Dr. Alan Goldberg,  www.competitivedge.com Getting parents to work with, not against you.   Blog post about day 1 handout. http://swimminglessonsideas.com/2017/09/17/handout-for-first-day-of-swim-lessons-for-parents-what-to-expect/ Day 2 handouts: https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/completelessondocuments/Administration/Day+2+Handouts+(1).pdf   Be proactive. How to teach your parents on your swim team. Learn how to interact with your swim lesson parents in a healthy way. Be...

Recap from Dr. Alan Goldberg and Josh Davis. 

Ok. The first thing is to get in the water.   The second thing to do is to touch the bottom with your hand.   Easy? Easy peezy?   Now we're going to swim front crawl or freestyle with side breathing from here to there. (one length).   Well done. Can you touch the bottom, here?   Where did you learn how to swim?   Ok. Now we're going to do back stroke all the way back. When you get to the other end I'll go like this it means stop. Ready? Okay go.   Well done. Do you...

i'll be interviewing a person about how to teach swimming lessons to autistic kids. She is an expert in adaptive physical education for special needs children and will be an excellent resource.  I'm hoping to connect with Nitro tash to get her take on her new swim lesson format with her pool in Perth, Australia. Look for updates to swimminglessonsideas.com and a new resource to take beginners from no program to a thriving successful one including. I understand that a lot of the material...

Correct your teachers that aren't performing like they should!   Give initial feedback. Restrain anger and disappointment. Immediate debrief and followup. Frame things in the future. next time do this. Retrain. Deal with it in private.

Lots of talk about breath; on land, in the water, in small groups, and over short distances.     Most effective initially with short distances, and constant discussion about it. Some level of attenuation.     Lean what we do in dryland, and in our small groups to progressively move through breathing on land to maintaining the breath in the water.    Struggle how to keep it relevant and enforce it: how to make it habit?    How to tell if doing it? Enforcement.   ...

Get ready to experience the next supplemental guide for better swim lessons! We've been refining the general format of our swim lessons. Ever forward, and ever working on refinement we've been teaching lessons using this new take on an old favorite.   For a long time we've incorporated the "learn something, learn something, play a game format." you can see it in the lesson plans that you can buy on the website.   The last two weeks I distributed the first version of the General lesson...

Get the basics for your new swim program. If you're already established, take these ideas and see if you're already doing them.   Question from John from the UK. He asked me very generally what he could do to get started. He had bought the swimming ideas lesson plans which you can get here: https://swimminglessonsideas.com/store/    But he was uncertain in how to start teaching swimming lessons. It made me think about what the key things someone would need to begin. Like what if...

Dominic Latella from theswimbox.com stops by to talk about his online course about breathing and to follow up on his sensational comments. We talk about a lot of different things regarding swimming. Dominic lets us know some details about his most recent training trip to the Bahamas, and who makes the best eggs in his family. I believe that my eggs are awesome in my house. :)   I get a chance to ask Dominic to explain some of the parts of the Foundational Breathing Method for swimming....

Take a look with me at the 3 year old class I've been teaching for the last 6 weeks. Look at the games we play and how I've been successful getting them in the water when half the class was crying and terrified the first few lessons. Yes! It is okay to play games with 3 year olds, and I would even say that you should be playing mostly games and singing songs with your youngest participants. When they're comfortable enough to trust you with going underwater, smiling, and having more fun...

Finding deliberate practice in your swimming lessons and swim team.

In depth look at our dryland program for beginning swim team or a level 4 class.

Update for 2018! Wow. We have a lot of new material and action ready for you in the next year.

http://www.excelwithgrace.ca/ Jeff Grace http://www.excelwithgrace.ca/jeff-grace.html Check out his online videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYfIfs2Fz5G6W_to2PAUS9Q   I really enjoyed talking with Jeff from Excel with Grace. I loved how he gave specific examples and connections to the more ethereal mind and attention to specific swimming techniques and learning. One of my first questions to him is how we can connect the mind, and attention to the physical expression of...

And how it has been fun and full of healthy improvement.   Preface: I run safe and encouraging practices. I get along well with my swimmers and their parents. I can't think of a time I was upset with a parent that knew me or has watched a practice.  We fill our time building up our swimmers by giving them regular feedback. They experience more than 10 interactions per practice of one of the coaches saying something they did well, and something they need to improve upon. We take particular...

Today is a short podcast about how I failed when taking a child underwater.   I went to the beach with my friend and his family and while swimming with their 3 year old, I did the motorboat game, and dunked her to disastrous results.    Find out the three things I did wrong! 1) Trust 2) Expectations 3) Appropriate activity   Learn why I made this colossal mistake, and how you can avoid it in your lessons with your swim staff this summer.

We want to make swimmers better.  I had so much fun talking to Dominic Latella from SwimBox. He said multiple times that making swimmers better is his primary goal. He wants to help people and work with others that share that goal. You can see it shine through everything he says in our conversation. Dive into this episode and share his enthusiasm.  Breathing well on land is a demonstration of a good athlete. I don't think you realized it, but you said, "breathing is not fundamental," and I...

The summer is almost upon us and you're going to start running training classes for your summer and seasonal staff. Slap on the sunscreen, wear a floppy hat, and get those kids moving!   This is our guide to running effective training sessions.  We are going to assume that you are a park district or a large program that has hired a decent sized staff and are running either lifeguard, swim instructor, or all staff training sessions. Your goal is to both create a team and a culture with these...

Safe Splashes Swim School in Arizona with Teresa Stewart [email protected]   Teresa has been teaching swim lessons most of her life. She uniquely finished her lesson program while young and they made her a co-teacher to give her something to do while at lessons.  She has contributed to the Swimming Lessons Ideas website, and has two posts you should check out too: Freestyle Kick drill: Motorcycle ...

Episode 057 with Meighan Julbert: "Focus on the 2-3 things totally essential for swimmer's success."    Episode 055 with Karis Mount: "My coaches focused on the one thing that would make me improve. We were focused."   Episode 054 with Jennifer Butler: "When giving feedback, focus on the one thing that will help them the most."     Effective Teaching from USA Swimming: One thing at a time Break every move down into "chunks" Aim for perfecting one 'chunk' each practice ...

Meighan Julbert is a Mental Skills Consultant for The MindSide who brings a passion for understanding how to gain competitive advantages as part of early athletic experiences, through proper structure and coaching of athletes. As a former competitive athlete, Meighan understands the need for proper mental skills training from program implementation, instead of waiting until athletes feel it is needed. Meighan earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Auburn University, where she...

Are you in a rut? Have you taught the same lessons over and over for years? They work, they're great, and they're interesting for the kids, but how can you amuse yourself and your students without disrupting the flow of your tried and true lesson plans?   Do a series of Challenges.   What are challenges?   Challenges are simple achievable games and activities that you give to your swimmers in a lesson. Some examples: Do a flip Do a handstand that turns into a flip Do a back...

Karis Mount grew up in Minnesota, graduated high school in North Dakota, and is currently in school for Supervisory Management. She swam all 4 years of her high school seasons and was on varsity. She continues to swim at alumni meets. Karis taught swim lessons and was a Head Lifeguard at her local YMCA where she was involved in adaptive lessons and helped coach 5-9 year olds. One day she would like to run her own swim school.   As you listen to Karis talk you'll pick up on her enthusiasm...

Jennifer Butler of Roots Aquatics is awesome. She is an experienced preschool teacher, swimming veteran and expert swim instructor. Jenn is the Aquatic Coordinator at Roots Aquatics and Fitness Center where she trains lifeguards and swim instructors, teaches lessons, does the schedule, and writes a staff only blog. This summer she'll be running the camp swim lessons for  all three Roots locations. http://www.rootsaquatics.com/ Jennifer has taught swim lessons for 11 years and has had a...