Swim Instructors: transition to big arms

For all of you Swim Instructors who read the blog. I know your summer only has a few more weeks and just a few more sessions, but I thought I put this up here while it is still kind of in the season.

When we teach a young child how to swim to be water safe; we very often teach the doggie paddle. It is an arm stroke that is easy to learn and they can effectively do the arm motion while lifting their head up. Essentially we first teach them to be propulsive in the water, and then we teach them to pick there head up, take a breathe, and then put their head to continue to swim. Once the child can do multiple breathes you have effectively made them water safe as they know how to move; how to get a breathe; and how to put their head in to flatten out to continue to move.

We then go on to try to teach them freestyle arms (Big Arms). This transition can be difficult as they like to revert back to the doggie paddle which can through off their arms, so that big arms becomes a hybrid arm stroke that is a short pull big arm motion. Today I had two kids who are in this transition. One is 3 and the other is 6. I tried this superman method and it worked great with the 6 year old, and not quite as effective with the 3 year old. I think the method can be used as an option to teach this, but is definitely not perfect.

I start with having them kick in a superman position for about 6 to 7 feet. Have them learn the superman position. Then we move on to Superman, one big arm, back to superman. You stop them because lets not throw a breathe in there to mess everything up. Then I will repeat the superman, one big arm, back to superman method and alternate the arm we use for each time we repeat. So essentially you are having them do a short version of catch-up freestyle in a superman position.

(Oh Yeah, Superman position is arms straight forward, hands at about shoulder width)

This is a method for those kids who are having trouble doing big arms. I have other kids who have no trouble doing big arms after they show me big arms out of the water they can quickly transfer that movement into their swimming. The method may be good for them as well though, as you will begin to teach the front arm extended at an early age. That will help their future swim coach who will have to develop the position as they try to teach front quadrant freestyle stroke.