Charke Swim

How Long to Learn to Swim?

40-100 hours with an instructor is my guess.

One of the most common questions I get is, how many lessons will it take to learn to swim? Psychology says it will take around 400 to 600 hours from start to finish to learn to swim well. You probably have some of those skills already so knock off a few hours. So how long with an instructor? There are plenty of hours of practice you can do without an instructor, so again reduce the time. The Life Saving Society suggests 30 hours to complete their program. That seems a little optimistic. I would say 40 to 100 hours, if you practice a lot on your own.

Math
Google says it takes 20 hours for simple skills (like blowing bubbles) and up to 200 for complex skills (like Front Crawl).

A human can typical remember 7 things in short term memory for somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds.

Google suggests the number classically was ‘plus or minus 2’ ranging from 5 to 9 and modern updates suggesting it is closer to 4 ‘chunks’ of information. This inconsistency can be attributed to the fact that sometimes two ‘things’ are very similar and can be argued to be occupying only 1 spot. We might see a pattern that makes it easier to remember or 1 thing might trigger the memory of the other.

Seven digit dialing was created by the American Telephone and Telegraphy Company (AT&T) in 1947 for North America. Psychologists found that 7 digits fit neatly into short term memory.

As the population and number of telephones increased, they added area codes, three more digits, which you would remember in long-term memory. Putting things into long term memory takes more effort and practice but since virtually all the phone numbers in your area, in the 1990s, had the same area code it wasn’t very hard.

With the popularization of the cellular phone in the early 2000s, the need to remember numbers vanished as numbers could be programmed into the phone. It is extremely likely that in the future, they will add more digits to phone numbers but no one will be bothered by it.

Long Term Memory

If you ask a GenX or Baby Boomer for phone numbers, it’s almost guareenteed they will still remember a few. Long term memory is a fascinating vault of information that you are likely to use for the rest of your life. It’s a lot easier to recall a skill, even if it’s rusty, than it is to create a new one.

Google suggests it can take 20 to 200 hours of practice for a skill to become automatic.

The number starts at about 20 hours for basic skills. In swimming, this would be things like remembering to blow out your nose and breath in with your mouth. You will have to be doing this skill for about 20 hours for it to no longer occupy spots in your short term limit of 7 and shift to long term memory.

When we start looking at the 200 hours of practice, we are looking at many different simple skills and combining them into a stroke. Front Crawl, for example, requires breathing in the mouth on the side and then out the nose continuously while underwater, proper head position, body roll, straight leg kicking with pointed toes, alternating arms and breathing roll every 3 strokes, etc.

Now that I know that it’s around 20 hours of practice for a simple skill and around 200 for a complex skill like Front Crawl, I can look at a student, count the number of stroke elements they are struggling with and estimate how much practice remains.

Simple to Complex

All instructors start with a simplified version of each stroke and work towards more complex. Someone who has never swam before and is learning Front Crawl is limited to about 7 elements of the stroke. Each limb is doing something different, so they are generally limited to 2 arms, 2 legs, and 3 more elements such as blowing bubbles out the nose, breathing in the mouth and perhaps lifting the head to breath (because rolling on the side is actually a LIST of skills). Often this is too complicated so new students will stop to breath.

What I do is ask students to swim and see what they can do. This will let me know what they already know and how much more I can put on their plate, how much more complicated I can make the lesson before they are simply unable to take on anymore.

For Front Crawl there are some iconic skills that don’t get taught until you’ve really got a grasp of the basics. They are bent-arm-recovery and S-pull. Once you start getting these skills down you are really at the end of Front Crawl. From there, only competition swimmers are really going to want to go further, looking at kick height, counting kicks and arms per length, counting glide time and making sure it’s there and generally measuring drag and energy output and getting it more efficient.

If anyone see's these toys for 1$ please let me know, or grab ALL of them and I'll reimburse you!!! Walmart Nanaimo sold out.

Finally got all the lesson change requests donem programmed extra sept lessons and started October. About 10 hours. Back to writing.

Noodle Surf Board
I had a student using a pool noodle, one of the heavy short ones, as a surf board, riding it and paddling with their hands and feet. While an excellent use, I think the skills required to both balance and effectively use both hands and feet is so high that this isn't a learning experience but an ability you unlock only after your skills have exceeded the training it would provide. First time I've thought about a skill like that.

Mechanical Shark Toy
Aquanauts brought a mechanical shark, about 8 inches long and bright blue, that swims around on it's own, activating when it is wet through a current switch triggered by water. It's a fantasically fun toy. Walmart had them for 1$ and I couldn't find anymore. I have friends hunting for them in the Lower Mainland. Unbelievably distracting and honestly only good for tempting students into the deep end, which is a valid toy use for students ready, but also very class disruptive. So I love it.

Big shout out to my newest top fans! 💎

Erin Renwick

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Fixing Breastroke by doing it Wrong

One of my students has been working on Breaststroke and struggling with the kick. You are supposed to pull with your arms and then kick with the legs. And one day, he just shows up and does it. I'm standing there looking at it, confused.

He's doing something I didn't teach him, something I wouldn't. He's cheating, and it's working brilliantly. He's doing his arms and legs at the same time. Yes, technically it's wrong but what's happening is that he simplified the stroke. The arms are reminding the legs to kick and encouraging a wide, effective kick.

I already teach using your arms to teach your legs, but I never considered doing it this way. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher.

That isn't the end of it but this will let him get good at Breastroke and later we can adjust the timing. Teaching is so often about making smaller steps that the student can manage so they can keep moving up the stairs. It's humbling to have the student figure it out.

Rewards
I don't like the reward system and I don't do it very often. This is where you offer something if they perform a task. It is my normal attitude that a student should want to swim because they want to swim. But not everyone wants to swim, or at least not all the time.

Sometimes I get a student show up who is tired, hungry, bored, scared and just wants to play with the toys. In fact, I'm thrilled to have a student who wants to play with the toys. It gives me something I can use to encourage them to swim. So sometimes I'll offer to let them play with the toy, if they do the swimming.

One reason I avoid this is that I could forget the offer or run out of time before giving them the treat. The other is my fear that the student learns they can negotiate and refuses to do anything without reward. I've seen this in a very small number of students.

It's a good tool to keep in your toolbox. It absolutely should not be used all the time, even if it works. Sometimes, however, it works really well. Near the end of a lesson, I see it work well, since I'm often planning to end with a game anyway, to get one more activity out of a tired student.

I don't know why I'm opposed to the reward system. It was unheard of in my family growing up. We did things because we were asked to, or because we wanted to. I swam because I liked swimming. I did Judo because it was fun. I cut the grass because I was told to. I was never paid. That could be one reason. But there is something else about it that just feels sinister to me. I still use it, but again, rarely.

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Student Tired
I use a lot of tricks to avoid exhaustion, cramping and vomiting. The first is always a short warmup. It's usually just two lengths. I barely think about it anymore and use it for almost every class. It lets people get in and get used to the water. And it lets me evaluate them. I don't remember every student. It try. But this gives me a moment to look a their strokes and decide what to start working on. I've done thousands of evaluations over the years and it does not take me very long, seconds, to get an idea of where a swimmer is currently at.

The next is staggering your lesson. You swim a few short distances and then to take a break and gradually increase the distance. You keep watching to see if your student is getting tired. When I'm trying to give my student a rest, that's when I talk the most. If someone does become very tired, I increase the number of rests but I'll often push them into one 'big' activity at the end. It's usually not that big but it will be the last 'hard' activity of the day.

I remind students to relax. New swimmers often use more muscles than they need to. Strokes that aren't as efficient as they could be, also use more energy. Finally their is the cardio of the student. Combined with using muscles they aren't used to using this much, low cardo can exhaust a student fast. If you have a student that is just too tired to continue, it is time to switch topics to something much easier.

Now, I have noticed that a lot of students suddenly get back all their energy if we switch to a game. Yep, even adults.

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Overtime

I like teaching. I don’t like drama or arguments and I go to great lengths to avoid and prevent them. Drama is when someone wants artificial excitement and often is willing to accept the negative version. Arguments are two people trying to explain themselves but the other side refusing to accept another view. Drama is narcissistic indulgence in the fake. Arguments are born
of being to lazy, exhausted and/or fearful to change. They are not productive towards the purpose of education. Education is rarely dramatic and the core of education requires self change.

I run my lessons overtime whenever I can. Sometimes it’s a minute, sometimes it’s five minutes and sometimes it’s even 15 minutes. It depends on how much energy I still have and if the lesson is done yet. You can’t do this that often. The most common reason is that you have another lesson. So this is usually reserved for the end of the day.

Sometimes lessons start late. Sometimes they end early. Sometimes kids run to the bathroom several times and time is wasted. Running lessons overtime is half an effort at preemptively giving them time back and it builds good will. People who want to teach with go the extra distance. People who don’t want to teach will leave exactly when the lesson time has concluded. I remember a story of typists at typewriters in years past, leaving to go to lunch in the middle of typing a word. These people hated their jobs and would not work even 1 extra second.

Early
I must admit that I don’t like starting lessons early. I schedule my time extremely carefully so that I arrive early, with enough time to go over my lessons for the day, get a drink of water or get anything else done prior to the lessons starting. Sometimes I just relax and that helps me focus before starting the lessons.

And sometimes the students arrive early and now I am left with a choice of starting the lesson early or letting the students be board, which leads to them wandering around the pool which can end up being unsupervised. So now I’m watching them and can’t relax or do anything else, so I might as well teach them.

If someone comes a full 15 minutes early, I’ll say that I’m going to start and end the lesson early, but what almost always happens is that I run the lesson 5 minutes late and the next student comes in early and starts 5 minutes early and it’s not a stretch to run the lesson 7.5 minutes late and end up starting the next lesson 7.5 minutes early. The break evaporates.

Heres the thing, I’m not trying to criticize the parents. I’m not saying don’t come early. If I really wanted to, I could ignore the student and start the lesson right on time. Sometimes I am busy prepping and that’s exactly what I do. But if you are a teacher, this is the cost of being a teacher. Sometimes the lesson finds you. It’s not about the hours paid. Sometimes you just have to teach anyway, when you don’t want to, when you are on your break and when you’d like to be doing anything else. If you can’t accept that, teaching might not be for you.

I saw the head of LIT Aquatics, Michael Miller, happen to show up at a Lifeguard course to help out. I don’t remember what happened but I think the regular instructor was late or canceled or something. Michael didn’t have a swimsuit but he did have students and he just hopped into the water, knowing he would go home wet, knowing he could have taught the skill from the deck, but getting in because it was the better way to teach the skill. That is a teacher.

Sometimes you have to work early, stay late and go home and write report cards and plan lessons for the next day. It’s one of the greatest jobs in the world, helping people learn and become better.

Holding Butterfly

Normally I create an image mostly for attention or to highlight a single point. This one is different. I spent about an hour editing this AI image until it looked right and even then I returned to a Manequinn to get the motions correct because they needed to be right.

Every stroke has a pause. Doing the pause correctly makes the stroke more efficient. In butterfly the pause with right after the second kick. Because of the slight angle of your body, your forward momentum drives you upwards. This gets part of your back and shoulders out of the water, making it much easier to lift the arms out of the water and do the stroke.

If your shoulders are underwater, getting your arms out requires much greater flexibility and generally you have to start the arms later, farther towards the front. You don't want that. You want the arms to start further back. This creates a lot less drag on the recovery and it gives the stroke it's iconic look. I saw one of the fastest butterfliers in Canada and he could touch his arms behind his back at any angle. He did perfect circles with his arms. His flexibility was amazing... ...and rare.

In Butterfly you do two dolphin kicks, a little kick, followed by a big kick. During the big kick you push your arms down. This pushing down with both your arms and legs lifts you up. This is the point where you hold the legs down. It's only for about a half second to a full second. Your arms continue to push down and then back, pulling you forward and pushing you up until finally your back and shoulders come up out of the water. Now you raise your hands out of the water and flop them forward like wet noodles. This can be a relaxed motion. I snap my hands forward and sometimes they hit each other at the front because my arms are relaxed. I'm throwing them forward.

You breath every 2 strokes. The first stroke you leave your head down. This makes the arms easier but wow does it starve you of oxygen. Butterfly is a difficult stroke and going at any speed will consume oxygen in a hurry, but this is how it's done. The second stroke, little kick, big kick, arms, you get to breathe. Your head should be facing down for the breath, if you can get high enough. This is better body position but many people can't get high enough to breath like this.

The biggest mistake most people make is lifting their legs and arms at the same time. Your lets should be down when you arms are up. You want to push down with the big kick and arms at the same time, but you want to hold your legs down for that extra second while your arms come up and out of the water. I like to compare this to the fade of planking. You plank for about a second and this drives you up higher out of the water without any extra effort.

Water Anxiety

The first thing I say to people who are nervous about the water is that it's a sign of intelligence. You recognize that there is a risk and respond to that risk. Skill replaces fear. As you practice in the environment you are nervous about, learn how to swim, how to hold your breath, how to access the pool, where to go and how to be safe, the fear will slowly go away. Even just knowing the basics, how to fall down and stand up in shallow water, where the shallow water is and where the deep water is doesn't take long to teach and can dramatically change how someone feels about the pool because they know where they are safe. With many adults I start with learing balance, kneeling-standing, going underwater and standing and siting or even lying down underwater and then standing up combined with blowing bubbles out the nose. Often I use ladders or rails to help getting both down and up. These basics create a zone of safety that the students can practice in; the shallow end.

Once a student can swim a bit, once they learn basic sculling techniques with the arms, it is time to experience the deep end. Start them near the wall and stay near them with a reaching aid, just in case. They can try treading water where the water is up to their neck and then if they can do that, you can take them a little deeper, where it is over their head, but again stay near the wall. I usually cling to the wall with one hand and have the other hand ready to scoop them back to the wall if there is any problems or when they get tired if they don't get back themselves. When the student gets tired, it's time to stop, to lower the stress level and return to the shallow end. I like to do 2 minutes of treading but always invite the student to stop when tired and then re-start when ready.

Even when a student starts managing in the deep water, the habbit that is being nervous of water can take a while to overcome. Certain habbits will stay with the student as they become stronger and stronger until they eventually fade. I've seen students who have been really solid at treading still fighting panic attacks in deep water. Just remind them that the body is a tool designed for survival and it doesn't like to give up habbits it has learned to protect itself.

Most people who are really afraid, curl into a tight ball. It's a defensive position. In the water, this is the wrong thing to do. You want to relax and not tense up your muscles. Tensing muscles makes them denser and makes you smaller and sink better. It also makes it hard to breath, so you stop. This puts you on a short clock because you aren't getting air. If you don't know how to do anything else, just relaxing will increase your chance of survival, but it's really hard to do.

If you are relaxed and focused, in deep water you can sink down to the bottom and them jump, 'bounce', back up to the top and get a breath and move towards the shallow end. I had a friend who, as a child, used this technique to survive being in the deep end when he couldn't swim. This can get you back to the wall, or floatation device you've lost or the shallow end. But you have to stay calm. It's really important that you sink all the way so you can push off the floor. So this skill is hard to learn. It is mostly used by people who tend to sink already and picked up by almost every swimmer as they learn to navigate the deep end.

One thing I teach people that helps with nervousness is how long they can hold their breath. First I get them to see how long they can normally hold their breath. Then, I give them a break, and get them to time themselves again, but this time after they breath out. I have asthma. I can hold my breath 35 seconds and after breathing out, I can hold my breath for about 10-15 seconds. So I remind people that if everything goes wrong and they breath out and then go underwater, they've still got around 10 to 15 seconds if they stay calm. That's a lot of time to figure out how to get their next breath. Knowledge can replace fear.

Familiarity can replace fear. I often take students to see the deep end. This might be in a lifejacket, or with some other kind of floatation device or even just gutter grabbing down the wall. I want them to see it. It shouldn't be this strange place they've never been. I'm careful as I can be when I do this because it's a great opportunity to make them even more scared if something goes wrong so you want to do everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen. When students are ready I'll load up my mat with all kinds of floating things and we'll stay in the deep in for a while, switching from one floating thing to another. And sometimes I'll get them to swith widths of the deep end, from the wall to the mat and then to the other wall. The mat can make the deep end smaller and more accessable.

Getting people down to the bottom of the deep end is a huge fear reducer. Now they can access anywhere in the pool. Dropping things isn't a problem anymore. One trick to help people get to the bottom is to get them to climb down any ladders in the deep end. This gives them something to hang onto and pull themselves both down and then up again. For me at least, being able to touch the floor really removes most of the fear I have for that water.

Duration is important. You want to watch your students for signs of fear and if they are getting too stressed, take them back to the shallow end. Give them a break. Then if there is more to do in the deep end you might ask if they are ready to return. Things to watch for are choking, fast panicked movements, clutching at the wall, panting because they aren't breathing right, wide eyes, crying and tears, suddenly asking to go to the bathroom or simply asking to go back to the shallow end, or when the class ends. That last one is pretty much the biggest warning sign that I've pushed my student possibly too far, and it's time to return to a safe area and just play a game and let them have some fun in the water.

Dryland Training

In 1950 Yale University's Bob Kiphuth came up with dryland training. The idea was that you could learn to swim, or at least train, out of the water. There is a wonderful old-school military style PSA (public service announcement) video cheerfully describing this training idea extoling it's virtue for giving swimming lessons to people who don't have access to swimming pools.

This really caught my attention years ago. I teach a lot of splashing which is a hybrid, standing in the water, splashing and learning to control the water - training without actually swimming. What this reminds me of is Kata, training in martial arts in choreographed moves. There is really no reason it wouldn't work. It's just weird.

I've seen a lot of swimmers come in who clearly demonstrated skills from somewhere else, who did really well in swimming because they had precise control of themselves. One of the most remarkable was a ballerina, barely 6 years old. She had the most precise movements and I had to be careful not to use the normal over-correction techniques because she would do them exactly. An over-correction is asking a student to do something more than you want them to do, knowing that they won't achieve everything you ask and that what they end up doing will be what you actually want.

I do a handful of dryland techniques, teaching egg-beater sitting in a chair drawing circles with your feet around toys placed on the floor. I teach throwing a ball in the air and spining your arm around the ball before catching it. This skill comes straight from Judo but it's good for various arm motions in swimming. I have also done arm circle corrections out of the water, which I find very effective. I've even done students standing sideways beside a wall so their arm stroke doesn't go too far away from their body. (This is an over-correction.)

I used to go to Judo and do foot-sweep practice for half an hour before class. This made the muscles on the sides of my legs stronger and better trained and improved my breaststroke, which uses those muscles.

Students who are scared of the water can benaift from dry land training to help them when they finally do get into the water.