I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday. I’m still working really hard on my confidence in the pool. For almost 3 years now, I’ve been triathlon training and swimming is my achilles heel. Being super fit doesn’t make you a great swimmer, or so I’ve realised. And it’s super frustrating.
So what happened yesterday? Well I signed up for an online swimming program with someone who knows their stuff – a competitive triathlete and Olympic champion. I didn’t hold out much hope for my £66. But oh my! I watched one video, went to the pool and smashed my way through 1000m!
How could that one video make such a huge difference when nothing else has worked as well before?
I can relate it back to my own experiences when working with children. Everybody learns differently and some favour a particular style of learning or a mixture of them.
Here are some examples:
Visual or spatial learners – retain information best by viewing pictures or images.
Kinaesthetic – all about doing things physically.
Aural – where learners retain the most information after hearing it.
Social – learners work best when they participate in study activities with other people such as quizzing each other or having a study group.
Verbal – learners respond well to written or spoken words, using tools like rhymes and acronyms.
So with my swimming, I’ve previously learnt kinaesthetically and aurally and they’ve just not worked well for me. Yesterday after just watching one video and learning visually, it just clicked!
It’s made me realise how important it is that I continue to apply this logic to my own courses. I’ll be making some improvements to make it even easier for people to learn touch typing from home.
And as for my swimming, I’m really looking forward to seeing some gains this season.