We'll help you improve your relationship with the water by showing you how to let it support you.
Hands on, one to one teaching
You’ll have the pool to yourself and we’ll be in the water with you, providing physical and emotional support.
Our lessons are 1:1 because we recognise that, while there are universal problems and difficulties for humans in water, we all have different degrees of fear, different levels of coordination, and our own learning pace.
We use the Alexander Technique to show you how to relax your neck, breathe easily and allow the water to support you. We guide you, practically and philosophically, to enjoy your time in the water.
We encourage you to approach every aspect of swimming – being in the water, breathing, floating, moving efficiently – in a different way… different from instinctively struggling through the water without really trusting it to support you, which is how most people learn to swim.
Thinking differently
The water for Ian and Cheryl is a place for leisure and relaxation rather than fitness training or competition. Being in water can be therapeutic, or stressful, depending on our intention. Swimming should be relaxing but it’s easy to fall into the stress trap.
The Alexander Technique teaches us to stop ourselves from rushing into the next movement with unnecessary tension. It’s especially useful if we’re anxious in the water, either because we don’t trust it to support us or because we’re trying too hard to accomplish the swimming strokes.
Alexander work, in and out of the water, provides a window of self awareness which helps us to slow down so that our brains can think and our bodies can breathe. When we free our neck and back, everything else works better.