Breathing

You may be trying too hard and tensing up. All I can say is to try to stay relaxed. I know that sounds almost contradictory when you consider how hard you're having to work right now when you swim, but at some point it, with practice (there's that word again), it will make sense. I know a girl who had a breathing problem on a soccer field and ended up going to the hospital. It turned out that she was trying so hard and became so excited when she got a little out of breath that she would breath in too fast, and part of her throat would momentarily collapse closed from the sudden suction. It would open almost immediately, but the shock of that brief feeling of being unable to breathe would make her breathe even harder, and she was hyperventilating. She actually had an abnormal bit of cartilage that allowed her throat to close, so I doubt you have that exact same problem. However, trying to breathe out to avoid water and almost immediately breathe in will give you the same kind of shock feeling of being unable to breathe, because you are trying to get too much air through your windpipe all at once. When you feel as if you can't get enough air, you'll tense up and start trying to breathe even harder, compounding the problem. A new swimmer can easily fall into a sense of panic in that situation. Panic is always bad in the water. So you need to relax your breathing as much as you can to allow yourself to get more air. Does anyone have any kind of easy breathing drills Brenda can try? There must be some kind of exercise that would condition the breathing. It will come to you. Do you suppose a bird doesn't experience a little panic when it first learns to fly?

this is what I did... with kickboard and fins... hold onto the bottom of the board and stretch your arms out in front of you... put your face in the water between you arms... kick six times, turn your head to the right and breathe, face back in the water blowing bubbles, kick six times, turn your head to the left and breathe... remember to turn your ear to the bottom of the pool, just go slowly. Once you can breathe every six kicks you might want to increase the number of kicks to 8, then 10 and so on... this not only helps with learning to breathe on alternating sides it helps build up endurance. When you feel really comfortable turning your head try adding the stroke then. Its not easy to coordinate all these movements when you first start learning. In fact, the purpose of drills is to isolate one part of the whole stroke in order to practice just that part.

I had the same breathing problem too. I used a kickboard & turned my head a few times as described in this Forum previously. The best advice that I can give is to blow out thru your nose & thru slightly opened lips ... and relax!