My third swimming lesson

In my last swimming lesson I was still getting the feel of being underwater, holding my breath trying to move around. I spend a lot of time at the children’s pool (when there were no children around) building confidence to put myself into the water with both feet off the pool floor, not so easy when you had never swam before. The water was deep enough for me to try ‘swimming’ while totally submerged. It is easier to swim underwater they say, and it’s true but it’s tiring when you don’t really know how. That wasn’t really swimming just getting over the fear of not having my feet on the floor and proving that the strokes and leg movement could push me forward.

The next big step to learn swimming after you’ve become comfortable holding your breath and being in the water is to float forward on the water facing down. Of course all this is supported by practicing your leg kick and arm stroke. For this next big step you’ll be holding your breath as your face will be submerged, you need to be able to kick properly, as it will keep your legs up and sort of propel you forward on the water. You won’t be doing any stroke with your arms just yet. The other thing you need is some courage, or maybe a lot of it. Why? Because you’ll be pushing yourself onto the water and your feet off the pool floor. Committing yourself fully to believing that when done right you’ll be floating towards the safety of the side of the pool, rather than sinking into the pool.

It was really difficult for me, I was so scared that I’ll just sink. Despite knowing that I can hold my breath, and the water was just up to my chest, I was afraid that if I sink with my feet off the ground I’ll panic, and not be able to regain control of my body to stand up, which would result with me losing my breath before being able to come up for breath. You know the feeling when you try to stand suddenly in the water and the water is pushing your legs up instead. Like you had to fight with the water. So this is the fear you need to get over, it takes a lot of confidence to push yourself off your feet.

I watched several videos how people float forward face down. I know there’s nothing to it, no tricks, so simple just push yourself forward, head down, arms fully extended in front of you hand overlapping shaping yourself sort of like a torpedo. Plus leg kicking to keep your body vertical to the water surface. Put yourself a few feet away facing the poolside, so you’ll be pushing yourself towards shallow water and safety. Yes, watching somebody do it helps to give a lot of confidence. But that was still not enough for someone with a fear of water. I found myself a few times just standing there, facing the side of the pool, just when I was about to push myself I got scared and stopped short. What now? So I decided to try this at the kid’s pool instead. Yes no kidding. It was much less scary. A bit difficult to push yourself forward from a kneeling position in a knee deep pool, but it was workable. And it worked. I push myself onto the water and floated forward, face down, with my legs kicking. It doesn’t feel really nice cause the buoyancy is less in shallow water, but still floated I did.

With that I gained the confidence to do the same in the adult pool with chest deep water. Still scary, but mentally I knew it will work. And of course, it did. Problems might occur when you don’t kick right, as your legs will sink bringing your body with it. You’ll also fail to propel yourself to the side of the pool, so having to recover before your hands can hold on to the pool side or pool steps is a bit difficult and clumsy. I guess theoretically there is a danger in breathing in while you’re submerged, but that never happened, since it became natural for you to hold your breath. It is easier if you know how to bubble or exhale while submerged because it takes the tension of holding your breath away, and you can do this more comfortably. So I did it. I learned to float face down in the swimming pool, propelling forward with the push and aided by my kicking. My arms were just aimed in front of me like the point of a missile. No swimming yet here. But guys, if you realize, all it takes now is to add the arm stroke. So yes that was a big an important step for me to learn to swim by myself. Really looking forward for my next lesson.

Learn to swim tips 2

Warming up and stretching for your swimming lesson

My left shoulder hurt for days after my last swimming session. My whole body ached.

Swimming is a physical activity, much like other physical exercises, where you can develop cramps without proper warming up. This is because our muscles will be doing movements it is not used to or pushed beyond its normal level. So by the time you want to start practicing your strokes and leg movement, it is wise to do some warm up exercises. I had to learn it the painful way.

Just think that you’ll be doing a lot of arm and shoulder movements, legs too and of course your whole body will be put under pressure. So before you swim do some general warm up plus focus on shoulder and arm muscles and leg muscles. If you’re shy at the pool then do it in your room before you come down, or make it look natural as you’re making your way to the pool.

If you’re not sure then there is this 4 warm up exercises article on ezine you might want to refer to. It involves, arm swing, clap, lunges and start jump.

This tip is more geared towards to avoiding muscle injury rather than increasing performance as this is more important when we are just learning to swim, where we will be only practicing certain strokes or movement, rather than swimming some laps, and the lack of experience swimming means that our muscle will indeed be doing something they’re not used to. Swimmers actually warm up by doing warm up laps to increase their swimming performances during competition.

Now warm ups usually includes stretching exercises, and though personally I feel that stretching my muscles help to reduce the soreness that comes after, there are actually different opinions and conflicting research findings on its benefit or effectiveness. So you’ll have to do your own reading on that. Basically they say warming up is good, but stretching might only be beneficial to limited type of sport and can lower performance or harmful in other instances.

Learn to swim myself, my second swimming session.

I finally managed to bring myself to the pool for my second swimming lesson. My wife came along with the kids. Remember that someone needs to be around even though you want to learn to swim by yourself. Got my prescription swimming goggles with me too, so really looking forward to it.

For my first lesson i just made myself comfortable holding my breath underwater, removing the fear of being submerged underwater, gaining some confidence. Let me tell you that after a while away from the pool, i start to forget how comfortable i had felt before, and some anxiety did returned. So again i had to familiarize myself, took a deep breath and proof to myself that i indeed could hold my breath underwater comfortably.

At first i tried to learn how to float, but it turned out to be more difficult than i expected, moreover, my wife couldn't join me in the adult pool, so i had to limit my floating attempt. Maybe next time, maybe it'll be easier to swim first and then to float, that's the good thing about doing things at your own pace, understanding the process that you're going through as well as your options as you learn to swim. So what next?

Now even though i managed to hold my breath underwater, but i was still very much keeping to a vertical position, standing, bending my knee to submerge, walking along the pool wall. I was still scared to let go of my feet, into a swimming position, afraid to lose control of myself, wondering if i can bring myself back up. Wonder if any of you can relate to this feeling.

I went to the children's pool, and at my family's urging i attempted to 'swim'. Took a deep breath, throw myself in the water horizontally as if to swim, being wholly submerged. Then i managed to swing my arms a couple of strokes in front of me pushing the water backward, and i felt myself moving a few feet. Unfortunately my legs were just stiff, not sure what to do, limiting my movement. Clearly i need to practice on my hands and legs movement. Well at least i moved underwater in a swimming position. That was a step forward. But most important, it allowed me to learn a few more things about my fear and limitations, what skills i need to gain and that was really helpful for me to plan a better approach for my next swimming lesson!