Changing Lanes
If you're struggling in the slow lane, can you help make it a better place? "Feeling not fighting the water, being aware of your neck and yo...
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Floating Foundations
Learning to swim is all in the basics. The less you do in water, the easier it is to change your reaction to it, especially at the learning st...
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He Ain’t Heavy
How to make a sinker lighter... "Don't relax on me,” a senior Alexander Technique teacher used to tell me. My idea of relaxing made me stif...
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Clock Sucker!
Calling time on chasing the red needle... Last Saturday I had a terrible swim. I hadn't tested myself against the clock for a while. ...
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Three Strokes and You’re Out
Enjoying small achievements and an afternoon nap... When we get a new skill for the first time, we may be greedy to repeat the experience. Be...
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Knowing Your S**t Or Knowing You’re S**t
How Self Aware Are You? For my birthday today, I got a mug with this on: GRAMMAR: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWING YOUR SHIT AND KNOWIN...
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Two Weeks To Thailand
John Learns To Swim Just In Time... 26 year old civil servant John badly wanted to swim before a big holiday to Thailand. Here's his account...
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Swimming with Swans – Open Water 7 review
Swans UK asked us to try the latest edition to their range, the Open Water Seven and we received it just in time for our holiday to Rhode...
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Being vertical, for a change
If we're not too busy getting from one end of the pool to the other, it's good to practise staying vertical and in the same place. Since w...
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Play Comes First, But What Next?
On Teaching Children... I don't work with many children these days. But it's good to keep your hand in. This week I gave five short lessons to O...
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Posture And Alignment Or Awareness And Prevention?
Ian isn't interested in 'strengthening the core'. People who don't know very much about the Alexander Technique tend to think it's all about pos...
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When Movements Muddy The Water – And Gliding Makes It Clear
Some people are too hungry to improve their strokes so they can swim lengths for fitness, or do a triathlon. Not Mary and Brendan, who came from...
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About black people learning to swim
Of course black people can swim. So why discuss it? Every week we get an email from our web hosting company with a graph and a list of popular sear...
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Keeping Your Head Above Water
Swimming with your face out is not much use if it's the only thing you can do. But you need to be able to do it! Gill's been learning to swim ...
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Fish Fingers? Get Your Hands On A Dog And Improve Your Stroke
F.M. Alexander said that if we chase tension round the body, it ends up in our hands and wrists. This is true in swimming. In the Alexander ...
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