Breathing when you learn to swim

The most common question asked is how can I breathe when I swim.

I have found that this is the most difficult thing to explain to a nervous person who is trying to learn to swim. As you have noted from my previous articles I teach people to swim in my private pool by helping them gain their balance in the water. This means the face is fully submerged. As difficult, and as frightening this may be to someone who is terrified of the water, I can assure you that this becomes easy to do, with an understanding of how the water reacts.

When I person comes to me to learn how to swim in my private swimming pool, the first thing I teach is how to put their head in the water.

I explain at first that the water only reacts to what a person does and not the other way round because most people who are fearful of the water feel that the water is going to pull them down when they get into it. So it is important for the learner to understand that as soon as they put their head in the water holding on to the rail, the water does go down with with the face, this movement of the water does not make the water go up their nose if they treat the water gently.

When a beginner first puts their head into the water the immediate reaction is I WANT TO BREATHE.

This is very understandable because they know that the moment the head is submerged the possibility to breathe in has gone, so before a person puts their head into the water they gulp in a lung full of air and quickly dunk their head into the water and bring it out as sharply as putting it in. When I ask the learner what they did immediately they have brought their head up out of the water, without exception, they say "breathe in".

I get them to do it again but much more slowly to get the understanding of what is happening when they submerge the head, this stops the slap of water to the face and they are much more in control to think about what they do when they bring their face out of the water. Sometimes they still say they want to breathe in. After thinking about it they realise that the first thing they do is BREATHE OUT when they bring their face out of the water.

After understanding this is easy to make the next step forward to encourage the person to breath out as soon as their face hits the air.

When they do this in a controlled way I then teach them how to breath OUT through the nose under the water.

When a person learns how to do this they are amazed at how easy it is, but I must stress that the need to practice this nearly every time they first start to do the drills on their own is a must. The person will know when they are able to continue without this practice.