I had the last of my swim lessons last night. I have basically had private swim lessons almost all the way through. There was one lady who showed up the first week for a bit, and then left. After that it was just me.
I am definately feeling mroe comfortable in the water, but I still have a long way to go. I work exclusively on the front crawl last night. I learned a few things. Alot of what I learned, I actually figured out myself. I have found it easier to breathe on my left side than my right side. I figured out why last night. I breathe on the left side as my left arm is back and just about ready to come out of the water. I have been breathing on the right side after the arm is already out of the water. So I focused on taking a breath on the right side slightly earlier, and that helped. I also noticed I am turning my head slightly differently on the right side, and I still need to work on that.
I worked on breathing every three strokes. I start off relaxed, and towards the end of two laps, I am starting to breathe harder, and my strokes start getting a little more frantic to reach the end of the pool. And as my strokes become more frantic, I start breathing faster… It is a downward spiral. I think this will improve as my swimming endurance improves, and I get the timing of breathing down better. Then I can relax more.
I didn’t experience any dizziness last night. I used some ear plugs made by Nike. They are these little sticky balls. I rolled them in my hands, and shoved them in my ears. The left one worked great. I kept taking the right one out to listen to the instructions of the teacher. After a while, it wasn’t sticking as well as my ear was wet. But they seemed to work.
I plan to try to get to the pool a couple times a week to swim laps and hopefully become more relaxed and comfortable doing it. They have lap swims from 6-8am. So I might be able to get in there before work.

Posted by Rob in Swimming on June 25th, 2008 |