Over the past 25 years of teaching i've seen one common but awful trend. The majority of male beginners i have taught have a similar story and i have heard it dozens of times.
It starts with them telling me how they are getting married or starting a family and they don't want to pass on their phobia. The phobia comes from a time as a child when they were nervous of swimming and an older male relative (dad, brother, uncle) threw them into a deep body of water. obviously they panic and feel like they will drown. They either rescue themselves or need to be rescued thus creating a lifelong phobia of water.
This phobia tends to be a source of shame so they will try wading into a pool on holiday but never leave the shallow water and always holding the wall. I wish i knew where this "meme" started. The John Wayne movie Hondo shows this exact scenario. I'm sure this has worked at times but i see enough men with the same story to know it is traumatic to many. It's a very toxic behaviour and an obvious bullying behaviour that i have heard from around Europe, North and South America and India. Thankfully this behaviour has not reached Africa to my knowledge.
i have had my teaching style described as gentle, i prefer encouraging. In my experience pushing a child far beyond their comfort limit is not helpful for anyone. When teaching adults the principle is the same as with children. First is to become comfortable with putting their face into the water. With one guy we had to start with blowing bubbles into a basin of water. I tend to recommend a good set of goggles. I will do a video about goggles in the future. The next step is learning to sink! If someone is nervous their instinct is to tighten up and lift their head away from the water. So when we learn to sink we can learn that you don't just drop to the floor. Sinking is difficult and a skill.
Once a person is comfortable sinking and blowing bubbles under the water we float. My advice is to allow yourself to fall in the water. Most men tend to sink legs first but the idea is not to stay on the surface but to float inside the water. Non swimmers tend to think that they should float on top of the surface and then try to lift themselves up which just causes them to sink more.
i am often baffled when people say that swimming is natural. My observation is that people's instincts tend to be the opposite of good swimming technique. We hold our breath, grab at the water and over kick so we get exhausted very quickly. So my philosophy is to teach adults and kids to swim with efficient technique and understand why we do certain practises. Good technique uses less effort and is faster. One of my catchphrases is "what is better swimming"? "Easier and faster is better". If i have done my job properly my swimmers should understand not just how to do the drills or practises but also why.
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