Kids Swimming Lessons: Breathing

Video Transcript

"In this section I'll be talking about step number seven in the process of teaching a child how to swim. Step number seven you're definitely going to have them, you know, now they're putting their head in the water, they're kicking their feet and everything. But what you definitely want to do is teach them how to breathe. So, what I mean by that is, a kid or anybody, some people have their heads and they pick them up. Really, they just want to keep, what they initially started, airplane float, alright. So the chin is touching the chest and all you want to explain to them is you're just going to dip your ear into the water and you're going to take a deep breath through your mouth on one side. Then of course do the same thing, just have them twist, a nice gentle twist to where the chin's almost touching the shoulder and you take a deep breath and then they put it back in. And it's just a nice even rotation. So your head is literally even in the water and just a nice little rotation to one side and again it's a nice little rotation to the other side. And this you want to go over with the child and explain to them. And if you have to, I've done this in the past as well, hold on to their arms or their waste and tell them to do it in the water. And that will make them really comfortable, because really it's all about technique and teaching them the foundations of doing it right the first time around. Because once you teach someone just you or me, once you learn something wrong the first time, that's already instilled in you. So, you really want to make sure that they learn how to just twist their head on one side, put their head in the water again, chin touching chest gently, then quickly you know put the head to the other side and then take a deep breath. And always remind them to just breathe in through the mouth and then breathe out through the nose. This step is in continuation with step number seven. This is going to be the breathing. So the head, head under water and just a slight little twist. And then on the other side as well."