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?

I go to Clissold in evenings post work when i can (Shuts early on wednesdays, at 8pm), but is otherwise open til 10pm. yus. any sessions i've seen seem to be a trainer standing on the ends of the lanes and at the sides watching swimmers and giving them pointers as they finish a run.

London Fields is also fantastic, unless you appear on a weekend a bit before lunch, when it is heaving with children. and that's when they reduce lane swimming to about half the pool, which is rubbish.

It is worth going along, and you could always go to the tutored courses, see what support you get from instructors and whether or not they think you would benefit from the teaching.