Floating Properly On Back AND Front

Regardless if a student can swim or not, I’m finding 90% of students on their first day cannot properly “Jellyfish Float”. Jellyfish Floating is what I call the more commonly known “Dead Man Float”. That is floating face down in the water 100% relaxed. I rarely find a new student with swimming and previous swimming lessons elsewhere who can demonstrate this basic skill properly on their first day of class.

As a result of not being able to Jellyfish Float correctly these children struggle with their limited swimming skills. They work harder and move less and slower than those who can properly Jellyfish Float.

Your arms should pull you in the water.

Your legs should push you through the water.

Neither should be used to keep you afloat when swimming.

Floating is what keeps you on top of the water.

If your arms and legs are working to keep you on top of the water you are wasting energy and lucky if you are moving at all.

Next I’m finding that most of my students are not familiar with the words “relax your muscles.” These are like a foreign language to them. To explain I use words like “Noodle arms and legs” or “Jellyfish arms and legs” vs. “steel bar arms and legs”.

I don’t want them to move their arms and legs. I just want their muscles relaxed. This is a hard concept for many of them to grasp in the pool. Some struggle because they are trying TOO HARD to do what I want. Others are just super confused.

This is where HOMEWORK really helps.

The place children usually feel most relaxed is in bed at night.

Instead of having them try to relax their muscles, first have them tighten them up for 10-20 seconds. That is really hard to do for a long time. When you tell them to stop tightening their muscles they will then RELAX their muscles. Now is when it should start to make sense what “relaxing their muscles” means.

Have them practice this a few times, both arms and legs, for several nights until you think they understand what to do with their muscles when asked to relax their muscles.

Understanding the WORDS used is just as important as understanding what to do physically.

Once they can Jellyfish Float we will then work on them properly floating on their back.

A new term they will learn when floating on their back is “Arching Their Back”. This is something you can teach them at home to help speed up class when we get to this part.