The Only Beginner Swim Guide You Will EVER Need

This video can save you 15 years of struggles in swimming or can potentially bring you 15 years up front in your swimming journey. You don't need to be born with a talent to swim, and in fact, you can learn to swim in less than two months. And in today's video, I will show you all the levels of swimming, what to start from, and how to successfully swim without being stuck or out of breath after just one lap. I'm Dasha, a former swimmer and a coach with over a decade of swimming experience. And in today's video, I will show you how to swim from literally standing in the water to swimming your first 500 meters or more non-stop. Let's go! If you want to learn how to swim and don't want to spend years on struggling with your breathing, sinking legs, or your technique, it all comes down to the order of the steps you take and their completion. And in today's video, I will guide you through each of those steps and finally will get you swimming. This video is not for professionals. It's for everyone who wants to learn how to swim, breathe, and feel comfortable and safe in water. By the way, there is a link down below for 30 ways in 30 days to improve your freestyle. It's absolutely free. Feel free to check this. Step number one, breathing. And I know many coaches will not agree with me on this one, but breathing is the number one step that you should master before moving to anything else. Many coaches out there, they will teach you to hold your breath, then incorporate your kick, your arm stroke, and only as the last step to breathe. But this will limit you to only swimming half of the pool because you cannot swim many meters with holding your breath. So for that reason, if you want to practice your kick, practice the stroke, you need to learn how to inhale and exhale. And the way you're going to do it is by inhaling only through your mouth, never through your nose, and exhaling or breathing out with your nose or sometimes with your nose and your mouth, with both. And for that reason, you need to see what works better for you and use that pattern. You're going to start breathing on a shallow end, somewhere where you feel comfortable and safe, so your feet touch the bottom of the pool. And you're going to emerge your face first in the water. You're going to put your face in the water, exhale with your nose, and inhale with your mouth above the water. And once this feels comfortable, you're going to submerge fully under the water with your head and repeat the same breathing pattern. And once these two patterns feel good and comfortable, you're going to practice side breathing. And side breathing is something that we use in freestyle. You're going to hold with one hand the deck and you're going to put the face in the water. You're going to exhale, then rotate to the side, inhale to the open side, or inhale, and then put your face back in the water. And then you're going to alternate the sides. So these are the three breathing variations that you will practice in this section. And then once this feels good, you can then move on to the next steps. But I highly recommend you master breathing before moving to the stroke, kick, or floating, because this can be a detrimental mistake later on. So master your breathing and only then move on to the next steps. Step number two, floating and streamlined glide. So this is the first stage where you're going to finally take your feet out of the bottom of the pool, not touch any walls, and fully gravitate in the water. The way you're going to learn how to float is by holding the air in your lungs. And I want you to remember, when there is air in your lungs, you are going to feel the buoyancy, meaning that you will always stay on the surface of the water and not going to sink. You will only sink if you don't have any air left in your lungs. So in that case, you need to be dead. And if you're alive, then you're going to float. First float that you're going to practice is called Deadman, funny enough. You're going to spread your arms and your legs, hold your breath, and just comfortably lay on the surface of the water and just gravitate in the water. Don't feel panic. The water is holding you. You're feeling absolutely fine and relaxed. So once you feel out of breath, you're going to come and raise back on the surface of the water. You're going to inhale and then put your face back and float again. When this feels great, you're going to form a bowl and full float in the bowl. So this is another floating position that is amazing to help you feel your body in the water, feel the balance, and see where you waddle. And once these two floating patterns feel good, you're going to do a streamline float. And a streamline float is floating in the streamline position. You're going to put one hand on the top of the other. You're going to lock it, put the two arms behind your head. You're going to form a streamline position. Remember that your body stays in line with your spine and with your legs. Don't drop your legs. Don't bend your knees. Stay in the perfect streamline position. And you're going to lay on the surface of the water. And again, hold your breath and float. Once you feel out of breath, you're going to come up, inhale, and float again. So these are the three types of float that you can practice before actually moving to the next step. And the next step is a streamline glide. So we are going to take the same streamline float. And then you are going to push yourself off the wall in the streamline position and glide. Without using your legs or arms, you're just going to be gliding on the top of the water front. And once you feel out of breath, you're going to come out, come back to the wall, and repeat this push off the wall and streamline glide. So remember, floating is an important part of your swimming journey. And before you can kick or use your arms, you need to understand how your body position works in the water. And floating can help you understand this. So learn to float and then move on to the next step. Step number three, kick. Kick is simply the move of your legs when you're swimming. And the number one thing that you need to remember about the kick is that your kick starts from your hip, it moves to your knee, and then finishes at your ankle. So don't bend your knees too much like in a bicycle. When you're cycling, for example, this is wrong. And don't keep your knees fully straight. Yeah, find that middle spot. Don't bring your knees to your chest. Also, try to start the move from your hip and then move it into your knee. When you think about the kick, don't do big splashy movements because that doesn't mean that you're going to move any faster. Instead, try to think about small, compact, and fast movements as high on the surface of the water as possible. And at the beginning of your swimming journey, you can use fins to kick and a kick board to hold. Fins are going to help you keep your hips and legs high on the surface of the water. So make sure you're going to have small movements starting from your hip and going to your knee. And once your kick feels good, now that you know how to float, breathe, and kick, we're going to finally move to the next step. Step number four, the catch, the pull, and the recovery. Now it's time to talk about the arm movement in the water. The arms move in a cycle, meaning that one arm always stays up front and the other one at the back. They never meet up front or at the back. They always move in a cycle. The catch is the start of your stroke and you're going to enter the water in line with your shoulder. You're going to enter the water first with your fingertips, then your wrist, and only then your elbow. And that's going to form an arc kind of a shape. So this is your perfect shape when it comes to the catch and catching the water up front. After the catch goes the pull. And the pull is the most important part of your stroke. It's where the most of the power and the movement come from, especially the back of your pull. So remember to always keep your elbow high and above your hand, and don't cut your stroke short. Remember to always finish by your hip with your arm straight. And then comes the recovery phase. And the recovery phase is what happens above the water. So once your hand and your arm finishes the pull under the water, you're going to move to the recovery phase. And here I want you to remember that you're going to use all your power in your shoulders and your arms when your arm is under the water. But when your arm is above the water, you're going to fully relax it and drag it to the next catch. So remember the catch, and then the pull without dropping your elbow, and then the recovery. Step number five. Coordinating your arms with your legs and side breathing. At this stage that you know how to move your arms in the water, how to breathe, and how to move your legs in the water, you're going to combine all of those skills and practice together as one stroke, as freestyle. And here there's going to be different drills that will help you get to that level of feeling confident in the water. And the drills that you can practice is one arm freestyle drill, where you're going to only swim with one arm and then alternate the arms. The other drill that you can do is kick, where you can put the fins or do without fins, holding the kickboard, breathing up front and then on the side. And another really great drill is 6-1-6. This is where you're going to do six kicks, one stroke, and six kicks. This is going to help you with the balance and the stroke in the water. You can also put the fins at the start and then remove them once that feels comfortable for you. Another important thing that you should remember is breathing. Don't forget to breathe out when your face is in the water. I know at the start it's really difficult to coordinate everything and focus on every part of the stroke at the same time. But remember, when your face is in the water, it's time to exhale. And when your face is above the water, it's time to inhale. Another important part of the swimming is your head position. In most of the times, the mistakes that are causing you, for example, sinking legs or breathing difficulties or disbalance in the body is your head position. If your head is too high or too low or on the side, you're going to feel all of those mistakes. So try to keep your head really in line with your body. And this will help you then feel a better body position and eventually reach that perfect freestyle that you're aiming for. Step number six, practice. Now that you know what to do, it's time to practice. You can start from two times a week and then gradually move to swimming three times a week. To get better at swimming, it's the same like riding a bike. The higher the gears are, the harder it is to push. But if you're strong enough to push, you're going to move way faster. The same in swimming. You need to push against the water and hold on to that push. And to do that, you need three things. You need to work on the right movements in the water, which is the skills and the technique. You need to get stronger, which is the strength. And you need to practice this for long enough so you don't get out of breath and tired way too quickly, which is endurance. And with these three things, you can move really quickly in your swimming journey. If you're still watching this video, that means that you are really interested in this topic. And for that reason, I created a full beginner swim course that you can find down in the description below. If you have any questions, drop a comment. You can email me or DM me on socials. And now go get yourself swimming. And I'll see you very soon.