Things to do on Holiday
Hélène van den Broek
I am Hélène and this is my dog Chacho. I left Holland, to start a new life on La Palma.
I love to be outdoor and coach 50+ active people especially woman. The coaching will be 1:1 and based on the activity they personally like.
For example stargazing on the Mountain, cycling, walking, visit special places, making music with locals etc.
Private Surfing for Beginners in Tenerife
Personalized Surf lessons no matter age, gender, size or fitness. Get your private surf lesson with tips and a lot of fun. Surfing equipment included. Minimum 2 participants. Price 65€ per person.
Join us in Tenerife for your liveaboard boat holiday. We will liase with your recommended surfing instructors to ensure your holiday meets your expectations, whether that’s surfing for the whole group, a more relaxed pace with Pitch n Putt for the family or maybe a mix and match holiday with diving, golfing, fishing, riding, walking – it’s all down to you with affordable options living aboard our private yacht.
Sample Prices with 7 day boat stay
As many people learn when they make the decision to learn to swim, almost all of the lessons available cater for children.
If you are lucky, you will find a learn-to-swim program at your local pool but it’s likely you will have to wait a long time for a place and in our experience it is unlikely you will have learned to swim a year after starting, that’s if you manage to learn at all! Read what we have to say about public pools and learn-to-swim classes under our private lessons page.
Many people would like to learn to swim but fear they are the only ones with the sort of problems they have. Frankly men are the worst for this (sorry for being sexist). Trust me, you’re far from being alone and not learning to swim because you don’t want to feel a fool while you are learning or because you think you are too old is a real shame and so unnecessary.
We have taught so many people to swim that started out being embarrassed, fearful or simply disbelieving that we almost know what you are going to say when you walk through the door. Just trust us when we say that whatever is going through your mind, others have gone before you thinking exactly the same and they DID learn to swim.
If you’ve made the decision to learn to swim, or even if you are simply just thinking about it, drop us a line and tells your fears or concerns, or what you would like to achieve, and let us tell you how we can help you learn to swim.
Do you feel that only children can learn to swim? Do the adult swimming lessons at your local pool leave you cold? Maybe you been there – done that – still can’t swim. Maybe you can’t even pluck up the courage to think about it?
Let me tell you my story.
Above is me behind the camera, so sad watching hubby swim when I’m too frightened to even go close. At 45 I got ME (chronic fatigue syndrome). At 48, having been so terrified of water all my life – I wouldn’t use the shower in case water went in my face – I decided I was fed up of being a victim and I would learn to swim.
Below is me, age 54, in Egypt the day I qualified as an Open Water Scuba diver. In between I learned to swim, qualified as an instructor, took a life guarding qualification, taught many many people to get over their own phobias and learn to swim, and finally I learn to dive.
I tried to learn to swim at my local pool and frankly was horrified. For almost 3 months I went and steadfastly refused to put my face in the water or take my feet off the bottom. I scoured the net looking for ‘learn to swim’ books that would teach me how to swim without putting my face in the water. Needless to say – there aren’t any. It was a long time before I made any progress during which time I saw the vast majority of adult swimmers give up along the way. Eventually I met Irene who shared my fears and phobias and also had decided to learn (she’s even older than me <grin>). Together we found TI swimming which teaches balance in the water and altogether different techniques to ASA swimming.
Long story short, Irene and I qualified as ASA instructors then took the best of all we had learned to put together our own ‘Learn to Swim’ methods. These we adapt for each and every student to suit their needs and swimming phobias. We also address the fact that adult swimming/learning is or should be, very different to the way children learn to swim and also that every adult learns in a different way and has different challenges in life.
Finally, this is me below, diving in the Red Sea. Take heart – you CAN learn to swim as an adult.
Our private pool is small and inviting and everyone that comes to us for residential swimming lessons tells us they wish they hadn’t wasted so much time, in some cases many years, trying to learn to swim the hard way!
Being residential means that once you have arrived, unpacked and settled in, you can concentrate totally on the task ahead, learning to swim, without worrying about travelling back and forth or forgetting what you learned last lesson because there has been a week or more in between.
When we say residential we mean just that. We don’t put you up in a local B&B as many do, expecting you to drive back and forth. Nor do we expect you to share with anyone unless you bring your partner. The residential accommodation is private, self contained and next to the private pool.
You can cook for yourself or just chill with a glass of wine and order a takeaway, maybe visit the local pub – whatever you style, you will never regret taking residential swimming lessons with us.
Swimming pool bans backstroke
A local council has banned it’s swimmers from doing backstroke in the pool as it fears they could injure themselves if they collide. Swimmers at the Daisyfield pool in Blackburn have been told they can do only forward strokes during busy periods when the pool is divided into lanes, officials said. “This is not about threats of legal action,” said Kate Hollern, of Blackburn and Darwen Council responsible for culture, leisure and sport. “We are simply limiting the times when people can swim backstroke to prevent dangerous collisions. “We would expect that people would be concerned for their own safety as well as that of others so we are being proactive in introducing these rules.” She said the new rules complied with guidelines issued by the national Institute of Sport and Recreation Management, and were “designed be inclusive to ensure that all people can use our facilities in a safe way”.
Diving Lessons Learn to Swim Swimming Lessons Teach Baby to Swim
Why are private swimming lessons better than public pool lessons?
Let’s just look at the cost element to begin with. You pay £4 per lesson and get 7 lessons per half term. That’s 42 swimming lessons per year costing £126. You probably spend the same amount again practicing in between plus the cost of getting to and from the pool every week. So you’ve spent maybe close on £200. Can you swim a length at the end of that year? Not one person at our local swimming pool moved up to the intermediate class in less a years lessons. In the intermediate class the deep end was an terrifying experience with the instructor standing poolside with a long pole for those who got into difficulty which many did.
Is being in a public pool with other people and your instructor on the poolside a good way to learn? What do you think?
Suppose you paid that amount for private lessons, learning to swim in the comfort of a private pool with your instructor in the water with you? What would you achieve? For most people this would get you almost there. For some, these supportive individually tailored private swimming lessons will be all that’s needed, if you are really water phobic, then you will obviously want more support but you will be amazed at what you can achieve in a small private pool with the right instructor.
Contrast the 2 years at your local swimming pool taking lessons in a class against booking your private lessons today and knowing you can go on your next holiday and be confident in the pool or the sea.
But couldn’t I just have a private swimming lesson at my local pool?
A private lesson at your local pool is always an option but having been there ourselves and spoken to many many people who have found this wasn’t the answer for them, we feel confident in saying this is a somewhat pointless exercise. You will simply get exactly the same for your private lesson as you did for a lesson shared with other people and it will cost you about 4 times the price for half the time. Your swimming instructor will still be poolside shouting her instructions to you and usually your so-called ‘private swimming lesson’ will be in a pool full of other people. Just because you have the instructions undivided attention for half an hour, in our opinion doesn’t justify calling it a ‘private lesson’. What you gain from being the only student, you can lose by being fearful of other swimmers splashing and making noise during your ‘private swimming lesson’. Not so private after all?
What proportion of adults fail to learn to swim because they don’t have private lessons?
Irene and Gay speak from personal experience. We continued to go to our local pool for ‘lessons’ for about 3 years after we learned to swim simply because we enjoyed swimming. Most of our skills came from taking swimming courses with TI and studying other methods such as Shaw and Alexander. We also researched a great deal about fear and phobias and spent a lot of our free time in the pool helping each other correct our technique.
We didn’t learn a lot at the local classes and the ‘advanced’ class wasn’t all that advanced! What we did learn was that the vast majority of people fell by the wayside. Some had private swimming lessons, paying £22 an hour to be coached from the poolside in a public pool full of other swimmers. As I mentioned above, not my idea of a private swimming lesson.
So how many succeeded without having private lessons in a private pool? VERY VERY FEW!!! and that includes those that had some individual lessons in the public pool.
Conclusion?
Private swimming lessons in a private pool with your instructor in the pool with you (and only you!) is the way forward. Of course, just because an instructor offers private lessons, doesn’t necessarily mean they have what it takes to teach you, but we like to think we stand out above most others and our testimonials prove that.
So what are you waiting for? Contact us now to chat about your fears and phobias and how we can tailor YOUR private swimming lessons.
Our children are bottom-feeders, feeling for a puck in the deep end. Floridian in fuchsia suits, they surface fish-eyed in goggles, gasp, and snort blue water. We sit on the sidelines, barefoot, tapping chlorinated puddles. Pass comments back and forth like cards. In my mind we are pressing the soles of our feet together. I never get my wish. The lesson is always over before I drag you to the deck, cup one hand under your chin, pinch your nose, and breathe myself into your lungs. Our children appear in garish towels, unrelated, though clearly the same species: purple around the gills, hair sleek as sealskin. Whatever happens they will all know how to swim. It is our job to see that nothing does happen. In the parking lot after balmy showers, blowfish bobbing around us in parkas, mouths steaming, you stretch, and mention how you spent the week knocking down a concrete wall. With your head? I wonder out loud. And later, what it takes to get through.
——————————————————————————– 3rd Prize, Poem of the Year Contest 2003 Arc 51, Winter 2003
Diving Lessons Learn to Swim Swimming Lessons Teach Baby to Swim
Throughout my swimming career, I had always breathed to my right side only until a year ago. Why? Because breathing on my left side felt awkward and uncomfortable! This is the reason why most swimmers will breathe only on one side.
Last year I had an experience that made me change my ways. I was getting a massage and my therapist noted that my left lat muscles (back) were much more developed than my right. Putting two and two together, I realized that years of right side only breathing in the pool had caused me to use these muscles on my left side far more than my right as I was balancing with my left arm while sucking air into my lungs!
The answer to the question is yes, you should use bilateral breathing, if you’re not already. The main reason is that it will balance out your stroke (as well as create symmetry in your back musculature!). The problem with breathing to one side only is that it can make your stroke lopsided. In a one-hour workout, you may roll to your breathing side 1,000 times. A lopsided stroke can become permanent in a hurry after practicing this for a while!
The benefits to breathing nearly as often to one side as the other are that using your “weak” side more frequently will help your stroke overall, and you’ll lose your “blind” side. If you are an open water swimmer, the later benefit will help you check for landmarks, avoid chop, or keep another rough swimmer from splashing water in your face (or punching you in the nose!) as you breathe.
The way to obtain these benefits is to practice bilateral breathing as much as possible. Often in my evening group I will have swimmers breathe every 3 or 5 strokes as part of a drill or warm down. But by no means should this practice be limited to drill sets or long warm downs! It will feel awkward at first, sure. But the awkwardness is easier to deal with than you may think. Regular practice of rolling to both sides to breathe will remedy this before you know it.
Some tips on how to practice bilateral breathing while keeping it interesting:
1. Breathe to your right side on one length and to your left on the next. That way you get the oxygen you need but still develop a symmetrical stroke. 2. Breathe to your weaker side on warm-ups, warm-downs, and slow swimming sets. 3. Experiment with 3 left, 3 right or 4 left, 4 right until you find a comfortable pattern
Keep the goal in mind each week of breathing about the same amount to one side as the other over the course of any week of swimming. Most of all, enjoy your swim and don’t get too hung up on being exact!
Diving Lessons Learn to Swim Swimming Lessons Teach Baby to Swim
Australia
Aims To identify how toddlers who drowned gained access to private swimming pools; to recommend preventive strategies to reduce the incidence of toddler drowning and near drowning.
Method The study reviewed critically all completed investigations into the drowning deaths of toddlers aged 14 years reported to the state coroner (n=33) as a result of unintentional submersion incidents in domestic swimming pools in Victoria, Australia,from 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1997.
Results There was a predominance of 1 year olds, and boys.Forty six per cent of the children drowned in the three summer months. The majority of pools were in-ground; most were located on the child’s home property. Over half the pools lacked fencing of any kind; of those that did have fences, only three appear to have met Australian standards.
Conclusions More than half of the children studied drowned in unfenced pools and spas. In not one case did a child gain unaided access to a pool fitted with a fully functional gate and fence that met the Australian standard. Where children gained access to fenced pools, the majority did so via faulty or inadequate gates, or through gates that were propped open. This finding highlights the need for pool owners to install Australian standard approved fences and gates, and to maintain existing fences and gates regularly. Door locks and supervision were inadequate primary prevention strategies.
