2021 10 Private Lesson Notes Max.Du

Forums Personal Discussion Zone PDZ Users H through M Max.du Discussion Zone 2021 10 Private Lesson Notes Max.Du

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  • #32197
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    21/10/29 Lesson Notes

    We stared our session with a general water skill assessment for young swimmers. There is no right or wrong way to the activities. They help us asses 1. the swimmers comfort in the environment and with that skill, 2. how the swimmer’s body orientates and problems solves in various activities and positions, 3. level of proficiency with each skill. It also shows us places to use care or caution for safety while in the aquatic environment. Here are the following skills:

    • Full Submerge and Exhale via the Mouth, then Exhale via the Nose
    • Balance in a Font Float
    • Balance ins a Back Float
    • Switch from Front to Back, return to Front Float
    • Push off from wall and Glide
    • Retrieve weighted objects at various depths, recover to the side
    • Safety Bobs
    • Treading Water
    • Elementary Backstroke (“Chicken, Airplane, Soldier”)
    • Backstroke
    • Freestyle
    • Breast Stroke
    • Butterfly
    • Jump in and recover
    • Dive in and recover
    • Swim 1/2 length on back, then swim remaining 1/2 on front (continuously without stopping at wall or lane line)

    Max choose to focus first on developing his Freestyle Stroke.

    Now we will do a light introduction to the Freestyle Stroke. However, if Max would like to take the initiative and dive deep into understanding the Freestyle Stroke and all the different ways he can improve his stroke, see the notes and lesson reviews in Freestyle Fundamentals. We will be pulling various drills and cues from these notes. There are videos and descriptions of the different drills we are doing.  For reference, we started working on notes from the following lessons: Build the Frame, Form Streamline Shape, and Interrupted Breathing

    Other Notes:

    Max did very well during our first session. When I described and visually demonstrated a drill and cue, he was able to copy and apply these skills into his own body. Also, when given progressively more complex patterns to a drill sequence, he quickly caught on and was able to execute the pattern. 

    We took a few brain breaks and explored some some movements in the water, such as touching toes, creating a beach ball shape with our bodies and making them twirl, and summer saults. With a few tips to improve the summer sault, I believe Max was pleasantly surprised to complete a full front summer sault without holding his nose. As a concluding reward, we finished with picking donuts from the floor throughout various depths. 

    #32210
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    21/11/10 Lesson Notes

    Lesson starts with sensory warm-up in the water is helpful to bring our mind and bodies to the environment and task. With Max this involves giving him the chance to wiggle around and maybe start with a fun activity of his choosing.

    We then reviewed his previous lessons freestyle foundations in a balanced frame, forming the streamline shape and interrupted breathing. We then rehearsed the three stroke to interrupted breath choreography to prepare for active swimming strokes.

    Max recalls his early years swim lessons. But today I introduced him to a new way for swinging his Recovery arm forward in the water. The throwing your arm out ahead of you so you can make “scoops” is a traditional way of learning to swim and is very common in kids lessons. So I sold him on learning to swim a little more like a grown-up. You can review the technical aspects of this lesson in Sending Force Forward in the Freestyle Fundamentals. The main difference between the formal notes and our lesson is that I used more kid centric metaphors to help Max visualize the movements. “Pull the tent out of your pocket. Set it up above your head. Lay the ten down. Then slide it back into your pocket.” Each of these sentences is a different cue he needed to focus on. Then we worked a little on his Arm Switch timing to happen above the head instead of “windmilling” the arms.

    Max followed instructions well and he once again did well with the pattern of the choreography. At some point though, I could see that his body and brain weren’t syncing up in the skill so we switched activities to give it a break.

    We started the foundations for push-offs and glides, flip turns and dives. The activities around this were:

    • Wall push offs, emphasis on legs for power and streamline
    • Gliding down threw a hoop.
    • Gliding down to push off the ground
    • Summer Saults
    • Hand-stands

    The lesson finished with Max using his new three part stroke choreography down the 25 yard length of the pool and learning pencil dives.

    In the lessons to come we may repeat several of these activities to keep building his comfort, skill and foundation for later swim skills.

    #32215
    Max Duncan
    Participant

    Hi Jamee,

    Fantastic notes. Thanks for helping Max to visualize his movements with relatable metaphors. As soon as he got in the car he was telling me about pulling the tent out, setting it up over his head, etc. I could tell he felt a lot of self-confidence after his lesson today. Thank you for that!

    Sincerely,

    Jon

    #32222
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    Great to hear! The metaphor is a great intro. We’ll see how technical he’d like to get because we can always go deeper into the stroke mechanic.

    Cheers!

    #32223
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    21/11/15 Lesson Notes

    With the unexpected ankle tenderness, we avoided activities today that involved pushing off with the feet such as jumps, dives, push-offs and glides.

    We’re adding to our fun activity repertoire. We warmed up with retrieving rings from the floor and finished with a few basketball shoots.

    Max chose to review his Freestyle skills with the following drills:

    • One-Sided Streamline Frame with 3x underwater paddle to Interrupted Breathing
    • Alternating Streamline Frame with 3x underwater paddle to Interrupted Breathing, then Switch Lead arms, repeat

    Today’s main cue:

    Keep the hand in the “pocket.”

    • When rotating from Streamline to Interrupted Breathing, keep the non lead arm in “pocket,” arm straight, elbow in towards the rib cage. Hand remains in the pocket while breathing and rotating back to Streamline. When in Streamline, then the arm may leave to form the Recovery Swing or “tent arm.”

    We built up to our ideal stroke choreography:

    • 3x Whole Strokes to Interrupted Breathing, alternating breathing sides

    This choreography is tricky. There are a lot of moving parts. We’ll keep going over drills with new cues to keep refining Max’s technique while building up endurance to swim the full length of the pool without long pauses.

    Also, we took a look at Max’s treading water endurance. Although there are several variations of how to tread water, Max’s current form is a flutter kick with arm press. His current endurance is 1minute 4o seconds. Though, Max and I are both pretty floaty and don’t have to move to keep our heads up, it’s still good to practice the skill because body’s change over time.

    Finally we did some submerged pencil dives at the deep end, using the ladder like a fireman to help us reach closer to the bottom of the 10 foot depth. Whether jumping in or pushing down, if the goal is to go as far as possibly, it is important to keep the body narrow and straight. If the arms or legs are bent the water will catch on them and resist the force be applied downward, slowing the trajectory. Think like you’re trying to slide through a narrow tube, like Mario.

    #32244
    Jamee Small
    Keymaster

    21/11/17 Lesson Notes

    Warm-up by retrieving rings. Greatest depth was 5 feet.

    Over the course of the lesson Max made it down the pool 4 times, stopping at the mid line each time to rest. He used the 3 strokes to Interrupted Breathing Drill. His cue or point of focus each time was to keep his eyes looking down.

    Introduced a dolphin kick. I recommended practicing a “worm” or “wave” like motion in front of a mirror or against a wall to get familiar with the rolling motion down the body. Press the body down from shoulder, to chest, to stomach, to hips, to thighs.

    This is also in prep for the dive swoop like motion. We rehearse with some at the surface push offs and glides, keeping the head down and streamline arms above the head, hugging the ears. Then increasing the depth of push offs, we worked down to a diving swoop from a push off. After we removed the wall and tried diving down through a hoop from standing.

    Max did deep water bobs to about 7 feet with the aid of gravity by treading up and straight pencil legs.

    Treading Water Time: 2 minutes!

    After a few jumps we did a couple seated dives in the deep end. Max was able to avoid a belly flop.

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