Novice Swimming Class

Yesterday i finished my Novice Swimming Class for the fall quarter. We had a kayaking lesson in the de-anza swimming pool. I paddled an ocean kayak and learnt skills like getting back into the boat if it capsizes in the water. Once again, I strongly recommend Mary's classes for learning to swim and to improve one's swimming abilities.

Here is my swimming teacher Mary Donahue's homepage.

The Beginning Swimming classes that she teaches in winter are listed here.

Winter classes are from Jan 3 - March 25.

Novice Swimming Class

Today we went into the deepwater pool (up to 16 feet) in the swimming class. We first practiced our underwater swimming stroke in the shallow pool, wore our flotation pad and then headed out to the deep pool. In the deep pool, we then got a hang of the pool, lost our fear of the deepwater with help from the pad.

Then we removed the pad, pushed ourself up in the edge of the pool and sank in the water. This gave us a sense of going inside the deepwater and then we floated up. All along, 2 lifeguards were assisting with the training. We then jumped into the water from the deck and then floated up and then swam to the sides with assistance. Finally, we used the springboard to dive into the pool feet first and then swam or kicked to the side. All along, we could also wear our flotation pad and practice treading in the deepwater pool.

It was an exciting class and I never thought I would ever get into the deepwater pool. It was looking very daunting in the first day of the class. Now I have a feeling that I could deal with it. Mary, the instructor, says that we could dive head first into the pool by the time the class would end. That would be awesome. Actually, If I am able to tread water by the end of the class in that pool, i would have achieved what i wanted to achieve from this class.

Novice Swimming Class

Im taking the novice swimming class at DeAnza college. The class is from late September to first week of December. The instructor Mary Donahue is a very good swimming teacher. I think that subjects like this taught by really good teachers like Mary will really develop people with good skills that can be used through the rest of our lives. I think community colleges are such a good use of my tax dollars. The facilities in de-anza college and the teaching quality are just so good.

Here are my class summaries:

Class 1:

This class was all about getting used to the water. We had to dunk our head and immerse ourselves inside the pool. We learnt beach ball float and got used to floating in the water learning about the nature of our bodies in water (i.e. your body floats naturally!). We got used to holding our breath and floating in the water.

The final exercise in the class was to do a somersault by doing a beach ball float and then a windmill hand rotation.

It was a lot for the first class but it got our attention.

Class 2:

In this class we learnt about treading water, watched videos about water safety and practiced the previous class material. We did more of somersaults and floats. Then we started floating in the water and doing flutter kicks.

Class 3:

We learnt about jumping into the water from the deck and swimming from there. We learnt about underwater stroke, i.e. swimming under water. We learnt about backstroke (soldier, monkey, bird(or airplane)) and swimming while facing up. Using the underwater stroke we swam to the bottom of the pool and did handstands. We also learnt about the rudiments of freestyle by keeping our hands like chicken wings and swimming that way. The other drill was to keep our arms well stretched and swimming forward using flutter kicks.

We jumped into the pool from the deck and swam facing down and later facing up using backstroke.

Class 4:

This class was all about learning freestyle swimming. We watched videos about freestyle swimming, the entry, pushdown, pushback and recovery (maybe there were different terms for these). We were not supposed to learn breathing while swimming yet. We did a lot of drills of swimming in backstroke and then freestyle, swimming under water and then freestyle, etc.