So I just started learning to swim. 23 years old. =)

Well I just got back from my lesson. I can easily do a length of the pool with the backstroke now... and apparently my stroke is "really" good for a beginner -- angled close to the shoulders rather than spread out, and all that jazz. I'm beginning to like backstroke because whenever I need air, I breathe in... no thinking required. We tried treading water in the deep end today. No matter what I did, I could not stay afloat. Oh well. We'll try again. I'm going to beat eggs in my spare time. But yes, on to breathing... everyone's tips here helped me a lot, even moreso than my instructor's. She holds her breath under water and then exhales as she comes up, which went counter to everything I"ve read online. I tried exhaling ONLY through my nose and inhaling ONLY through my mouth, and for whatever reason, this completely solved my problem. (That and practicing in the shower.) HOWEVER, I still have trouble physically getting my head out of the water on freestyle. We haven't added the strokes yet, but with or without a kickboard, I think I'm lifting my head a bit, causing my legs to sink, and then my head... just more practice I suppose. The best I did was two full sets of breaths (in-out-in-out) while kicking before nearly drowning after swallowing a half-gallon of water trying to get a third breath. =) Anyway, overall, front crawl breathing is better but I still need practice to swim a length, backstroke is amazing, can swim a length easily now, probably two, floats are a bit easier, treading water is impossible. That's where I'm at after three hours in the pool.

Sounds like you are making progress, good luck. Main thing is don't rush.

I suppose that sure does beat swallowing it. =) Alright, I'm in the pool for an hour tomorrow with my instructor... I'm not getting out of that pool without either getting my breathing down right or drowning... so if you don't hear back from me, assume I drowned.When we breathe in and if water enters the mouth we are not obligated to suck it into our lungs or swallow it. After you finish your breathe in the head returns underwater you start to exhale and any water in your mouth is exhaled at the time you are breathing out.

The biggest tip I can think of for treading water is to relax. Most people I've seen when are just learning tend to panic and flap around trying to stay up. It really doesn't take that much effort to stay up. Slow big movements are the best. Congrats on everything!!!! Practice will make perfect!!!!!!!

Breathe in through the mouth, breathe out through the nose and mouth. Do not exhale all of your air. Many people just try to breathe in, if you were a balloon you would soon explode. If you force your breath out of your mouth only, water syphons up your nose and you are in trouble, choking and sputtering. Relax and stretch out, the water will actuaully keep you on the surface without a lot of effort if you just let it happen. Don.t jump off the bottom just push off gently and glide to the surface. If you jump up to high you will end up falling back under the water.

This is probably of little help to you now, but the faster you swim the easier it is to breathe. The faster you go the bigger the wake you will create and when you turn to breathe your head will have actually created a small divet in the water allowing you to take a breath with ease. Aside from that, all of these things come with lots of practice. Eventually breathing at any pace will be like second nature to you. I often get a bit of water in my mouth as I am finishing my inhale but I just blow it right back out as I exhale. The more you practice the easier these things will become. I think you are doing the right thing by taking lessons and watching elite swimmers in videos. The videos give you something to emulate as you swim.

Can someone explain to me in simple terms what "sculling" is and how it relates to treading water? I'm a details-oriented guy. From what I understand it's moving my hands in and out in front of me with: no wrist bending 45 degree palm angle palms never visible flat hands Should I be able to stay afloat without any leg movement, just sculling with my arms? In a slightly related questions, for the egg-beater kick, so I'm drawing circles with my feet... okay... but there has to be more to it than that. Am I drawing circles parallel to the bottom of the pool, or on an angle...? How should I angle my ankles (say that three times fast.)? Is this the same principle as sculling, but with feet/calves instead of hands/forearms?

The principle of sculling is well illustrated by sticking a flat hand out of the window of a car moving at highway speed (don't try this at home kids!). If the hand is angled at 45 degrees with the leading edge higher than the trailing edge you will feel a force both upward and back tending to lift your hand. The force is always at 90 degrees to the surface. When treading water if you move your hands back and forth so that the leading edge is higher than the trailing edge the water will press up on your hands lifting you higher in the water. Note that each change in direction of your hands will require a change in the angle, in order to keep the leading edge above the trailing edge. Egg-beater leg movements, like breaststroke kick, works on a different principle, basically you are lifting the foot with your foot aligned with the direction of movement (vertical) to minimize the amount of drag as it moves upward, you then turn the ankle so that the foot is horizontal and push back down again so that you are pushing down with a larger surface area than when you are lifting the foot. Again this allows you to raise your level in the water somewhat.

I think what you are trying to do is pretty cool. And it sounds like you are making remarkably fast progress. Just be patient and practice. You could do more lessons, but once you understand the basics (even if you can’t do them) I’d think one lesson a week would be plenty. Try to work up to 3 practices a week… 3 to 5x/wk will show you the most progress. And be patient. Vids and articles will help you a bunch, and help you get your ya-ya’s out since you can’t be in the pool all the time. The USMS.org web is a good place to start. And keep asking questions here too. There have been a number of returning, starting over, or learning swimmers here on this board lately, so have a go at searching the archives (click link in page header). I know there was a thread or two recently that dealt with breathing issues. However... most vids and articles (especially) on the web are going to target advanced swimmers. While these resources will show you the latest technique examples, you may want to take them w/ a grain of salt since you have a lot of ground to cover between where you are now and looking like them. The “water flying everywhere” bit is a good example, it does not have to be this way, in fact flying water usually indicates wasted energy, except maybe in a sprint. Watch some long distance swimmers, especially those who focus on “front quadrant swimming” (for front crawl) and you will notice that they splash very little. IMHO the best swimmers are those who barely seem to be moving, but when you swim next to them (or time them) you realize they are flying. You don’t always have to get water in your mouth, but you always will sometimes. I almost never get water up my nose (except underwater on my back). Just try different stuff in practice and be patient. Try and notice how your body feels going through the water and seek the path of least/most resistance. (The least resistance for everything except that which drives you forward.) You already have realized one of the most important concepts in swimming (or any sport really) and that is the idea of resting the muscles you don’t need while using the muscles you do need to get the job done. You are already well on your way. Any you are absolutely correct: if you can do it well slow, you can do it better fast. Frame by frame vids are great (I used them to teach myself butterfly). And if you ask 10 swimmers how to do something you will not get 10 identical answers, just take what you like and leave the rest. Try visiting this site/page and look for the heading"Slowly does it". i thought this was an excellent read. there are a bunch of other good articles on this site too, here is a list. There are a lot of really good swimmers on this message board who really know their stuff and can articulate it well. (And some have webs of their own, so look for them too.) This thread is a good example. Fell free to start any thread on any question you have. Thanks for dropping by, and Welcome! And don’t forget to be patient... And practice!

The subject line for this post is from a Bill Cosby sketch I heard as a kid on one of his albums about Noah and the Ark. Anyone else remember it? Anyway... LindsayNB put it pretty well. All I want to add is that I frequently imagine half of a boat propeller in various swim processes. This is basically the concept you are trying to emulate while sculling with your hands (in fact it is how you scull a boat with a paddle/oar too.) When I went through swimming and lifesaving training back in the dark ages we were taught to use a scissors kick to tread water, so that is still how I do it today, I find it much easier, but that may be simply because that’s how I learned it. Water polo folks generally do it differently, and they would be good folks to learn from. (Though from what I've heard about how they "play", I'd keep my distance from them.) If you want to do side stroke to practice a scissors kick then I reckon the lifesaving technique of “top leg back” still holds true.