Today I will talk about how to take care of yourself by understanding what you actually need versus what you think you need. We will test this out in our water laboratory by going over some steps on how to breathe when swimming.

Let’s play a little game that you may have done as an ice breaker. Have you ever…

• Eaten something after you are full
• Watched TV while falling asleep
• Inhaled underwater (got water up your nose)
• Turn on the lights at night to get a glass of water

I am going to guess that you answered yes to all of these…except maybe the inhaling underwater. These are examples of things we do because we think we have one of these needs:

• Fuel for your body
• Relaxation
• Air
• Avoid bumping into things

Most of us plan to take care of what we need, but sometimes we skip that need. Instead, we could plan to:

• Realize you’ve had enough to eat
• Go to bed when tired
• Get air at the right time
• Be safe even if we cannot see

Watch Episode 3 below and I will dive into how to find the difference between what you think you need and what you actually need. Learning to breathe when swimming is a perfect place to test this out.

The post Episode 3: How To Breathe When Swimming appeared first on Orca Swim School.

Do you love getting a package in the mail?  

What does it feel like to finger scroll through online stores?  Exciting, distracting, overwhelming?

In this week’s YouTube Episode 2, we look at a beginner’s guide to swim equipment and what stops you from taking action in your life.

There are times when getting answers and buying all the equipment might delay the actual activity you planned. Have you ever spent more time researching or buying stuff, but then never took the action to use it?  

Watch Episode 2 below to see a guide to the equipment you’ll need to learn to swim and how to stop looking for success in the wrong place. This will help you get out of your own way. 

What works in life works in the pool, what works in the pool is what works in life.  Come test the waters. 

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Receive your free guide of the ‘Top 10 Items Every Swim Bag Should Have’ by filling out the form below:

The post Episode 2: Beginners Guide To Swim Equipment appeared first on Orca Swim School.

However, I was smarter than the average duck (or so I thought).   When they would put all of us little kids on a platform I firmly stood in the middle.  I knew they kept the sharks under the platform and I was not going to risk getting bit.  So there was a bit of over-exaggerated fantasy.

Do not put up with untrustworthy people

A teacher would tell me to swim.  I would comply only after requesting that they not step back.  As I would swim I could see them stepping back. I had no tolerance for this kind of trickery.  Even if it came with, “See I knew you could do it”! Tune in here to listen to the podcast interview to hear Cori’s full swim story.

Trust is essential to learning and especially learning to swim.

There are many layers of trust that must be achieved to feel completely safe.

1.       Trust your physical location – are there sharks in the pool or not?
2.       Trust those around you – will others listen to me?
3.       Trust in yourself

These layers of trust go from wide to narrow.  The further out they are, like location, the less control you have.  Closer in, like YOU, the more control you have. For example, when you are standing in a forest you have very little control of the environment.  You do, however, control whether or not to walk into the forest and what you will do there.

This gives you the starting point for getting scary situations under control.  Learn to trust yourself!

Start with the area over which you have the most control.

For little me, this seemed like still being curious about the water.  I found a place in the pool on my own, near the wall, close to a lifeguard.  Here it felt fun for me to play, explore and discover how the water works.

Start Your Private Swim Journey

The confidence to explore, ask questions and discover comes from being able to trust yourself.

Want to learn more about how to learn to swim with a completely trustworthy system?  Peek into Orca Swim School’s online learning platform to test the waters before jumping into the big pool!  Our online classes offer a private swim journey to take the time you need to understand what has been missing so you can learn with confidence.

The post Adult Learning to Swim Requires Trust appeared first on Orca Swim School.

Perhaps you were a child who grew up with parents who took you to the pool and you played together. At an early age, your parents passed you between them in the water so you could learn how the water worked. Then, say by age 2 or 3, you could move from here to there on your own, come up for air when you needed it, and turn onto your back to rest. Your movements were probably fast, your fingers were apart, and you held your breath most of the time, but it worked. You felt safe and you liked being in the water. You felt the water holding you up; you could propel yourself, and you were in control.

Your dad may have said to his friends at a play date, “Susie can swim! I mean, she can’t swim, but she can swim!” The dad is referring to two things. But he’s using the same word. Susie knows how the water works and has become independent for short periods of time. She can “Swim.” But she doesn’t know formal strokes yet: she can’t “swim.” The capitalized Swim gets prominence for its meaning of safety. To be able to Swim safely requires knowing how the water works with one’s body. The non-capitalized “swim” means strokes. Strokes do not provide safety but they do provide efficiency: greater distance per stroke and less energy output over the distance.

The point of learning to swim is safety: the ability to rely on oneself for one’s safety in water over one’s head.

The point of strokes is efficiency or speed. This would be required for safety if you are being chased by something dangerous that you could outswim. But not even Michael Phelps can outswim a small fish.

Once a person learns to Swim, they can then learn to swim.
However, learning to swim (strokes) does not imply or guarantee to learn to Swim (safety).

If learning to Swim (be safe in any water) is on your goal list make sure you know what you are looking for in a class.  People ask all the time, “If Joey knew how to swim, then why did he drown?”.  The problem many times is he didn’t know how to Swim and tried to rely on swim (stroke instruction) for safety.

This article was developed from experts of Melon Dash’s writing.  Miracle Swimming has been bringing forth the conversation about the disconnection in the definitions of what it means to swim.

The post When Understanding Definitions Can Save Your Life appeared first on Orca Swim School.