Swimming Ideas Podcast 014: Teaching Adults to Swim

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Be patient

Ask where they are comfortable, drop down the checklist:

Go underwater?
- Face, eyes, blow bubbles
Front Glide?
- With Face in
Back Glide?
- Relaxed ears in water
- Hips near surface
- Legs kicking
Front Crawl
Back Crawl

Remember be patient Start slow, be gentle and give clear incremental directions.

Example:

Doing a front glide
- Common issues:
  - Fear of falling
  - Fear of not being able to breathe
  - Fear of not being able to stand up
- Work on how to get underwater and glide AND how to recover
  - How to recover is just as important
    - Teach how to rotate and push water with hands to get feet under you
  - Do exercises where they learn how to push the water to move their body.
    - May seem trivial but necessary to learn
- After teaching how to be comfortable getting feet underneath them move onto next incremental step.
  - How to get body line and position
  - How to kick
  - Right placement of face: look straight down.

Important to remember: Start at the beginning, teach things you may think are trivial. Be explicit, take it slow, and attempt to identify fear or pain points. Use repetition and a gentle support to prod them through to next step. Break down each skill until you find their hesitation and do a repetitive action to address that fear directly.