Can You Teach Yourself How To Swim?

As Canadians, most of us like to visit beaches, lakes, and swimming pools especially in summer time. Afterall, we don’t get too much of the warm weather so we would like to take full advantage of it. 

Here at Coast2Coast swim, we are extremely passionate about swimming and all water activities; and we encourage everyone to also get involved with these activities. Swimming has always been one of the best ways to stay in shape for people of all ages, to stay active, and finally a fun activity to enjoy no matter if you are by yourself or with friends and family. That is why we take pride in teaching our community how to swim and stay safe in and around water. 

Coast2coast Swim offers a variety of options from public swimming classes, to private at home (mobile) swimming lessons. This allows our customers to find the most convenient and cost efficient. 

However, the question we get from time to time is “can you teach yourself how to swim?”

In short, yes. But you should know that we strongly suggest for you to sign for a training or class either at Coast2Coast swim or another reputable swimming school. This is to make sure you learn the fundamentals of swimming in the right way and that you can enjoy the water in a safe manner at all times.

Teaching Yourself to Swim

Here is our suggestion on how you can try to teach swimming to yourself. Please be aware these are only suggestions and we can not guarantee your safety or skills. Swimming can be challenging. Here we go:

Start practicing your swimming in a safe environment like the shallow end of a supervised swimming pool. Never go to the deep end of the pool or swim in moving water without supervision. If you are tired, don’t practice.

The easiest stroke to learn is the front crawl. Once mastered, you can learn the three other strokes – backstroke, butterfly, and breaststroke.

1. The First Step

Standing with your back against the pool, take a deep breath, lean your waist until your face is completely in the water and your ears are at the waterline. You must hold this position for 2 seconds before turning your head to one side, exhaling into the water. Now you can return to the starting position. Practice doing this a few times.

2. Learning to Inhale and Exhale

Start by holding your arms out to your side, fingers together and palms down. Now, take a deep breath, lean forward, and placing your face in the water, bring your right arm up and out of the water to your front.

As your hand contacts the water, pull your arm straight down, making a circular motion underwater and taking your hand behind you and to your right side. At this point, your palm should be facing up. Without lifting your head, turn it to the right and draw a new breath through your mouth. Now turn your head back and exhale through your mouth or nose with your face in the water.

3. Practicing the Strokes and Breathing

Aim to practice the stroke and breathing exercise until you can complete one stroke with each arm and one complete breath without needing to lift your head out of the water. The idea is stroke – stroke – breath. When swimming, your arm movements propel your body, while kicking your legs prevent you from sinking.

Keep your strokes regular, and avoid looping underwater because once you are swimming, you will have to work harder to cover the same distance. The closer your body is to the surface, and the flatter it is, the less work you must do. Additionally, when you bring your arms out of the water, a flat circular motion helps save more energy than bringing them overhead.

4. Learning to Kick

Facing the side of the pool, place both your hands on the edge and extend your arms. Lift both your legs together until your arms, body, and legs are facing away from the edge in a straight line. Turning your head to one side, draw a breath through your mouth without lifting your head straight up.

With your knees held straight, kick your legs quite fast from the hip, making the smallest possible splashes. At no point should your feet come out of the water. While you are doing this, exhale underwater, as you learned earlier. Continue practicing kicking and breathing until you are comfortable doing both simultaneously.

5. Going to the Opposite End

You are now ready to go across the shallow side of the pool. Facing across the shallow end, stand with your back to the side of the pool. With bent knees, extend your left arm to the front, and taking a deep breath, let your legs help push you from the side. At the same time, put your head in the water, taking a forward stroke with your right arm as your legs start kicking.

6. Achieving Width Lengths

Now you can continue kicking, while also concentrating on your strokes and breathing. Make sure you are bringing each hand back to your side as you reach out to make a stroke with your other hand. As mentioned earlier, your swimming pattern should be a stroke with each arm and then a breath. Practice this until you can swim the whole width of the pool without needing to stop.

We hope this was helpful to you. If you are looking to learn these skills faster and better, contact Coast2Coast Swim to find out more about all our options. Our dedicated instructors have been teaching for close to 20 years and have taught thousands of students throughout the years.

Once again, be aware that the practices mentioned in this blog are only suggestions and we can not guarantee your safety or skills. 

Enjoy your Swim.