As I swim at the local 24 Hour Fitness, I notice many people who have
not mastered the art of breathing and swimming at the same time. One
guy will thrash as hard as he can, holding his breath, until he has
to stop at the 2/3 lane length mark and breathe. He will swim an
hour this way! A woman I have seen will swim 4 strokes then throw
her head back and stand up and breathe, and then swim 4 more strokes.
I have seen people holding their breath and then, when they lift
their heads to breathe, they first must exhale. This takes a lot of
time, so they usually just stop. And then there are the ones who just
keep their faces out of the water so that they can breathe easily.

While I was thinking about this today as I swam laps, I was wondering
if anybody has tips on how to teach a child how to breathe while
doing the crawl.

The child I am thinking of is a 7 year old who is
doing quite well on the stroke, but has no concept of turning her
head to the side to breathe. How do I help her to learn this?

thanks,

Pat

As I swim at the local 24 Hour Fitness, I notice many people who have not
mastered the art of breathing and swimming at the same time.  One guy will
thrash as hard as he can, holding his breath, until he has to stop at the
2/3 lane length mark and breathe.  He will swim an hour this way!  A woman I
have seen will swim 4 strokes then throw her head back and stand up and
breathe, and then swim 4 more strokes.  I have seen people holding their
breath and then, when they lift their heads to breathe, they first must
exhale.  This takes a lot of time, so they usually just stop. And then there
are the ones who just keep their faces out of the water so that they can
breathe easily.

While I was thinking about this today as I swam laps, I was wondering if
anybody has tips on how to teach a child how to breathe while doing the
crawl.  The child I am thinking of is a 7 year old who is doing quite well
on the stroke, but has no concept of turning her head to the side to
breathe.  How do I help her to learn this?

thanks,

Pat

Many - we teach this in YMCA swimming classes, and that's what I
recommend to everyone who wants to learn how to swim. At least at my
Y, they are in 8-week sessions, so it's low-cost, the groups are small
(limited to 7 students).

I actually don't teach this myself these days - I get them when they
are ready to swim a length of the pool and already breathing on their
side. But the way it's taught is with the teacher supporting them
with one hand and actually turning their head most of the time with
the other hand. The idea is simply to get them into a position that
they wouldn't do themselves based solely on verbal instruction.

-S-

It is interesting to me that these adult swimmers do not know the knack of
breathing while they swim. And many of them have not tried goggles.

Pat wrote:
[...]
It is interesting to me that these adult swimmers do not know the
knack of breathing while they swim. And many of them have not tried
goggles.

I learned to swim as an adult at the local city-pool classes. When I
showed up wearing goggles, the instructor admonished me for wearing
them -- I did not start wearing goggles until 10 years later.

the total immersion way was best for me and cured me from a lifetime
fear of submersion. Float like a log or do the deadman's float and
roll to breath. When you see that your body floats on its own and you
can easily breath when you need to, a great fear is dismissed. Then
add motion. I really worked for me.

Steve Freides wrote:
Many - we teach this in YMCA swimming classes, and that's what I
recommend to everyone who wants to learn how to swim. At least at my
Y, they are in 8-week sessions, so it's low-cost, the groups are
small (limited to 7 students).

I actually don't teach this myself these days - I get them when they
are ready to swim a length of the pool and already breathing on their
side. But the way it's taught is with the teacher supporting them
with one hand and actually turning their head most of the time with
the other hand. The idea is simply to get them into a position that
they wouldn't do themselves based solely on verbal instruction.

-S-

It is interesting to me that these adult swimmers do not know the
knack of breathing while they swim. And many of them have not tried
goggles. One elderly lady will swim the crawl with her eyes closed.
She swims diagonally if the lane lines are taken down.

From your post, I am wondering if the child could be put on a flat
kick buoy so that the instructor could use both hands. IIRC, I
learned to breathe while holding on to the side of the pool and
kicking my legs while I swiveled my head from looking at the pool
bottom to looking to one side.
Pat in TX

Nemo ad Nusquam wrote:
Pat wrote:
[...]
It is interesting to me that these adult swimmers do not know the
knack of breathing while they swim. And many of them have not tried
goggles.

I learned to swim as an adult at the local city-pool classes.  When I
showed up wearing goggles, the instructor admonished me for wearing
them -- I did not start wearing goggles until 10 years later.

I had that problem when my son was 10 years old----in 1983!  His instructor
had been the pool boss for 30 years and she wasn't going to let any
newfangled ideas get into HER (city) pool! And, because I insisted that he
wear the goggles, she failed him from his "swimmer" badge.  Her excuse was
that "in the breast stroke, he only glided for 2 seconds when the standard
is to glide for 3 seconds."

Nowadays, when I ask an adult why he doesn't have goggles, invariably, he'll
say, "I don't know enough about them to buy some." or "I had goggles once
and they didn't fit."

Pat in TX

Goggles aren't actually necessary for swimming. They don't even make
it easier. They do prevent burning, red eyes after swimming in a
chlorinated pool, but that doesn't make swimming any easier. We
trained for years without goggles. You can easily see the black line
on the bottom and the cross on the end without goggles. If you can get
goggles to fit a 7 year old, fine, but they aren't necessary.

On Oct 25, 3:34 pm, "Pat" <newint... at (no spam) home.com> wrote:



As I swim at the local 24 Hour Fitness, I notice many people who have not
mastered the art of breathing and swimming at the same time.  One guy will
thrash as hard as he can, holding his breath, until he has to stop at the
2/3 lane length mark and breathe.  He will swim an hour this way!  A woman I
have seen will swim 4 strokes then throw her head back and stand up and
breathe, and then swim 4 more strokes.  I have seen people holding their
breath and then, when they lift their heads to breathe, they first must
exhale.  This takes a lot of time, so they usually just stop. And then there
are the ones who just keep their faces out of the water so that they can
breathe easily.

While I was thinking about this today as I swam laps, I was wondering if
anybody has tips on how to teach a child how to breathe while doing the
crawl.  The child I am thinking of is a 7 year old who is doing quite well
on the stroke, but has no concept of turning her head to the side to
breathe.  How do I help her to learn this?

thanks,

Pat

 the total immersion way was best for me and cured me from a lifetime
fear of submersion.  Float like a log or do the deadman's float and
roll to breath.  When you see that your body floats on its own and you
can easily breath  when you need to, a great fear is dismissed.  Then
add motion.  I really worked for me.

breathe.

On Oct 25, 8:34 pm, "Pat" <newint... at (no spam) home.com> wrote:

 but has no concept of turning her head to the side to

breathe.

Personally I don't really "turn" my head, (as this implies to "turn"
separately away from the rest of the body) Like a couple of others I
sorta roll.

On Nov 15, 2:28 pm, aquachimp <aquach... at (no spam) aquachimp.freeserve.co.uk
wrote:
On Oct 25, 8:34 pm, "Pat" <newint... at (no spam) home.com> wrote:

but has no concept of turning her head to the side to

breathe.

Personally I don't really "turn" my head, (as this implies to "turn"
separately away from the rest of the body) Like a couple of others I
sorta roll.

If you only roll and don't turn your head, you have to roll 90 degrees
to get your mouth above the surface. And then since your roll is
symmetrical, you are rolling back through 180 degrees, until your
mouth is above the surface on the other side as well. If you Total
Immersion guys did that at Pat's pool, she would write about you.
"Today I saw a guy rolling from side to side without turning his head.
He looked like a log in a log rolling contest."

MW Smith wrote:
On Nov 15, 2:28 pm, aquachimp <aquach... at (no spam) aquachimp.freeserve.co.uk
wrote:
On Oct 25, 8:34 pm, "Pat" <newint... at (no spam) home.com> wrote:

but has no concept of turning her head to the side to

breathe.

Personally I don't really "turn" my head, (as this implies to "turn"
separately away from the rest of the body) Like a couple of others I
sorta roll.

If you only roll and don't turn your head, you have to roll 90 degrees
to get your mouth above the surface. And then since your roll is
symmetrical, you are rolling back through 180 degrees, until your
mouth is above the surface on the other side as well. If you Total
Immersion guys did that at Pat's pool, she would write about you.
"Today I saw a guy rolling from side to side without turning his head.
He looked like a log in a log rolling contest."

Agreed - my guess is that most people who feel they don't turn their heads
probably do about half what they do at the neck and the other half by
rolling the body.

-S-

I'll go along with that. Also a 180 degree roll would create a lot of