Polystyrene Float Aids
This subject is a very important one because when going down the route of learning with ASA taught instructors using your local leisure center, there are normally 6-10 people to each class.
Whilst it is not cost effective for the center to teach each people separately, it is completely understandable to use something that will keep the adult or child who is in the water ‘safe’.
Every person without exception that comes to my swimming pool for swimming lessons who have used these aids find that they just cannot be weened off from holding on to something so, as a result, fear is introduced into their minds about what the water is going to do to them when they let go of their support.
Maybe as you are reading this and thinking “Hey that’s me!” Ok, if that is how you feel read on because this information will be of great benefit to you.
When the float is used (the white oblong polystyrene one) how do you hold it? That may seem a daft question, but I need you to really think about how you use a float, how do you hold it?
Do you hold it in front of you (and so you should) and as you try and kick with your legs in the depths of the density, using all your energy, do you lean on the float? More than likely you do. If someone were to be in the water with you as you were using the float and kicking, then took it gently away from you, what would happen to your hands and arms?
THEY WOULD SINK IMMEDIATELY. If that has happened to you, how did you feel? Totally out of control? Not going to let that happen again. Thinking that the water has caused you to fall down at the front?
Did the water do that to you, make you feel as if you were going to do a nose dive straight down into the depths of the water in front of you? A very scary feeling.
Actually the fact that your hands, arms and torso sank had nothing to do with the water, you did the action, you continued to lean on the water in the same way you leaned on your float. The water because it is fluid will immediately give way to anything that is heavy and you made yourself heavy by continuing to lean.
This certainly is not your fault because you were not taught properly how to use a float. I was ‘taught’ by ASA standards, in fact when I went there I was not even asked if I could swim (they may have changed the way they teach now). When I went through their program it certainly was an eye opener.
So, how to use a float properly when learning how to swim? Instead of leaning on it, use it as a mental crutch, in other words, hold onto it by all means but push it away from you and stretch forward making yourself streamlined instead of just dangling your body behind the float making your body heavy.
If you continue to push the float away, still holding on to it, and I came and took it away from you, your arms and hands WOULD NOT SINK!!! Why? Because the very action of pushing the float away as you move forward makes your body lighter in the water, also your hands and arms.
Try it when you are in the swimming pool again. Sit in the water with your shoulders underneath the surface of the water, don’t move forward, stay in one position. Get hold of a float lean on it and get another person to take it away, your arms, hands will sink. Now take the float again, this time stretch your arms forward, don’t move your body forward, keep your feet on the floor of the pool, stretch by pushing your shoulders forward and make your arms and hands straight, continuing to hold on to the float, but use the action of pushing the float away still holding on to it. Get the same person to take the float away. What happens to your arms and hands.
They stay on top of the water!
Of course learning how to swim needs a lot more understanding but this post will help people to see why they cannot let go of the float and use the water to hold them up. Anything that is relaxed is heavy in the water, anything that is stretched or tense is light.
Tensing and relaxing has its own agendas as you learn to swim, this is where my school of learning comes in to play. You will be able to go away with as much knowledge you can take in about the water, in fact your understanding about how the water works with your body will be second to none!
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Just another little thing, what holds the float up as you are using it in the water? A thought provoking question!