Specific Swimming Tips for All Ages

I learned to swim at age 5 at a private club where our family was a member. I don’t remember specifically what or how I was taught-only that I began playing in the shallow end and that my older sister started letting me go to the deeper end of the pool with her as she held me afloat with her hand underneath me. I do know that I learned to hold my breath underwater and not be afraid of it. As I grew I began to absolutely love the water itself and even more to love the Ocean and the Gulf, which is almost a flotation device in and of itself. Though I cannot suggest that anyone will automatically love to swim as much as I did and do, I can tell you that certain activities and movements will begin to dispel fear of swimming for both the child swimmer and for even adults.

1. Breathing is so crucial to efficiency and ease in swimming that it should be taught as a first step in teaching anyone to swim. I was taught to put my head in the water and breath out through my mouth, blowing bubbles to exhale. This way I could learn how to breathe in as I tilted my head sideways and to exhale my breath as I turned my head downward, submerging my nose. I see so many people swimming by tipping their head left to right while frantically fighting to hold their noses above the water. This is not swimming and nobody who is afraid of immersing his or her face will be able to go any decent distance. It’s simply not possible. So the very first lessons when you teach a person to swim should concentrate on showing a student (or child) how to immerse the nose and entire face and breathe out, then tilt the face sideways and breathe in air. When they learn to do this from a standing position in shallow water, you can place a hand under them in deeper water and let them do it while they are floating, supported by you. Then you can gradually let go and allow them to stay afloat on their on.

2. Children are naturally fearless when they learn anything. That is a fact. Look at how they jump into using computers. They Play with them and by doing so learn by their mistakes and get more proficient in their use and experience with the infernal machines. The same is true of learning anything else. Play is a crucial factor in anyone learning anything. Once students learn how to exhale it’s a good idea to let them jump in with you nearby and swim underwater toward you. It begins to become a game with them. I began playing blindman’s bluff and Marco Polo underwater with my friends and learned to absolutely delight in becoming like a fish for a few minutes and exploring that wet, quiet magical world fearlessly because I knew I could always come up when I ran out of air. It was an important part of my growing love of the whole world of water anywhere.

3. So your child or student knows how to breathe underwater it’s now time to coordinate strokes with the breathing. A professional instructor can help you with this if you are not experienced enough yourself. Teach your student to stretch one hand forward with each sideways inhale. They may be inclined to inhale from their right side or left side. It doesn’t matter. But make sure they reach forward with the hand opposite the side they use to breathe in – if they breathe in by tipping their head to the right to breathe in air, they will stretch their left hand forward to move back through the water on their next stroke. The opposite is true if they breathe in by moving their face to the left.

4. The next three tips are things I only learned much later in life and involve how to swim efficiently and with the least fatigue. First is how to use your legs and feet. I see people swim like they’re egg beaters, kicking like mad and making a huge splashing as they propel themselves forward. While this may be all right to sprint swim for a few laps, it will wear anyone out in the long term. An old Senior Olympics Gold Medalist taught me to use my legs with a very slight fluttering motion and to just let the feet and legs move as they will naturally. When I learned this it was a revelation and improved my stamina by at least double or even triple. I got so I could swim at least a half mile with almost no effort and do it as a sort of Zen experience, concentrating my mind on relaxation and enjoying the sheer feel of being afloat and moving forward.

5. My Senior Olympics master then taught me to roll when I swam. As I reached forward with my left hand I learned to roll my entire body vertically to the right so that I was advancing vertically through the water with each stroke. In other words, stretch with your left hand and roll so that your left side is on the downside of your vertical movement. When you stretch with the right hand reverse that so that your right side is on the downside of the vertical movement. You can use your hand to see what I’m talking about. Put your hand out in front of you flat in the air. Now turn it so that it is vertical with your thumb side up. Now turn it so that it is vertical with the outer edge up. This should be how your body progresses forward.

6. The final tip was a real asset on helping me get the most power from my arms, which should be the major source of the power that propels you forward. My “master” finally taught me that you should never slap at the top of the water and drag your hand down and back. Instead, you should point your hand down and dig deep into the water with as little splash as possible and then pull it inward toward your chest and waist. If you are tilted down on your right side with your right arm extended forward, pull that hand in toward your chest and that will help you roll back on your left side with your left arm extended. Try this movement from a chair or standing up and you’ll get the hang of what he taught me. I got so I could roll with ease when I pulled my hand in toward my chest in an arc-like motion. Just practice this in the air, then in the shallow end of the pool.

These three techniques made all the difference in the world in my ability to swim for long distances. Learning not to use my legs and feet to kick vigorously helped me conserve energy. But when I learned to roll and to swim vertically through the water and how to pull myself forward with a deep arc movement of my arm and hand I could begin to feel the great power of the arms to pull oneself forward.

Learning to swim has become an adventure for me and can be one for anyone, at any level. These tips are just some that people may not get when learning to swim from an instructor. My 72 year-old Senior Olympics instructor could outswim me by leaps and bounds when I began swimming with his master class. Every year I have become more proficient at applying what he taught me and it has enabled me to do my daily laps with more relaxation and more ease in much faster time. Swimming can be a chore, even if you think you know how. It can be boring too. There is no perfect technique in swimming but what this wonderful man taught me is something I can see people on swim teams applying. If you learn to swim as relaxation you can use the time for meditation and a chance to revive your mind and body. Even youngsters can apply these techniques and learn to swim as a lifetime exercise that will serve them well into old age even with infirmities like arthritis. They have certainly added to my joy in the water!