Swimming lessons

[Maxmosbey]

A few years ago my wife and I took surfing lessons in Mexico. The last couple of years we have gone down there for a couple of weeks specifically to go surfing. We do OK. We are not great surfers however and have a lot of room for improvement. It is kind of like golf in that respect. I decided that a good part of our problem is that we are so exhausted from swimming around, climbing on the board, and paddling out again, that we don't have enough left to actually catch the wave well. Another reason is that when you are out in the ocean in water over your head, you really need to be a good swimmer, not just an average swimmer. So we are taking swimming lessons. We are having fun, and yesterday we made some huge gains all of a sudden. Everything just started clicking. We have until the end of January to get in shape for our trip this winter.

 

[tonycondon]

wow you really do need to get serious!

 

[Maxmosbey]

wow you really do need to get serious!

I know, I'm trying to be serious. How is the rowing going?

 

[tonycondon]

haven't had a chance to get out on the water this week but hopefully next week. Leah is buying a racing single this weekend and will race it at the regatta here on November 7. So next week she'll be rowing pretty much every day in that. After the Regatta she will take her glider practical test.

 

[Maxmosbey]

Leah is buying a racing single this weekend and will race it at the regatta here on November 7. So next week she'll be rowing pretty much every day in that. After the Regatta she will take her glider practical test.

Now that is what I call getting serious.

 

[flygirl34q]

Wow! Good luck with the swimming lessons and the rowing!

 

[Maxmosbey]

We took our second lesson a couple of weeks ago. Our swimming instructor is very good and we are getting a lot better. He tuned us up a little bit and gave us some drills. He had us using a pull buoy, which is a foam thing that you put between your legs. It keeps you from kicking, but helps hold you up a little so that you can isolate and work on your stroke. It actually pushes your head down, which is good. It is important to keep your head down. Today we both did twenty minutes without stopping. Actually my wife did thirty minutes. I did ten with the pull buoy working on my stroke and breathing, then twenty minutes without the buoy. It is really fun. We have one more lesson in December. I'm excited to see what our instructor says about our progress.

 

[RJM62]

That's great!

The sudden "huge gains" were just the point when the things you were having to think about doing became automatic, and you no longer had to think about them. It's something along the lines of "muscle memory." Once the proper technique becomes automatic, you don't think about it, which relieves stress (especially in the neck and chest), which in turn both frees energy and allows the whole body to get into the proper rhythm. Until you get to that point, you have to think about what you're doing, and there's stress. That stress holds you back. Once it's gone, all of your energy is directed into powering the body. The mechanics have become as automatic as walking.

When I was a little kid, I used to swim at the YMCA on 9th Street in Brooklyn several times a week. It was really cheap back then: something like $50.00 a year, I think. They had some good instructors there, and I became an excellent swimmer over time. My swimming skills were later honed in the USCG, and then I took advanced lifesaving in college (mainly because it was an easy Health Ed elective for someone who already was a good swimmer).

It only takes a lifeguard or a swimming instructor a few seconds to size up someone's swimming abilities. Most of an average swimmer's problems have to do, as you pointed out, with the head and arms. Most average swimmers don't breathe properly and don't use their arms correctly. Because they don't breathe properly, they can't keep their heads down; and because they can't keep their heads down, their strokes are awkward and inefficient. Their spines are curved up to support their heads, so the whole upper portion of the arc of their stroke is wasted. The thrust is vectored upwards, as if they were trying to swim up out of the water, rather then being vectored forward. That's where the pull buoy comes in. It forces you to use proper upper body technique.

I'm sort of the designated swim instructor for my family, and over the years, I've taught many relatives and friends to swim in the ocean. It's always fun to watch them when they "get it."

-Rich

 

[Maxmosbey]

That's great!

The sudden "huge gains" were just the point when the things you were having to think about doing became automatic, and you no longer had to think about them. It's something along the lines of "muscle memory." Once the proper technique becomes automatic, you don't think about it, which relieves stress (especially in the neck and chest), which in turn both frees energy and allows the whole body to get into the proper rhythm. Until you get to that point, you have to think about what you're doing, and there's stress. That stress holds you back. Once it's gone, all of your energy is directed into powering the body. The mechanics have become as automatic as walking.

When I was a little kid, I used to swim at the YMCA on 9th Street in Brooklyn several times a week. It was really cheap back then: something like $50.00 a year, I think. They had some good instructors there, and I became an excellent swimmer over time. My swimming skills were later honed in the USCG, and then I took advanced lifesaving in college (mainly because it was an easy Health Ed elective for someone who already was a good swimmer).

It only takes a lifeguard or a swimming instructor a few seconds to size up someone's swimming abilities. Most of an average swimmer's problems have to do, as you pointed out, with the head and arms. Most average swimmers don't breathe properly and don't use their arms correctly. Because they don't breathe properly, they can't keep their heads down; and because they can't keep their heads down, their strokes are awkward and inefficient. Their spines are curved up to support their heads, so the whole upper portion of the arc of their stroke is wasted. The thrust is vectored upwards, as if they were trying to swim up out of the water, rather then being vectored forward. That's where the pull buoy comes in. It forces you to use proper upper body technique.

I'm sort of the designated swim instructor for my family, and over the years, I've taught many relatives and friends to swim in the ocean. It's always fun to watch them when they "get it."

-Rich

It sounds like you know what you are talking about. I always thought that I was a good swimmer. I even have a NAUI and a PADI certification. I guess that I was always able to breast stroke or side stroke my way through. But I thought that I wanted to be a better swimmer. What I found out was that I wasn't a very good swimmer at all. It is just like you were saying, I was swimming up hill and plowing through the water instead of gliding through it. The thing is that my son was on the high school swim team, and he can swim the crawl stroke all day. I couldn't get across and back doing the crawl without switching to the breast stroke just before drowning. So anyway, it is fun, and I am learning a lot. My instructor is also a swim coach. I wonder if there is some way I could compete? I'm going to ask him if there is an old man competition or something like that. I don't know if there is swimming events like there are 5ks in running, where you can compete without expecting to win. I don't want to get too serious, but it would be fun to swim against other people just to see.

 

[CollinLeon]

I always thought that I was a good swimmer. I even have a NAUI and a PADI certification.

You do not need to be a "good swimmer" to be a diver. You just need to be comfortable in the water. The ability to tread water / stay afloat with minimal energy expenditure is more important than how fast your lap times might be.

 

[RJM62]

You do not need to be a "good swimmer" to be a diver. You just need to be comfortable in the water. The ability to tread water / stay afloat with minimal energy expenditure is more important than how fast your lap times might be.

That was also true of the swimming required when I was in the service 30+ years ago, for obvious reasons. The swimming requirements just to get through basic training were difficult for most recruits. Being unable to pass the swim test after a full week at the pool was the single biggest reason for recruits being reverted, and still being unable to pass it after two or three weeks was the most common reason for recruits washing out and being discharged.

But none of the tests emphasized speed very much. There were time limits, but they laughable to a competitive swimmer. The tough parts were things like mastering the oil-fire survival technique, which supposedly provided a way to swim under an oil fire and survive with minimal injury. (I have my doubts.) That was pretty challenging, even for a good swimmer.

Neither did any of the practical swimming done during rescues require speed (nor did most rescues require any swimming at all). We had to be comfortable in the water and with the fact that we couldn't "touch bottom" a thousand miles out at sea, but we didn't particularly need speed.

Where the "need for speed" came in was during the informal, but deadly serious (to us, back then) races that we spontaneously organized at sea during "swim calls".

There were no medals and no trophies attached to these competitions. Just bragging rights. But being competitive, as young men tend to be, bragging rights mattered. And swimming was a convenient venue for that. The fact that there were a lot of very good swimmers in the group meant that we all had to hone our technique to be competitive.

So we raced. And raced. And raced. It was a good time.

-Rich

 

[Maxmosbey]

That was also true of the swimming required when I was in the service 30+ years ago, for obvious reasons. The swimming requirements just to get through basic training were difficult for most recruits. Being unable to pass the swim test after a full week at the pool was the single biggest reason for recruits being reverted, and still being unable to pass it after two or three weeks was the most common reason for recruits washing out and being discharged.

But none of the tests emphasized speed very much. There were time limits, but they laughable to a competitive swimmer. The tough parts were things like mastering the oil-fire survival technique, which supposedly provided a way to swim under an oil fire and survive with minimal injury. (I have my doubts.) That was pretty challenging, even for a good swimmer.

Neither did any of the practical swimming done during rescues require speed (nor did most rescues require any swimming at all). We had to be comfortable in the water and with the fact that we couldn't "touch bottom" a thousand miles out at sea, but we didn't particularly need speed.

Where the "need for speed" came in was during the informal, but deadly serious (to us, back then) races that we spontaneously organized at sea during "swim calls".

There were no medals and no trophies attached to these competitions. Just bragging rights. But being competitive, as young men tend to be, bragging rights mattered. And swimming was a convenient venue for that. The fact that there were a lot of very good swimmers in the group meant that we all had to hone our technique to be competitive.

So we raced. And raced. And raced. It was a good time.

-Rich

I was in the Navy, and I remember the swim tests well. The swimming under burning oil drill, didn't have much trouble with that, but pulling my trousers off, tying the legs in knots, then making water wings out of them was hard for me. I would always go under when I tried to throw them over my head to trap air in them. I could get enough air in them that they would float on their own, then I would take big breaths and put my head under water so that I could blow bubbles up into them to fill them up. That goes way back in the way back machine.