Swimming

dooks thanks for all this stuff, you are inspiring me to investigate masters swimming. I live in Newington Green though so I'd be looking at Clissold which swims at Clissold and London Fields. You can just turn up to one of their sessions and it all seems very open to anyone and friendly. They have Masters ‘Lite’ for swimmers who can "swim two strokes and have an appetite to improve stroke-technique and to increase speed on all four strokes". Not quite sure what this means?

My main question though, is as there is no official element of tuition, how would I get better? I can do front crawl fine but my breast is terrible, can't do anything else - have never learnt fly or tumble turns or anything. My fitness has peaked at a mile of front crawl in just under 35 minutes.

Would I be better having some lessons first?

ah now that's interesting. what days/times do clissold train?

there is a dedicated technique session with coaching on sunday afternoons. i haven't been myself yet so i can't say what format it takes.

in "normal" sessions the coach does give general pointers or reminders of what he does and doesn't want to see but generally it's just getting stuck in and trying to keep up!

at my first session, i was nervous having not swum fly since i was about 15. another guy who was also starting that week said to the coach that he'd never swum fly before... the coach just said, "well no-one's born knowing how to swim fly, we all have to learn at some point, just give it a go!"

then it's just a case of trying to keep up while learning by watching the good (and bad) swimmers. people give you tips and pointers and i've found myself checking out online tutorials and guides too.