Friday, February 27, 2009
Strides in Swimming
I love taking the kids to swim lessons! When they first started in swim lessons, it was more of a chore for the kids -- especially Benjamin and MacKenzie. I was actually resorting to bribery to try to get the two of them to put their faces in the water: If they’d put their faces under water five times, I told them I’d take them to Baskin Robbins. MacKenzie managed to (barely) do so the first time I asked, so I upped her requirement to 10 times at the next lesson. Benjamin was a different story. He was adamantly opposed to putting his face under water.
Fortunately, something clicked with both of them recently. Benjamin now spends so much time under water that his instructor has to repeat her instructions to him and often tells him to stay above water and listen.
They start off each lesson doing “bobs.” He doesn’t simply do the quick up-down-up bobs ... no, that would be too easy. He bobs down and stays down! Dooooooowwwwwwwn-up {one}, catch his breath, dooooooowwwwwwwn-up {two}. This photo shows him counting how many bobs he’s done thus far -- holding his hand above water indicating that he’s on #3! Yes, Ms Allie (his instructor) is chuckling at him! She’s great! Benjamin and Dallon (the other boy in the class) have made great strides this month alone. I’m so glad she’s going to be his instructor again next month!
Last week, they regularly used various flotation aids -- bars, sticks, rockets, foam salamanders -- to get used to different aspects of swimming. That’s what he’s using here with Ms Allie. At Tuesday’s lesson, she tried giving them all one of the bars, and Benjamin confidently told her that he didn’t need it! He was correct -- he swam great on his own! He told me last week how he figured out how to swim under water: “Every twice in a while I think about putting my face in the water, so I take a deep breath and blow out my nose and just put my face under the water.” I love it that he thinks about this not just “every once in a while,” but rather every twice in a while.” I’d say he does it quite a bit more often that that!
I’ve had Benjamin in Saturday classes, but after having to move MacKenzie to evening classes twice a week (due to limited space at her level on Saturdays), I opted to move Benjamin to evening classes as well. That meant that for the month of February, he attended classes three days a week since the Saturday classes last for two months. That may have helped his confidence level some too (or it simply could have been being in the pool so often). Here he’s swimming through a hula-hoop for Ms Linda -- reminds me of lions jumping through hoops at the circus! They have movable platforms that they place along the edge of the pool and further out in the water to allow a place for the kids to rest between skills. I’ve been chuckling at Benjamin lately since he’s mastered swimming with his face in the water -- except that he hasn’t learned how to breathe while swimming. So, he takes a deep breath, swims from one platform to the next with his face completely under water (using his goggles to look for the platform), then comes up for a large gulp of air.
This is one of the first lessons where it all clicked for Benjamin and he swam from platform to platform -- over and over and over again. I love his excitement over his success when he jumps up and down!
This short snippet is from his Saturday class -- the first time he really swam for Ms Linda. She put swim belts on the other three kids in the class, but Benjamin told her he didn’t need it -- and he was right!
This video shows Benjamin swimming on a rocket -- he likes using this since it allows him free reign of the pool (well, their lesson area of the pool).
MacKenzie’s even made great progress in the past few weeks. She’s finally figured out how to put her face under water without holding her nose. Yeah!!! Sometimes she still swims with her face completely above water, like here, since she hasn’t mastered the side breathing yet.
Her next big skill to conquer: diving. Her class has been working on diving from sitting, squatting and standing positions. The other four students try with varying degrees of success (I’ve seen more than one belly-flop-dive), while MacKenzie’s mastered the head-shake move telling her instructor she doesn’t want to try. Can’t you see the look of reservation on her face here? At yesterday’s practice, even though she opted not to go off the diving board (“It’s 14 feet deep there!”), she “dove” from a squat at the pool’s edge three times! Yeah! I still chuckled that she managed to keep her head above water during all three “dives,” but am pleased that she took that step and tried!
I don’t have any good photos or video of Zachary though. His class meets across the pool, and he’s in/under the water so much that I can’t get a good shot. I’ll have to give it a try one of these nights though. To share a status report on the progress they’ve made thus far, Zachary was in “Beginner #2” when he started lessons in October, and is now in “Beginner #3.” MacKenzie and Benjamin started off in the same “Beginner #1” class back in October/November, and she’s been in “Beginner #2” since January. I expect she’s getting close to moving up again -- once she can attempt diving. Benjamin’s been in “Beginner #1” all along, but once he masters staying afloat, I expect he’ll move up -- he’s been asking when he gets to move up to the next level, so that in and of itself tells me that he’s almost there!
Here’s video of MacKenzie swimming, with her face in the water! Granted, she stops for significant gulps of air (and stands) midway across the pool, but this is such great improvement from where she was a mere four months ago!
Fortunately, something clicked with both of them recently. Benjamin now spends so much time under water that his instructor has to repeat her instructions to him and often tells him to stay above water and listen.
They start off each lesson doing “bobs.” He doesn’t simply do the quick up-down-up bobs ... no, that would be too easy. He bobs down and stays down! Dooooooowwwwwwwn-up {one}, catch his breath, dooooooowwwwwwwn-up {two}. This photo shows him counting how many bobs he’s done thus far -- holding his hand above water indicating that he’s on #3! Yes, Ms Allie (his instructor) is chuckling at him! She’s great! Benjamin and Dallon (the other boy in the class) have made great strides this month alone. I’m so glad she’s going to be his instructor again next month!
Last week, they regularly used various flotation aids -- bars, sticks, rockets, foam salamanders -- to get used to different aspects of swimming. That’s what he’s using here with Ms Allie. At Tuesday’s lesson, she tried giving them all one of the bars, and Benjamin confidently told her that he didn’t need it! He was correct -- he swam great on his own! He told me last week how he figured out how to swim under water: “Every twice in a while I think about putting my face in the water, so I take a deep breath and blow out my nose and just put my face under the water.” I love it that he thinks about this not just “every once in a while,” but rather every twice in a while.” I’d say he does it quite a bit more often that that!
I’ve had Benjamin in Saturday classes, but after having to move MacKenzie to evening classes twice a week (due to limited space at her level on Saturdays), I opted to move Benjamin to evening classes as well. That meant that for the month of February, he attended classes three days a week since the Saturday classes last for two months. That may have helped his confidence level some too (or it simply could have been being in the pool so often). Here he’s swimming through a hula-hoop for Ms Linda -- reminds me of lions jumping through hoops at the circus! They have movable platforms that they place along the edge of the pool and further out in the water to allow a place for the kids to rest between skills. I’ve been chuckling at Benjamin lately since he’s mastered swimming with his face in the water -- except that he hasn’t learned how to breathe while swimming. So, he takes a deep breath, swims from one platform to the next with his face completely under water (using his goggles to look for the platform), then comes up for a large gulp of air.This is one of the first lessons where it all clicked for Benjamin and he swam from platform to platform -- over and over and over again. I love his excitement over his success when he jumps up and down!
This short snippet is from his Saturday class -- the first time he really swam for Ms Linda. She put swim belts on the other three kids in the class, but Benjamin told her he didn’t need it -- and he was right!
This video shows Benjamin swimming on a rocket -- he likes using this since it allows him free reign of the pool (well, their lesson area of the pool).
MacKenzie’s even made great progress in the past few weeks. She’s finally figured out how to put her face under water without holding her nose. Yeah!!! Sometimes she still swims with her face completely above water, like here, since she hasn’t mastered the side breathing yet.
Her next big skill to conquer: diving. Her class has been working on diving from sitting, squatting and standing positions. The other four students try with varying degrees of success (I’ve seen more than one belly-flop-dive), while MacKenzie’s mastered the head-shake move telling her instructor she doesn’t want to try. Can’t you see the look of reservation on her face here? At yesterday’s practice, even though she opted not to go off the diving board (“It’s 14 feet deep there!”), she “dove” from a squat at the pool’s edge three times! Yeah! I still chuckled that she managed to keep her head above water during all three “dives,” but am pleased that she took that step and tried!I don’t have any good photos or video of Zachary though. His class meets across the pool, and he’s in/under the water so much that I can’t get a good shot. I’ll have to give it a try one of these nights though. To share a status report on the progress they’ve made thus far, Zachary was in “Beginner #2” when he started lessons in October, and is now in “Beginner #3.” MacKenzie and Benjamin started off in the same “Beginner #1” class back in October/November, and she’s been in “Beginner #2” since January. I expect she’s getting close to moving up again -- once she can attempt diving. Benjamin’s been in “Beginner #1” all along, but once he masters staying afloat, I expect he’ll move up -- he’s been asking when he gets to move up to the next level, so that in and of itself tells me that he’s almost there!
Here’s video of MacKenzie swimming, with her face in the water! Granted, she stops for significant gulps of air (and stands) midway across the pool, but this is such great improvement from where she was a mere four months ago!
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