J's swimming lessons

For the past several years the kids have taken swimming lessons from a neighbor of ours who has taught for over 20 years. She is a really great teacher. For the past couple of summers Joshua has been learning the four basic strokes and diving. Last year he struggled on getting the breathing down on the freestyle and he just literally couldn't do the back stoke. He couldn't keep his head out of the water, poor kid. The butterfly and the breast stroke were about the same.

So this year I hoped that somehow it would get better for him. I'm not sure if it is a coordination thing or if it is just his getting stronger but he did so well this year. The first day the other mom at the lesson commented how Joshua had such a nice stroke on the freestyle. Then the teacher said to me that she could tell we had been working with him because he had improved so much. I didn't dare tell her we hadn't done a single thing to work with him. Then he had to do the backstroke and he just did it. I was amazed. He didn't have a problem at all (his bum still sinks a bit but his head stays out just fine and he moves fast too).

Even his diving from the first of the lessons to the last day improved. In the video I took it was one of the early days. I tried to get a video of his diving the last day and couldn't get it started before he dived but the first picture is his dive. Yeah his legs aren't great but he did a couple of nice dives at the end. I felt badly that I didn't capture them. I am proud of his efforts in swimming because I know it takes a lot of work on his part.

At the end of the lesson yesterday the teacher made the boys dive off the board and swim a lap of each stroke without stopping. I was worried Joshua couldn't do it but he made it just fine. He could hardly pull himself out of the pool at the end but he did really well.

Breanna starts her lessons next week so I'm sure you'll hear about it too.