Taking Swim Lessons to Scuba

[hqduong]

My girl friend is finally taking swimming lessons because she wanted to learn to swim all her life. Second, I got her excited to get her scuba certification.

Anyone remember how many adult swim classes it took for them to be able to swim? Or be comfortable with the water? We're planning a vacation in about 10 weeks and I hope she can swim well enough by then to get her certification while on vacation.

[g1138]

Being a comfortable swimmer, a competent swimmer, and a competitive swimmer are all three different things.

The first thing to shoot for is being a comfortable swimmer. I define this as someone who can thread and move around under their own power in a body of water. It doesn't have to look pretty, it just has to happen in a calm manner.

After that's settled one should look to be a competent swimmer. That is working on making their strokes effective so they can swim through the water without using excessive energy or movements.

It all depends on how hard one works towards that goal and how well they are taught.
There are many old swim technique books you can find at your local library which could help quicken your improvement to becoming a competent swimmer.

I've only had experience teaching young kids and regardless of age you can see massive improvement in as few as a day to as long as an entire summer break. If your girlfriend can become comfortable in the water, I'm sure she can make a lot of progress if she puts her mind to it.

[ScubaBB]

If she wants it enough, ten weeks is enough. Wish her success.

[tddfleming]

I have always been comfortable in the water, took lessons when I was a kid, spent summers in the community pool, my grandparents pond, swimming in the Muskingum River, a lake, but was never what I call competent. Last winter I did an 8 week YMCA adult swim class, I wanted to learn the different strokes and have them look good and not use up loads of energy doing them. While that helped some, what I found was that the inst of that class believed that someone could become competent was working very hard, kicking like crazy and just struggling along. I found that by doing it her way, I was wearing myself out. I found a few books that have helped me a lot. Total Immersion Swimming, a book by Emmitt Hines, I also bought and rented the TI DVDs. Netflix has them for rent. It is a different approach to swimming. Not kicking and flailing about type of swimming. With this approach, I have made better progress. My next step is to visit a guy to works with swimmers and have him help me to refine my kick and stroke even more. One piece of advise, have her get a H2O wear swimsuit or some sort of polyester type, they last forever. I should have done that at the start and would have saved myself tons of money since I would not have had to replace parts of it every month or two due to being in the water so much. The other piece of advise, have her in the pool not only during class times but spend other times in a lap lane just practicing, doing drills and just swimming. I had a horrible time doing bilateral breathing, I drilled on that for months.

[boulderjohn]

Back when was a DM I assisted another instructor in a class and saw something remarkable during the swim test--every student did the entire distance with beautiful, fluid crawl strokes. The instructor pointed out the best of them all and told me her story. Less than a year before she had done a Discover Scuba class in Australia, despite the fact that she simply could not swim at all. It was a disaster during which she panicked and almost drowned. She sobbed the entire time on the boat trip back to shore, but she also vowed during that ride that she as not going to be defeated like that. She took lessons. I don't know how long it took her to gain the near flawless form she had when I saw her, but I don't think it was long, and I don't think you have to be nearly as good as she was then to be successful.

[hqduong]

Thanks everyone. My girlfriend just finished her first 2 lessons and it seems she'll be ready for scuba in a few weeks. She's practicing every day in between her lessons and she's picking it up real quick.

I was just worried 10 weeks would not be enough for someone that can only snorkel.

[TMHeimer]

Thanks everyone. My girlfriend just finished her first 2 lessons and it seems she'll be ready for scuba in a few weeks. She's practicing every day in between her lessons and she's picking it up real quick.

I was just worried 10 weeks would not be enough for someone that can only snorkel.

Yeah, once the proper form is there it's only doing lots of laps. The more regular practise she can get in the better she'll get.