The Carla Swim Method
With over 30 years of experience, I can teach anyone to swim. My teaching goes beyond "Basic Skill" to provide a solid foundation of balance, tactile freedom, body position, kick position, and total relaxation in the water, allowing the swimmer to use the water not fight with it. My lessons stick. This focus is powerful for the growing population of people with tactile and vestibular issues as well as focus challenges and behavioral differences.
Balance & Relaxation
Learning Modality
The ability to learn to trust the water is the foundation upon which ease of swimming is built. When one's "state of body" is tight and working hard, we are more sinky! My students in the first level of class learn how to be completely relaxed which is how I turn out such smooth and long swimmers. The water has you if you let it.
We all process information differently, and each of us has a stronger modality of learning. Understanding how to use how someone learns best is a powerful skill in teaching the swimmer who is quirky, busy, not as focused, and perhaps challenged in tactile and balance.
Body Position & Kick
Focus on connecting synapses that create muscle memory to balance all positions and transitions.
The body position of a stroke is imperative for creating smooth efficient swimming.
Repetition
Adding layers of stroke skills withouth fully accomplishing foundational skills first, creates struggle and bad habits, as well as a life long struggling slappy stroke. We do a lot of repetition of skills, to ingrain the right habits.
Proper kick from the front and back streamline position is stressed as a foundational core skill. The kick is the motor and without impeccable form developed into muscle memory, the stroke will be full of struggle and balance issues, not to mention that it will always be laborious and slow.
Skill Building & Fun!
Deep Water
Carla Swim lessons are very active and fast paced. There is very little sitting still and waiting for your turn. I believe they have to be fun, for fun is where all the best learning is!
In order to prepare a swimmer, no matter how young and no matter how fearful, to be safe in the water, you have to be able to give them deep water experience. Over your head is over your head, and when they are shown that skills translate to any depth of water, fear is over for their lifetime.