Beginner Style For Swimming

Learning how to swim can be scary at first, but once you get comfortable, it can be lots of fun. This wikiHow will give you some tips on how to swim!

Beginning Strokes and Treading Water

Practice kicking your legs. Whether you're floating on your back or still holding on to the side of the pool, you can practice kicking. (To see how far each kick can propel you, practice it using a kickboard. This allows you to focus on your kicking technique without worrying about keeping your head above water.)

Tread water. Treading water can help you catch your breath and keep your head up without actually swimming. Do the eggbeater kick listed above, and use your hands to keep your balance by "sculling" - keep your forearms flat on the surface of the water, and imagine they're butter knives spreading on a piece of toast. Move one arm in a clockwise circle, and the other arm in a counterclockwise circle.

Learning Advanced Techniques

Try some more advanced strokes. Once you're more comfortable in the water, you can start learning new strokes that will move you more quickly or with less energy. Try these:

Try diving. Dives can be a fun way to get into the water and start a stroke. Start with a basic dive, and move on to more complicated swan dive, back dive, and rolling dive.

Being Prepared for Unlikely Situations

Know how to get out of a riptide. If you're swimming in the ocean, you might get caught in a riptide. Knowing what to do can save your life, so try to memorize these steps before you get into the water.

Know how to get out of a river current. If you're caught in a river that's flowing too quickly or pushing you under, follow these steps to get out:

- Don't flail or panic. As with a riptide, panicking and flailing your limbs can push you deeper into the water. Try to take even breaths and remain calm.

- Aim to swim diagonally toward the shoreline. Swimming toward the shoreline at a 90-degree angle will force you to fight with the current too much, and might cause you to become exhausted quickly. Instead, plan to get to the shoreline at a diagonal angle that goes with the current.

- Don't try to swim upstream. You'll spend too much energy for not enough results. Only try to swim upstream if there's immediate danger downstream, such as sharp rocks or a waterfall.