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2019/08/04 – Session 1 of 1
Today was a big day. We came into a lesson after a long break and little practice in between, a new pool and a deep end. This a quite a lot to introduce in one go. Though today was quite a stretch, I am confident that we’ll see quick progression towards your goals.
You are familiar with the practice routines and patterns for Back Floats, Front Floats, Sinking, Regular Breaststroke and Recreational Breaststroke, and Elementary Backstroke. We can continue to refine these, but you can use most of your practice time and acclimation to the new environment using these drills and skills.
If you feel up for it, you can keep addressing your comfort with greater depths on your own to a degree. I recommend staying on the shallow end of the mid-line when on your own. You verbalized your main discomforts being air control/loss of air and unable to get to the surface in time. At a depth you don’t feel any discomfort, return to our air management exercises. Holding on the wall, let all the air out of your lungs and feel that sensation. Practice the “Exhale for 10, Hold for 10, Exhale for 10, Hold for 10” exercise in the same manner. Play with holding and exhaling variations. Then bring these same Air Management Techniques into your depth exercises.
Acclimation to Greater Depths (Before or at the Mid-line)
Complete Cycle 1 with all drills. Then increase complexity by repeating the drills with Cycle 2 and progress accordingly.
Cycles:
- Cycle 1 – Looking Towards Shallow End
- Cycle 2 – Turned to the Side
- Cycle 3 – Facing the Deep End
Drills:
- Two Hand Hold Bobs
- Two Hand Hold Bobs with Extended Breath
- Two Hand Hold Bobs while looking around
- Repeat above with One Hand Hold
- Deep Water Bob, Short release of Hands
- Deep Water Bob, Longer release of Hands
- Deep Water Bob, Push off the Ground
- Two Hand Hold, Superman Float
- One Hand Hold, Superman Float
- Fingertip Hold, Superman Float
Take note if you are holding your breath or closing your eyes during the activities. The next phase is to repeat the practice but applying conscious effort to relax your forearms and hands so they are not as tense.
Your goal is to find and feel how the water supports and lifts you. Play around with the Balance Basics, such as the Beach Ball, Touch Toes, Submerged Superman, Jump and Sit, Deep Bobs. Each time you feel it, ease into the sensation. Meditate on what it feels like and how it makes you feel to experience it.
19/09/12 to 19/09/19 – Session 3 and 4
Here are the notes for our 3rd and 4th session in this series. During our second session, you strongly connected to the feeling of being lifted when we visited the deep end. This same sensation can be recreated in the shallow end. When you can feel this sensation, relax into it and feel comfortable with it, you can learn to look for it and rely upon in when traveling to greater depths. We explored this sensation in our 3rd session with both safety bobs, streamline glides and push offs.
You also named the fear of running out of air or not getting to the surface before you ran out. This is a legitimate caution in water, but we first need to understand the true comfortable limits of our air management and not just those induced by fear. During our 4th session we explored this further with a weight and practicing air control while sitting in the shallow end. Then you experienced maintaining that control while the weight pulled you down in a streamline shape, to only lift back up once released, combining both the lift and air.
I encourage you to continue exploring being comfortable beneath the surface, staying calm and relax when submerged to allow the buoyancy to bring the body back up. In order to feel at ease on the surface, you need to not be running away from the bottom. When you become comfortable with your body and being under the water, you may be able to focus more on your stroke movements more than survival.
Streamline
- Superman Glide from standing
- Superman Glide with push off
- Safety Bobs, two feet push off
- Superman Glide with Increased push off
- Wall Push-off and Glide
Breath Management – using the diving brick to help hold you under the water, practice various air management patterns
- Hold Breath
- Hold 5 seconds, exhale 5 seconds
- Hold 3 seconds, exhale 3 seconds, hold 3 seconds
- Hold, fully exhale, hold until no longer comfortable
- Repeat until, increasing depth each time
Lift – using the diving brick to weigh you done, extend into superman allowing the body to sink. Then let go of the brick, maintain superman, feel the body lift.
- At first, just simulate until comfortable
- Prolong the period of being weighed down
- Change directions to face deep end
- Increase depth (no greater than 5 feet)
Streamline Dive (“Dolphin Dive”)– Push off from ground or wall to dive down to a depth, maintaining streamline shape. Purpose is to be comfortable, pushing the body down and feeling the water lift you back up.
Lifejacket – adult jackets found be entrance. If you feel like having fun, try the lifejacket in the shallow end.
- Paddle on your front
- Paddle on back
- Side stroke on right, then left
- Roll
- Practice Elementary Backstroke
- Practice Breaststroke
- Repeat without Lifejacket
*The lifejackets are for everyone to use. The diving brick is kept in the Aquatic Office. Just ask the lifeguard if you can use it and they’ll get it for you.
19/10/10 – Session 5
Air Management Comfort
Learning to distinguish between building CO2 build up (through holding the breath), loss of all oxygen (full exhale), and a relationship between the two (exhale and hold, repeat) will help you better associate what you need and when.
Try each method of air control using the instructions from our previous lesson first in the shallow end with a brick and then build to 4.5 feet. Then at the same depth, begin the Lift exercises (Superman with the brick).
Lift and Streamline
Next push off the wall to glide at the surface. Remember the temporary suspension when the hand leaves the wall and the legs remain in contact with the wall, to bring the hands together. A firm push with the feet will provide enough energy to drive the body straight or down, depending on how the front torso is angled. Once tuned in, it’s time to work on pushing off in a downward streamline. Imagine a cylinder slide, making the body long, narrow, and straight to slip through. You found that magic sensation. To achieve it again, the head needs to tuck and aim the arms and torso to compress down.
Rolling Wave (Lane Line)
Finally, we rolled over the lane line. This brought out an uncomfortable edge. We found, that it was important to have me accompany you in this movement. If you feel uncomfortable with the idea of approaching this alone, it can wait. We’ll revisit it again together next time. In the meantime, you might try leaning on the lane line, letting the feet pick off the ground and swinging back and forth. Remember, play. Just being at the lane line and exploring it will help when we use it again to slide on.
19/12/08 Session 6 of 6
Judging Advice and InputAs we work on exploring a new way of swimming it is not uncommon for others to take notice. There is a lot of good advice out there and some not as efficient or effective to our experience. Not everyone knows your full story, so it is important to learn how to process external feedback of others. Fortunately, Coach Mat has dedicated some time for developing thoughtful filters by which to judge external advice. Even if it is coming from another Coach.Pool Markers
The flags at both ends of the pool are there to let back stroke swimmers know when they are approaching the wall, but there is a lot of space between the two. Since you typically practice in the lanes on the wall, you can use the numbers tiled on the side to help navigate your distance. If you are traveling from shallow to deep, the 45 is before the mid-line, the 30 is about 4 feet after the mid-line.
The ideal place to begin working on comfort with the deep end is where you can submerge your head and extend the arms fully to have the feet touch the bottom. For you this is just before the 30 marker. First rehearse your drill sequence at the mid-line before going to the 30 marker, so you feel prepared and in the right mind-frame.
Deep End Bobs
- Both hand on the wall, Bob
- Both hands hovering on the wall, Bob
- Flat hands slide down the wall, Bob
- Flat hands, Bob, Surface and Breath
- Flat hands, Bob, Surface and Breath, Re-submerge
Focal Points
- Arms fully extended
- At least one foot makes contact with the ground (greater contact means, more surface to push off of)
- Keep legs straight as you slide down
- Feel the point when the trajectory down slows and bouyancy starts to take over
- Big jump (bigger the push off the bottom, the faster to the surface)
- Kick up after push off
- Straighten legs before second bob down
- Repeat with exhale
Additional Notes:
Over the next couple practices, search for what is calming in your mind. This might be a place, a person, a thing, an activity, or a sensation. When you find this space, tune into that calming sensation, what it is, why it is. Memorize it. Then try to bring that same calm, centering feeling into the pool practice with you. Do an activity in the water that you know you enjoy and recall that comforting feeling. By doing this, we’ll try to incorporate and associate these feelings together.
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