Learning to Swim

Floating
As you become more confident, you can try getting your body on top of water. This is called floating. Hold onto the side and let your legs float on the water behind you or hook your toes under the bar at the side of the pool or on the steps and try floating on your back.

Gliding
Next, try some easy glides. Stand away from the side and push with your feet and reach for the side. Try to get your body on top of the water. Gradually move further away from the side to make your glides longer. If you are floating on your back, try using your arms and hands as paddles to pull you though the water. This is called 'sculling'.

When you feel safe and confident in the water, you are ready to learn the basic swimming strokes.

Swimming Strokes

Front crawl
For this stroke, you swim on the front of your body. Move your arms through the air and down through the water alternately. This has the effect of pulling you through the water. At the same time, kick your legs up and down, alternately. You need to do between four and eight leg kicks for every arm stroke. Proper breathing is important and your teacher will show you how and when to turn your head to the side to do this.

In a freestyle race, swimmers often use front crawl because it is the stroke that gets the fastest time.

Breaststroke
Breaststroke is about co-ordination - getting your arms and legs to work together with the correct movements at the same time. Both arms move together and both legs move together. Your arms are always on or under the surface of the water. Stretch both arms forward, keeping your hands close together, then pull them back under the water diagonally, so that your hands part and come in line with your shoulders. Repeat this reaching and pulling movement with your arms as you move forward. When you pull back with your arms, start to bend your knees and draw your legs up close to your body, with your knees and toes turned out. As you stretch your arms forward, kick out with your legs and then start the whole move again.

As with all strokes, breathing is important. In breaststroke, you lift your head out of the water slightly to take in air as you pull your arms back. Many people find breaststroke the most relaxing of all the strokes.

Backstroke
This is similar to front crawl, except backstroke is done on your back with your face out of the water. The main worry with this stroke is that you cannot see where you are going! With experience you learn to look for markers at the side of the pool or you use the ceiling as a guide.

Butterfly
In the butterfly stroke, both arms are brought forward and out of the water and then back into the water together. This makes the body rise and fall as you move through the water. The leg kick that is used is called the dolphin kick. To do this, cross your ankles and make a kick with your legs together.

Butterfly is quite a physically demanding stroke and is often the last one that you will learn.

Turning and Diving

There are strict rules that govern starting, turning and finishing a race. There are even rules that say how you must perform the swimming strokes. Make sure you are aware of the rules if you take part in any competitions. A breach of the rules usually results in disqualification.

Turning
A good turn is important if the race lasts for more than one length and there are rules that say how you should turn for each stroke. The most common turn is a tumble turn. For this, your must practise doing a type of forward roll in the water and then push away from the wall with your feet.

Diving in
Except for backstroke, which starts in the water, all races have a diving start. A good dive at the beginning can help you gain an early lead. Your instructor or coach will teach you how to dive, starting with a sitting dive and gradually moving on to a standing dive.

Caution: Never practise diving at the shallow end of the pool. You can get a serious head injury if you dive into water that is too shallow. If you are swimming in a pool that you are unfamiliar with, check out the depth of the water before you swim. In a UK pool, the depth is marked at the side of a pool. Where there are no depth marking, get into the pool first to check the depth. Never dive into a leisure pool. There may be underwater obstacles such as pillars or sloping sides and the depth of the pool may decrease widthways rather than lengthways.