I’ve been working with our advanced swim lessons on weekday evenings because we’re in the heart of high school Fall sports season and I have new staff that needs to be trained and a shortage of returning people. I’m sure in September and October this is a familiar refrain that you struggle with too.

Here is the scene:

• 6 swimmers are signed up for the advanced swim lessons 2-3 days a week.
• Not all 6 show up every day
• Minimum requirement is Level 3 or level 3 equivalent if coming from another program
  • Still we struggle with strict adherence to “streamlines that do all 3 things,” circle swimming, and listening to directions like “set up your lane.”
• Range of ages from 5-9
• Limited space: sometimes 1 lane, sometimes 2
• Limited to being in the deep end; not all can stand in the water: 4.5 feet deep

The biggest difficulty is that the swimmers don’t all speak English, aren’t good at following directions, and have no baseline standard framework.

They have to learn the basics first. I feel like I’m teaching a level 2 class with kids that *could* be level 3, but because they can’t wait their turn, can’t push off in streamline, and can’t follow the basic “rotation method” then we can’t do ANYTHING and I’m wasting 45 minutes just trying to get the swimmers to hold the wall in the right position while they rotate through taking their turns.

Half the time when we do short distance training like 3 x SL to the flags the kids do a doggy paddle like streamline “thing” all the way to the other end while ignoring teachers and me waving and yelling for them to stop!

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Rotation Method:

Set up your lane:

What is the fix?

I’ve been running this class just like I ran Developmental 1 swim practices, which is the intention behind “Advanced Swim Lessons.” You get a coaching like experience, need to have a baseline skill level (3), and should be prepared for a 45 minute lesson full of activities, challenges, and in/out of the water things.

The first step:

Establish routine and framework.

1. Set up your lane
2. Rotation Method
3. Streamline:
   • Lock your thumb
   • squeeze your e
   • ars
   • look down
4. Building a feedback expectation habit:
   • Telling swimmers what they did every attempt; getting their attention and telling them what they did and how to improve
   • Cheering with positive feedback when they succeed
5. Incremental small steps to success.

I’m going to work on really clarifying my instructions. I want my swimmers to set up their lane with adherence to first person in the bottom right corner second person in that corner opposite and everyone else lying up behind them along the landline or wall.

The Second Step:

Streamline.

From there, I’m going to focus on a good quality streamline and the rotation method at the same time. We will be following the advanced lesson week one advanced lesson week two lesson plans found under my account – lesson plans TV.

You can use these lesson plans yourself and follow along with your own advanced lessons.

Lesson Plans

And yes, we will be using the same lesson plan every day, three days a week for the whole week.

I’ve also found the need to intersperse more challenges to break up the feeling of being yelled at, being told exactly what to do, and not having enough small successes along the way.

It is the challenges with a very significant past fail criteria that leads to joy. When swimmers succeed at something as trivial is going underwater and putting your butt on the bottom, they feel empowered by that success.

Advanced Lesson: Week 1

Advanced Lesson: Week 2

So where does the struggle meet the level? And where is the confusion come in?

The struggle is directly tied to swimmers showing up into our lesson program without having the baseline structure and framework of our initial levels. We initiate swimmers into the rotation method and streamline from level one. I found that with swimmers that have progressed through our system from level one to level three advanced lessons, getting them into the framework of repetitive short distance, swim training, or using the rotation method, helps facilitate faster learning, and easier practice.

So while the swimmers are technically level 3, and therefore meeting the baseline criteria to join advanced swim lessons, they are not a true expectation of level 3 for what we would want had they come through our program from the beginning.

An area of opportunity for a training with my staff is that not all instructors strictly adhere to the rotation method. that is a critical problem as it is an essential framework from which almost all instruction flows.

My experience teaching the few swimmers that HAVE come through our program means that my staff have NOT been using the rotation method strictly, have not been reinforcing strict streamline (specifically all 3 crucial things to doing it well), and have NOT been using the rotation method!

I’m going to use this training presentation!

October 2024: Rotation Method

What about you? Have you struggled with running advance, swim lessons?

How do you handle swimmers coming into your program without having the luxury or benefit of rising through the levels within your system?

Comment below! I love to hear your stories and get glimpses into other people solve similar problems.