Swimming Coaching - We Have the Green Light

[Tony]

[quote="Andrew G"]my drowning dog style is not really the most effective

[Marek]

Tony it was warm enough, and I can tell you that I was really impressed how far Paul and Andrew progressed in the matter of around 45mins of tuition and help. You should give it a try.

Cheers

Marek....

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

That was great for me thanks to Mrs Snoopington, who is a lot more patient with me than Mrs T

I have never done front crawl before in all my years of swimming - quite capable of not drowning, I have my ASA 10m doggy paddle certificate to prove it, and can get around with breast stroke.

With such a great opportunity to learn, I tried putting all the things Carol told me into practice, but it was difficult to think of so many things at once - it all being new to me - head in the water (what ) hips up, legs kick, arms forward, roll shoulders - all abit of a blur.

The problem came about halfway down the pool when I ran out of oxygen....she hadn't mentioned breathing

Marek went up and down the pool before I had thought about how to move off

Then we (Andrew) did some practice breathing techniques holding the side of the pool. This was very useful, and the area that needs most work.

Anyhow, I amazed myself by how far, with the right coaching, I had got in just one session. Big thanks to Carol.

Might be able to get a few practice sessions in - where's the pool

Looking forward to next week.

Guru P

[Jon H]

[quote="Marek"]That was a good laugh, I find swim training quite boring so is always good when you have a few others around to joke about with.

Cheers

Marek....

[Andrew G]

[quote="mrP(Boonen)VT"]Marek went up and down the pool before I had thought about how to move off

[Jon H]

[quote="Alan M"]Carol was great and explained it all but I couldn't get the hang of breathing every third stroke, ie on opposite sides, but lots to think about.

[mlocke]

I come to the end of my swimming lessons next thursday so I would like to try and come along to one of these (and maybe more if feasable) to see how it goes. Maybe a different coach will provide a different perspective.

If any of you guys are riding over from London then I might join you in the cruise down?

One thing I would say is that I found the breathing very strange at first. I think its called bi-lateral breathing (every three??). I wanted to breathe in a totally different rythm to what swimming allowed and would as Andrew said swallow my way through the water. However after one dedicated session using some boards and just practising lengths focusing purely on the technique I had it pretty much nailed and now it is a lot easier, but is somethign I still need to concentrate to do well.

Now I couldn't imagine being able to swim half as well as I do (and I swim badly anyway) without this valuable part of the technique so my suggestion would be to persevere.

Another part I found hard to get my head around was not actually practicing swimming!! My teachers had me doing different things with various aparatus (steady finbar!), (boards, bouyes flippers etc) with a view to dealing with specific problem areas individually. Then when I swam lengths afterwards the various parts came together and felt much more natural and made the whole stroke much easier.

Just some of my thoughts as I am coming to the end of what some of you appear to be just beginning - I figure that even if you dont want to do a tri then swimming is a pretty good life skill to have and you could even save someones life oneday

Locky

[Alan M]

Mmmmm... yes more breating practise needed. I think I need to nail breathing to the right first as it seems very unnatural. Who did you do your lessons with?

[mlocke]

I just did a general course at westcroft in Carshalton

For me it really was just a matter of sticking with it and not letting the techniques you have been tought deteriorate. If it did then I stopped, slapped mysef then tried again and I have massively improved in six weeks.

Everyone on here shoudl have the fitness to be a decent swimmer, it purely is down to technique in my opinion ( although I do think swimming specific fitness is needed also )

[quote="Jon Hemming"][quote="Alan M"]Carol was great and explained it all but I couldn't get the hang of breathing every third stroke, ie on opposite sides, but lots to think about.