Asymmetry in breaststroke usually means a screw kick, one leg doing something different to the other, which it should be mirroring. The more tension in the neck and shoulders, the more wonkiness there’ll be in the legs. The cause of a screw kick is a twist in the pelvis, which is fairly easily remedied by resting the head in the water face down for the kick and glide. Free your neck to glide and let the head lead when you come up to inhale.

Backstroke and front crawl are more of a challenge for particularly asymmetrical people. For us, rotation one way is always going to be more free and easy than the other. This is why most of us have a favourite breathing side. Very good front crawl swimmers are admirable for their symmetry. A lovely example is Shinji from Total Immersion. I’ve spent far too much time on YouTube watching his effortless gliding. Sometimes I can even hear the accompanying music as I fancy myself cutting through the water like him. But deep down, even the very elite have an A side and a B side, because they’re human.

Steven Shaw has come up with a useful way of promoting balance in front crawl for ordinary people who want to swim better, not faster. He calls it centering. Before going on a journey to the left or right, the swimmer briefly returns to a neutral, central place. I find this very helpful.

It seems fair to say that, for most people, symmetrical strokes promote symmetry better than asymmetrical strokes. That’s certainly true for me. So long as I’m fully aware of that, I can continue to work on all the strokes. But breaststroke is my definite favourite at the moment. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Also see: Diving Into Breaststroke / Enjoying the Journey with Breaststroke and Butterfly Knowing Your A Side and B Side/ Watching Where You're Going With Your Crawl? / 360 Front Crawl / Why Don't I Just Stick My Neck Out? / Cross Pattern Crawl / Following the Flow