By Penny Wilkin and Sarah Hill If you’ve had some Total Immersion swimming lessons or attended one of our workshops, you’ll know how important it is to practise your new skills. But when you get to your public pool you may discover that it’s tricky to find space to do the drills and six-stroke practices, particularly at the moment when pools are often limited to lane-only with stricter rules about overtaking etc. So here are some tips and strategies to help practise your swimming effectively in a public pool. ·         It may sound obvious but do your research first – find out when the pool is quiet, what type of swimmers tend to swim when are there sessions when the pool is set up without lane ropes out? It will be easier to find space to do your drill practise if you don’t need to stick to lanes ·         Have a look around at other pools - some may have a children’s pool available which could be ideal for what you need, best to go outside of family swim times though! ·    

How long have you been swimming? How did you get into it, what you like about it, what motivates you? Well, difficult to say because it would probably be forever. I was born in California where everyone has a pool – yes really – so was in the water from a very early age. I began my triathlon career back in1996. I started to train with a local club, where it became very obvious very quickly that I stood out from the group, at least as a swimmer. Swimming was clearly my strongest discipline and I raced regularly until a skiing accident in 2003 ended it (or so I thought). It wasn’t until 2007 that I really felt strong enough to begin running again. I did the Great North Swim (2 miles) in 2013, at the time the longest outdoor swim I had completed. In 2016 I finally took the plunge and decided to re-dedicate myself to the sport and although I had (I thought) good swim technique I decide to approach a coach and get my swimming looked at properly. What made you go for technique lessons