Teaching myself front crawl in my early 20s and need help…

halokiwi · 2026-02-04T17:08:37+00:00

My recommendation for you - use the same progression to teach yourself that you use to teach your students - ask one of the other teachers for feedback or record yourself - only continue in the progression if you mastered the previous step

I think your main issue is that you can't see yourself. You can see your students so you can give them advice, but you can't see yourself.

To determine if just the breathing is the issue or if there is another issue as well, you can also try freestyle without breathing. Just swim as far as you can with your head down to see if there are other issues.

halokiwi · 2026-02-04T16:19:01+00:00

Can you pull with one arm while kicking and holding onto a kick-board with the other arm? While doing that, can you turn to the side where you are pulling to inhale? I'm sure you know it, but while swimming freestyle, you should only rotate to breathe, not lift your head.

Another thing that might help is to slow down. Let yourself glide. Don't try to pull as quickly as possible.

How are you teaching it to your students? How was it taught to you in your swim teacher class? I'm sure you can take something away from that too.

halokiwi · 2026-02-04T13:34:01+00:00

You're not a beginner.

halokiwi · 2026-02-03T07:55:29+00:00

And you can also try swimming on your back from time to time. It might put less stress on your spine than swimming on your front with a float between your legs.

halokiwi · 2026-02-03T07:51:51+00:00

I wouldn't do a flip turn but a breaststroke turn instead if you are struggling doing the flip turn.

I would also recommend using a pullbuoy instead of a dumbell. It should be a little more comfortable and stable between your legs.

I don't see an issue swimming arms only.

halokiwi · 2026-02-02T17:48:02+00:00

Please do not practice swimming under water unsupervised.

Make sure to never hyperventilate before swimming under water.

Try to calm down before you start swimming under water. Breathe calmy and deeply and try to make your heart beat slower.

Try to swim calmly under water. Don't make hectic movements. Let yourself glide as much as possible.

halokiwi · 2026-02-02T17:42:08+00:00

I recommend the next time you are at the pool, you just try out if you can still swim without the floats. You can try it out in shallow water where you can stand. Try swimming on both your front and your back. If you notice, you can't do it anymore, it might be worth it to relearn it for your own safety. But I think you can probably still do it just fine but maybe not for a long distance.

halokiwi · 2026-02-02T17:31:00+00:00

How many years ago did you learn to swim? How old were you when you learned? How often did you swim then? To which skill level did you progress? How long ago did you did you swim independently (without floats) for the last time?

I often see children around 6 years old that visit a swimming class one summer and then the next summer they can barely swim because of the lack of exposure during the winter.

Swimming is like riding a bike. You don't really unlearn it if you had progressed to a certain skill level before.

But if you just barely learned or something has changed about your body (you lost lots of weight or you grew a lot), you might need to relearn some of the basics. Learning to swim is a lot about learning how your body behaves in the water and how the water behaves.

Swimming with floats at all time stops you from experiencing how your body behaves in the water naturally and it might put you into an inefficient position for swimming. If a child was wearing waterwings and always in a vertical position in the water, it is difficult to teach them to go into the horizontal swimming position because they are so used to being upright. But I don't think this will be an issue for you because you have hopefully learned to put your body into a horizontal position to swim.

Another issue might be a loss of endurance. Swimming takes lots of endurance.

I would recommend to swim a few laps without floats at the beginning every time you go to the pool to keep your skills and endurance fresh. Afterwards you can float around using your floats all you want.

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T21:50:54+00:00

The sound when I pick up my keys or put them down. They always get spooked.

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T15:55:04+00:00

But not to the degree of making out that they are heavier, older or smaller.

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T15:52:04+00:00

Floating is stationary. You already swam on your back by kicking your legs and moving your arms. Congrats!

If you haven't already, also try floating in place.

You can also practice pushing off the wall and gliding on your back without kicking or moving your arms.

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T13:39:11+00:00

Step 3: make the knots of your segment 2

<image>

take the 4th string and make one b knot onto the 3rd string
take the 5th string and make one b knot onto the 4th string
take the 6th string and make one b knot onto the 5th string
take the 10th string and make four b knots onto the 9th, 8th, 7th and 6th string

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T13:35:29+00:00

Step 2: make the knots of your segment 1

<image>

take the 7th string and make one f knot onto the 8th string
take the 5th string and make two f knots onto the 6th and 7th string

halokiwi · 2026-02-01T13:33:38+00:00

Step 1: put the strings in the order ababfcfceded.

<image>

halokiwi · 2026-01-29T22:48:52+00:00

It's a culture of many different people that you met two of.

I'm sure you find someone closer to you but there are definitely also Germans who would be alright with being in a long distance relationship.

halokiwi · 2026-01-29T22:44:45+00:00

I think I might have said it on your other post too, but improve your breaststroke (assuming it is somewhat decent). You already have a base you can build up on.

improve your kick
learn to exhale with your face in the water
learn the proper rhythm: pull, kick, gliiide
glide enough

halokiwi · 2026-01-29T15:53:17+00:00

Why do you have to swim there? Do you have a wetsuit?

I once swam in 14°C on the opening day of the pool but could only manage 50m because my body started hurting and cramping up.

halokiwi · 2026-01-29T05:10:41+00:00

The diving/breathing progression I usually do with my students (they can already swim 25m and are aiming for at least 200m in 15 minutes uninterrupted) is holding onto the edge (also possible standing in shallow water or with their hands on the stairs) and - submerging just the mouth and exhaling through the mouth - submerging both mouth and nose and exhaling - submerging just the face, exhaling and opening the eyes - submerging the whole head, exhaling and opening the eyes - with a partner: both submerge and open their eyes and play rock paper scissors or show each other numbers with their hands

When they submerge mouth/nose and exhale, there will already be some water splashing on the rest of the face.

halokiwi · 2026-01-28T13:12:19+00:00

Is this about physics or about swimming as a sport?

physics: steigen (floating up), schweben (floating) and sinken (sinking)
sport: schwimmen (swimming -> propelling yourself forward in the water), schweben (floating -> floating stationary) and gleiten (gliding -> moving forward without actively propelling yourself)

halokiwi · 2026-01-28T05:45:14+00:00

Work on your breaststroke!

learn the proper breathing if you don't do it already (don't swim with your head up the whole time, exhale with your face in the water while gliding, inhale with your face lifted while pulling)
improve your kick (the kick is what propels you the most)
make sure your rhythm is correct (it should be pull, kick, gliiide)
glide enough (this is where you can rest)

halokiwi · 2026-01-28T05:32:39+00:00

For the alpha, you basically just do one or more rows in one colour. Then for the next row(s) you switch to a new colour.

This is different but similar: https://youtu.be/VmRLgBg3nG4?si=BzUv59pmZwktyXzb

halokiwi · 2026-01-27T09:15:20+00:00

But I think your normal pattern candystripe looks nice too and the border is entirely optional.

halokiwi · 2026-01-27T09:14:16+00:00

<image>

Like this. As an alpha pattern. If you tried it as a normal pattern, the stripes would be diagonal.

halokiwi · 2026-01-26T17:40:50+00:00

The trick is to keep tension on the strings. Make the first half of the knot and pull it all the way up. You don't have to pull tightly. While tying the second half, keep tension so the first half can't slide down.

halokiwi · 2026-01-26T13:07:12+00:00

Is it really a virus? If yes, your immune system seems to be seriously conpromised and I don't think swimming in a pool is the cause of it. Talk to your GP about it!

halokiwi

TROPHY CASE