learn to swim better

When I was little my dad taught me to swim but never any particular “style”/stroke.

As soon as I got to about 10 or 11 I started to hate going to a swimming pool because I felt really exposed and uncomfortable. I’ve only gone once since a couple of years ago and it was a horrible experience.

I can swim, and love swimming in the sea on holidays but can’t do any swimming stroke. I do I type of breast-stroke when swimming underwater but when I try in above I can’t keep the rest of my body affoat. I swim with my own version of the front crawl, while my legs just flail.

I think that I’m more comfortable in my own body now so hoping that it’s only my lack of ability that’s stopping me from going to a pool. All my friends seemed to have swimming lessons from an instructor when they were little so got taught the “styles”/strokes then.

There are various learner swimming classes at my uni I might sign up for – new courses start in January so I might ask then and look into it. I’d love to be able to be able to go swimming!

I want to try an ironman competition, but I need to swim better

Coach J says that my crawl needs tweaking again coz i’ve retained some wrong habits (ugh). I want to tell him that I’m trying to respond to Coach R’s suggestion that I swim less mechanically. Sometimes multiple coaches has benefits, at other times it’s difficult. As usual, I expect that the answer to my problems lies somewhere in the middle of the two bits of advice.

Did more breast-stroke practice today. Not as great as last Monday’s, but at least I don’t think there was any regression. Sometimes regression in ones strokes can happen, just as you’re practicing to get better.

into swimming. or so i’ve been since April.

Here’s what I did.
Went back to my Total Immersion (TI) sessions, and essentially did an 8 session refresher course. I thought I further refined my stroke thanks to these sessions. Good thing I didn’t forget everything!

The most interesting bit though are what I’ve been doing for the last 4-5 sessions. And that is focusing on the breast-stroke. This stroke (for me) is so much more challenging. But since 4 sessions ago, I feel that my technique has improved a lot, AND thus I’m able to move through the water with less effort. It’s really great.

I feel that at this stage, I should click the “I’ve done this” button, but I will re-iterate what I said in an old post: you can always still improve your stroke. :)

I’ll continue to post about how my swims are going from time to time, but more importantly I think I’d like to have a conversation with people who are currently trying to improve their swim, and we can have conversations about it, share tips, and encouragement. Hope to hear from you people.

it’s fair to feel emparassed i can’t swim properly, cos i live in a greek island and never feared water… fuck, when i was a child i knew… then when i was 11-12 i started to feel uncomfortable with my body and stopped to go to beaches for many years, because i had many silly “teenager problems”. so surprisingly i completely forgot to swim… last summer i gone few times at the sea and learned some basics… this summer i’m gonna do more!

I can swim OK. But it’s mostly self taught and I can’t do it really well. I am going to sign up for a class at the Y and try to learn some proper swimming techniques before traveling to Playa del Carmen, Mexico, for a vacation this April to try out my new skills in the Ocean.

I can kinda swim but I’ve never been comfortable with it. Two summers ago I went snorkeling in Hawaii with a floaty tied around my waist and I loved it!!! I’d like to snorkel more or even scuba, but its not a reality unless I become more confident in the water. Probably the biggest obstacle is that I am SO nearsighted I’d be blind without my contacts. And wearing goggles seems like my eyeballs are being sucked out.

i have a pool at my new house,
and even though i didint g et to join the swim team like i wanted (seasons over) im still a good swimmer so im glad.

I’ve totally accomplished this and I totally love swimming now. Learned a lot considering where I started, and looking back my goal should have really been “learn to swim” because now that I know what actual swimming feels like I see that at the beginning I started with essentially no skill whatsoever.
Now, instead of timidly accepting that the water as a fundamentally hostile environment, I look forward to diving in— that weightless gliding and feeling of peaceful relaxation of being completely immersed. I’ve crossed hurdles that I never thought I would alone, just by practicing it all eventually gets better.
I still have aspirations of improving my swimming, in the bay with the swells and in the ocean’s surf, orders of magnitude in difficulty beyond the clean an comfortable pool swimming I’ve been doing, but that might be a goal for another summer. I think I’ll not push my luck for now and keep enjoying my regular practice and the local pool.

So now instead of just floating and stuff in the pool, I am actually going to start swimming laps. Hopefully, this will aid me in getting to be better.