1st lesson

Week 2 

Today (15/03/17) Brooke Taylor taught a lesson which included: Freestyle body position and legs. Throughout the lesson she spoke calmly and coherently using hand gestures to keep ourselves focused on her movement a good technique to remove distractions when in the pool area. Upon introduction she verbally explained how to safely get into the pool if there was an absence of a ladder. She furthered her explanation by using a volunteer to show the rest of the group how to do so safely “sit down in the pool with your legs in the water, place both your arms to your side onto the side of the pool and swivel, slowly drop yourself into the pool. Individually we followed after the volunteer to make sure we understood the instructions.  A crucial technique to insure those who are in her lesson are able to enter a pool competently. She used an analogy known as “crocodile arms” to latch onto the paddle board which was a useful instruction to help visualise the technique needed to hold the board correctly. Brooke only spoke to us when we were all together and looking at her additionally, we were in her vision at all times. She used arm actions such as hold your arms up and connect them, you shouldn’t be able to see my ears when I turn around. She analysed our swimming movements during the kicking motion and gave feedback on how to improve “Try to keep your head down more to lower the bow in front of you (higher drag resistance)”. Another technique she explained was to try keep your legs together as if they’re two partners, they should almost be touching, once again using arm actions to demonstrate further. She also detailed about common errors students make about their legs being above the water, making a splash rather than propelling them forward and is a key thing to look for in leg position.

Kevin’s lesson:

The lesson was broken into three parts and was comprised of buddy routines. The lesson was designed in a way to remove some of the competition that underlies in some lessons. Firstly, the class participated in a relay. Students would group as A and B. These allocated group members would rotate depending on the timing and varied at any time. Doggy paddle, sculling, running through water, duck diving, piggy bank and swimming through a buddies legs. These activities are a great way to deter from just the idea of swimming making it fun and different from traditional fitness swimming classes. Kevin also touched on the importance of eye contact, hand gestures and stopping the class when ambient noise, or noise in general was made to ensure all students understood the instructions. Sunlight, planes and the water itself are all potential distractions that can hinder our ability to teach our students. Making sure we can convey our information efficiently is extremely important especially when in the pool area. Note: Breath Holding can be dangerous, breath Holding in American public swimming pools are banned due to shallow pool drowning where swimmers pass out under the water due to the over inflation of CO2 in their bodies knocking them out.

We also did a circuit between students under the assumption that half the class were confident and the other half were unconfident. Unconfident students were to run across the pool on the shallow end with a buddy. Confident swimmers to swim in a circuit for two laps variating and displaying different techniques, free style, treading, duck diving through a hoop, sculling and then around a boy. After this we were brought back to our groups to do more group relays. Running through water; swimming to the end and through a hoop in the middle; swimming pattern of your choice to the end of the pool; treading water for an allocated time; duck diving. All these points were added up and then compared to the rest of the groups to provide drive to the students during this.

The use of laminated cards in the pool area to help students read and understand what was expected of them. These cards can get wet and be used in the pool area and can be used for multiple lessons (saving paper, yay).

Lesson 2:

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Julia Li’s lesson:

(22/03/17)

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Today we learnt breathing technique in conjunction with our free style movements.

Firstly, we learnt about entering a pool safely, similarly to that of the first lesson with Brooke. Then we moved onto swimming with a board and kicking to provide scaffolding for our leg movements.

After that we tried without the board and did our mushroom arm position and kicked our way to the end only inhaling when required so and doing a freestyle stroke simultaneously. This provided a linkage for when we needed to time our breathing when swimming.

To tie all this in together we practiced on the wall by supporting one of our arms on the wall and then using the rule cheek, goggles, face translating into our head position when inhaling. Moving forward, we swam a lap to the end of the pool and back; every third stroke we would take a breath, blowing bubbles out in our second stroke to ensure we exhaled allowing efficient inhaling on our third stroke. This was something new for me that I haven’t learned before which I found to be beneficial.

Kevin moved into a zig-zag lesson (years 9-11) where the cone on the peripherals of the pool each had a different activity, ranging from breast stroke, holding a brick (via on your back and front), free style, holding your breath, doggy paddle and so forth. This was done at minimum of 2 laps and participants were accompanied with a buddy. This activity was used to build endurance for students as well as provide variation instead of just constant drills.

Note: students can’t hear under the pool, there’s no use of giving instructions when they can’t hear you -Moran.

Our second activity was composed of 3 lanes; in pairs we moved through different swimming exercises. After each activity was completed we would switch over to the next lane and do a different activity described by our laminated/waterproof cards.

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Survival swimming with Kevin Moran 05/04/2017

For today's lesson we were required to bring pants, long shirts, sweaters shoes etc, this was to assess our ability to swim with clothing. Kevin gave a variety of tasks which were central to testing our ability to survive. Firstly we were to select a buddy to ensure our safety; a good idea when working with high school students.

Straddle entry into the pool to initiate first activity Arms extended to your side, one foot in front of the other.

Note: When jumping into the water you will notice that residual air particles will remain within the clothing known as trapped air. This trapped air will assist in flotation as it helps to create buoyancy during the initial jump into the water.

When jumping into the water you will perceive a cold water shock, your body temperature transitioning into a sudden drop in heat. It is suggested that you  tread water or find means to stabilize temperature during this period. Refrain from exerting any unnecessary energy expenditure to ensure you have enough to get out of the pool given a moment of danger (oncoming waves, escaping from a shark).

Sprint hard or exert yourself fully via any stroke of your choice for two laps, this is a good way to test students knowledge and thoughts on how to swim with clothing. Those who choose freestyle will notice that arms out of the water in conjunction with wet clothing will give additional weight making it more difficult to swim and hence more inefficient, this in survival situations is an issue because it lowers their chance of survival. Allow students to acknowledge which swimming pattern is more efficient after experiencing the freestyle weighted swim. Allow them to try breaststroke; a swim that saves more energy to arms being under water with less weight to move about.

After two lengths of the pool students will begin to survival float for five minutes any way they can, without touching the walls or the bottom of the pool. Complete an additional 5 minute swim (continuous, any swim they want).

Rest for 1 minute, transition to underwater swim in clothes without breaching the surface for 15m using any technique they want. Note: being calm as well as being relaxed is crucial for achieving well in underwater swimming. Singular breaststroke kick followed by two dolphin kicks is the most efficient kick. Remaining in streamline, and keeping breaststroke arms as close to the body as possible is more effective than having wide strokes.

Partner assist in clothes for 25 minutes:

Arms on partner's shoulders, partner breast strokes to the end of the pool

Climb out of the pool with wet clothing (at the deep end) any technique you can to test their ability to exit.

Try screaming help, making noises, keeping hands constantly still and pointed directly arm rather than waving as it makes it appear you’re either saying hi, or doing a front crawl from a far distance (making it difficult for lifeguards to understand what you’re asking).

Ezias, Kathryn.