Swim Lessons Completed

The boys had their last swim lesson on Friday.  I'm 100% happy with how much they gained in one week.

Carter is swimming.  It may not be super pretty and smooth yet, but he can go several yards with confidence.  He should only get better with practice this summer.  The only hard thing is that the YMCA requires kids to pass a swim test to swim on their own.  If they don't pass, they must be within arms length of a parent (and I can't have two within arms length, only one - so Rylan would have to be using flotation).  The swim test is not easy for younger kids to pass.  Here are the requirements:

• Jump into the pool, submerge fully, return to the surface and immediately begin swimming without pushing off the wall.
• Swim in a horizontal position on top of the water using a forward crawl or breaststroke. The swimmer's arms must achieve full extension on every stroke, and he or she must maintain one or both of the strokes for the full 25-yard swim. Pausing is only allowed when the swimmer is rotating or turning to breathe.
• Exit the pool without assistance using either the wall or pool ladder.

I plan on having Carter try it each week until he passes it.  Hopefully it's possible for him to practice with me with the arms-length rule!  Maybe he'll surprise me and have amazing endurance on his first try (that would be awesome!).

Here is a video of Carter swimming the length of the pool on the last day of lessons (split into 2 videos so I could post it).

Rylan also made a lot of progress.  It would have taken him all summer (if not longer) to do for me what he did for the swim instructors in a week.  The main thing they worked on with Rylan is safety.  Their goal with him was for him to jump in the pool and be able to get onto his back to float.  Rylan got okay at this.  Enough so that they tried to get him to swim a few feet before flipping to his back.  However, it was still really difficult for him to jump off the diving board and get to his back because he'd go so deep under the water each time.  But that is what I recorded so here is Rylan almost getting it on the last day.

I would love to not put Rylan in flotation again this summer.  However, that's really going to depend on Carter passing the swim test and how strict the YMCA is with their rules.

We will definitely be back to see Mr. Gareth next summer for more lessons!!!