Thank you for the kind words Gerarda.

Thank you for the kind words Jaydeep.

Hi Shonya. That's such a frustrating place to be - I'm sad you find yourself there. It's hard to continue on when you spend the whole class feeling embarrassed. I occasionally find people who can't float or, more frequently, who's legs sink so much a students thinks the legs will drag them to the bottom. These are usually very thin, or very lean, or very muscled people who tend to think of themselves as sinkers. These folks don't float well w/o changing their center of buoyancy or using some form of propulsion - usually sculling or kicking. As a result, those folks don't respond well to classic 'simple float' based training. The people I see who have trouble floating who don't fit that category, usually haven't learned that they can trust the water yet. As a result, they don't allow themselves to move into the positions needed for floating. They may be afraid that they are going to fall to the bottom of the pool and not be able to get up, or that they will get stuck with their face in the water and not be able to get out... or something similar. I'm curious, what happens when you try to float?

No your not the only on who can't float. I have started swimming lessons I'm on the 4th lesson and I still can't float. The instructor give me instructions on how to float but I just get so scared when I try and start to float.

Me too

Thank you for the kind words @yogaramachandran5229! 🙏

Hi Pamela. Thanks for the comment. You are not alone in your fear of the float or the recover. And the recovery is definitely a skill you need to learn to be comfortable in the water. Take your time on this. If you push yourself to the point of panic, you're not likely to succeed in learning - certainly not learning to be comfortable in the water. Take your time. Make sure you comfortable with your face in the water and with the float. And being comfortable enough to blow bubbles in the water is even more helpful. Practice gently & slowly pulling your knees in toward your chest and then pushing them back just as slowly and gently. Feel how your balance changes as you do that. LOTS of people struggle with this. Most of the time they are scared of falling forward and not being able to get their face out of the water. Having your face stuck in the water and not being able to get up is effectively drowning, so it's a reasonable thing to be concerned about. If you float exceptionally well, someone I call a 'super floater', then you'll have to push down harder with your hands than folks who don't float as well (like me).I hope you will practice keeping yourself comfortable as you practice - more than pushing yourself to attain the skill. Once you're comfortable, the skill usually follows. Best of luck/comfort. I hope the information in the video does indeed help. Keep me posted.

Thank you TK.

Sorry I am late to respond; just seeing this. Technically you can recover with just one leg but it does not build the same feeling of confidence. If you have not seen the lifts/hops section earlier, work on that until you are comfortable there. If you are comfortable with the hops/lifts with both feet at the same time and are still struggling with recovery, practice floating (holding a wall or friend), then pulling your knees in and then extending your legs to your float again. Work that until it is comfortable. Most people struggling with recovery are not comfortable yet with their float or with their legs sinking slowly. I suggest you learn the recovery initially as a slow movement that you can later speed up as you get more comfortable with it.

@@perrychristenberry Thank you for this wonderful information 💕😄

Hi. Apologies on the late response. I hope you have this complete and are down the road to enjoying the water. I found some comments I had not seen earlier and want to reply since I'm sad I could not do so earlier. IF you are still struggling or have anything new, I'll work to respond more quickly next time.

Hi Kintsugii. Are you saying you cannot stand up from a front float without the kick board? And I think you you could put the video on KZfaq and provide a link to it.

@@perrychristenberry Share your whattsapp number or email id. Not comfortable making the videos public 😔

😊🙂😀

Hi Hina. You're in good company; we work with a lot of people with that exact struggle. One of the things that some of our folks find helpful is to slowly 'sit' in the water and feel the water hold you up while your legs and feet are still below you (so it's easy to get up). From there (and staying close to a wall or handle or friend, tilt ever so slightly forward and see how your body responds to that motion. Do you start to float. One of the things we talk alot about are land rules and water rules. On land, if you fall forward, it only takes a moment to smash yourself on the ground. Most people think that's what happens in the water... but it's not what happens. Most people can't even get to the bottom falling forward. One of the challenges for adults is to 'update' their thinking to include some new information about the water - the water rules. As you test the water gently, keep focused on your experience in the water. You'll begin to see that many of the water rules (like falling and turning and breathing) are really QUITE different than the land rules you expect. As you see those differences, it frees you up to experiment a little more each time. Ask yourself questions and then experiment gently to answer those questions. Questions like: What do I expect to happen when I float (sink, blow out, etc)? Does holding onto the wall hold me up? Could I hold a wall on land and stretch out like this? PLAY with those questions and any others you have and watch for answers your BODY gives you. You're mind won't update or believe anyone else until your body experiences it and sends you mind signals for it to compare. Keeping focus on your experience in your body (and not your mind) will start to free you up to play a little more. Wishing you the BEST of success in your journey.

Hi Gerarda. If you ever come to Fort Worth, come see us.

I will definitely do that

Hi Gerarda, I typed a long reply but it appears it never made it here, so I'll try again. Most folks who are comfortable with the front float but have challenges standing up from the float have trouble for one of three reasons: not pulling knees in before trying to stand up, not pushing down hard enough with their hands after the knees are in position or not trying to stand up at all and simply staying in the float. Practice by bringing your knees toward your chest and then, with your knees in, reaching with your feet toward the bottom of the pool directly under your chest, then try to stand. For some people, that's all it takes - lucky them, right :-). Other people, especially the folks I call 'super floaters', have to perform that first step and then start to stand while sweeping their hands forcefully down and back toward their feet. That movement, down and back (like the movement in the 'hops' in the earlier video), will help them to rotate into a standing position. Sometimes it takes a stronger push than the student thinks necessary. I hear a fair amount of 'Oh, I see. I have to have a really strong push'. Now, on the third reason - If you stay in the float and put your energy into maintaining the float instead of standing up, you won't find much success. You want to slide your feet under your body and then pull your torso up above your hips as you push down and back with your hands. Several people mention struggles with the float recovery (it is quite common) so I'll see if I can get a video together with the hope of providing a bit more clarity.

@@perrychristenberry1913 hi thank you for your advices! I think I will try them all and see what works best for me. But I think I have been trying to lift my head first because I’ve been hearing “ the body will follow the head” and I think when I do that I become unbalanced and end up staggering. I also suffer from vertigo and even though I do not get dizzy I do have a weird sense of perception (really hard to explain). Every time I lose my balance I get really scared and the whole thing becomes a chore. I want to be comfortable in the water so bad 😭. But I feel there are so many obstacles it is sometimes discouraging. I just hope I don’t give up

@@gerardasanchez9965 Swimming with anything vaguely resembling vertigo is quite a challenge Gerarda. Stay safe with that and I wish you the best. You are clearly listening and thinking and processing what you're hearing. That suggests to me that you'll get this! Your statement about lifting your head and becoming unbalanced is an excellent insight. I could imagine that would be more so with the vertigo added to that mix. Keep me posted.

Hi Martina. What a great question. Our hope would be that your panic never gets to start - that you take your time and never put yourself in a place where you are likely to panic. A lot of people think if you just live through the panic enough times it will go away, but that strategy can create more panic. If you practice keeping yourself out of panic situations while easing into the ‘skills’, then you are more likely to find the joy sooner. Melon Dash has a great book for this exact thing called Conquering your Fear of Water. I will also remind you that floating is NOT the starting point for scared beginners. This video is in the middle of our shallow water beginner series. If you are starting here, check out the earlier videos. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t push or rush. Get comfortable with the small steps. I wish you enjoyment in the water sooner than you expect.

Hi Wajiha. Thanks for your question and congrats on pulling your knees forward. What you are describing usually happens when people are 1. not pushing down strongly with their hands when they try to stand up or 2. leaving their feet a little behind their body as they try to stand. Both of these can leave you off balance and trying to keep your face out of the water. I also see this with students who only pull one leg forward and end up off balance and hopping on one leg as they fall forward. For all of these students, I go back to the 'hops' section (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hrmIerhzvJq1pYk.html) until the student consistently gets BOTH feet solidly under them with the hops. Once they are experts at 'hops', I remind them that the full float recovery is the same steps as the hops but in a different order. The 'hops' start by pushing down and around with the hands, then pulling the legs forward. The front float recover starts by pulling the legs in first, then pushing down and around with the hands. Practicing any of these skills with a friend is STRONGLY recommended. If you still struggle with it even after hops, hold the wall and practice there until you have it, then pull your hands back from the wall (don't push away from the wall where you can't reach it, just pull your hands back) and work the recovery from there. Sometimes, when learning a new skill, we often forget something we already know. I see this often as students are learning this skill. Sometimes a student who can do 'hops' perfectly, has trouble changing the order. In an effort to pull their feet in first, they forget to push down and around with their hands. Usually, a gentle reminder is all they need. Hope that helps.

Oh my Waji. I'm so sorry to hear that! That experience is indeed scary. And my apologies for taking so long to respond - for whatever odd reason, I am just seeing your comment today. My response is probably unnecessary this late, but someone else will have a similar struggle, so I'll reply. If you were my student, and if I understand your situation correctly, here's what I would suggest. First, step back and make sure you are comfortable with your face in the water, and both holding your breath and blowing bubbles in the water, and with the float itself. I'm not looking to see if you can accomplish this, I'm looking to see if you are COMFORTABLE with those skills. If you're not comfortable, we'd step back and make sure you feel comfortable before we move to recovery. Then, as you move to working on recovery, I would keep the wall (or my hands) close to you so that if you don't get your feet down and end up falling forward, you'll have a wall (or hands) to hold and help yourself stand. A friend can work here as well if you're working on your own. We'd practice floating while holding the wall (or hands), then use the wall/hands to recovery slowly, being aware of the movements and balance changes that happen during recovery. I'd stress that you want to start your recovery LONG before you run out of air. Getting worried about your air level just adds to the anxiety. As you got more comfortable, you could test your skills by pulling your hands off the wall/my hands and pulling your knees up and pushing down forcefully on the water. Don't start that until you're comfortable with everything else and take plenty of time getting comfortable. I hope you've conquered this already. If so, let me know what worked for you. If not, I wish you great comfort when you take this on again.

Hi Muskanjain7. Thanks for your comment. I'll address: 'I feel if I bring my hands down without support I will lose balance.' You are not alone in your struggle and pushing your hands down in the water certainly affects your balance, so you're right on target watching the balance changes. It sounds like your coach is doing a great job too. That's great news! There are a lot of ways to approach this, including continuing what you're doing until your get more comfortable and want to test the water, but here are a few ideas. We have way to practice the 'pushing down' balance you mention in our Propulsion video earlier in this series. It's at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zq5ims51x7nQm4k.html. The 'Lifts' or 'Hops' start at about 5 minutes but I believe you'll find the context of the first 5 minutes helpful. Here's another way: Float, hanging on (or barely handing on) to someone/something. Staying in your float (NOT trying to recover), use your abs to pull your knees toward your chest slowly, hold them there a few seconds, then stretch back out into your float again. Being slow and deliberate is important here. As you move you'll feel your balance move around a little. You'll wobble and tilt a little. Don't try to adjust yet, just notice the changes. Your movement in the water affects your balance and the water responds to those movements usually, in this case, by trying to level you back out. See what the water does, slow and easy. Stand whenever you need to breath using your person/thing. Repeat until comfortable. Once you have that, pull your knees up and, keeping your knees up, hinge your feet forward so that the bottom of your feet are parallel with the bottom of the pool. You want to see your feet under your body. Try that a few times and watch how your movements affect your balance and how the water responds. Once you're comfortable, pull your knees up, extend your legs so you see your feet parallel with the bottom of the pool, then push down with your hands and stand up at the same time. There really are a lot of good ways to address this. I hope you find one of these helpful. Being confident with your recovery is a BIG deal and there is no need at all to rush it. BEST of luck. Keep me posted.

Hello Perrychristenberry1913 I am also facing same issue. I can front float for few sec but cannot recover without touching anything. I don't need to grab but atleast touch and then I can do recovery. My coach told me that my movements are ok but I am getting too nervous to do it by my own. I followed all your videos till 106. I can front hop, back hop, i am all good floating for long time if I have board to hold on 😞 . But stuck at recovery as I cannot let go the board, so cannot use my hands for propulsion. I followed all the ways you mentioned in 106 float video. I can spin under water, I can float towards wall by few inches, but can do recovery only when I touch the wall. when I try to do recovery i panic and try to grab anything I can get hold on to. I will try the suggestion you gave above. Before that, I want to say BIG thanks to you, even after lessons I was not able to get in the pool without my heart racing, standing in the pool(even kiddie pool :( ) without holding anything used to give me a panic attack, but after following your videos I could hop across 25 meter pool comfortably. Thanks a Lot.

Hi Neelu. Thanks for the kind words and congrats on your commitment to this challenge! There's a book you might find helpful in your journey as well, Conquer Your Fear of Water, by Melon Dash (Amazon). It's written by a lady with 40 years of working with scared adults and many of our students find the information helpful. If I read correctly, you're not quite comfortable with simply floating yet; just laying on your stomach in the water and resting (w/o the board). That's quite common and if you're not comfortable just hanging out in your float, then you're not quite ready for the recovery. There's a lot that can be done here; I'll share a common misconception I see and hope it helps and then a brief exercise that might work for moving past the board. Remember, there's no rush; some of these steps take time. Be patient with you and keep yourself safe. We talk about 'Land Rules' and 'Water Rules' a lot. Land Rules are the rules for the way things happen on land and Water Rules are about the way things happen in the water. An example of a Land Rule is: On land, everything sinks. Anything you toss up, falls down. People usually think that's the way the water works too, but it's not. This is easy to see by dropping things on land and dropping things in the water and noting the differences. In the water (Water Rules), some things sink and other things don't - it depends on density. And, since most humans are not dense enough to sink, most people float. On land, any time you trip and fall, you hit the ground FAST. In the water, if you trip or fall, most people NEVER hit the bottom; they float. And, for the few who can make it to the bottom of the pool by simply falling, it's a much longer trip to the bottom than it is on land. I, for example, can get to the bottom in 12-15 seconds IF I let my air out (that's at 4 feet depth). That slowness gives me a LOT of time to respond. And, if your falling on land, a wise person stretches their hands out to protect their face and cushion the fall. It would be foolish to willingly move your hands back to your waist when falling toward the ground on land. We all understand this and our responses are automatic as a result. The problem happens when our minds expect our bodies to behave in the water the same way they do on the land. That's when you predict things that can't happen like, "If I let go I'm going to immediate crash to the bottom of the pool". It takes some conscious exploration and curiosity for many people to understand and apply Water Rules. Check out what your mind is expecting when you're floating holding onto the board. Is the expectation reasonable using Land Rules? Water Rules? How could you safely test the expectation to see if it's true? Could you float like this on the land... basically levitate 4 feet above the ground holding onto a piece of foam? Of course not. But many people in the water, even when they see that the land and water behave different, still automatically try to interact with the water using the land rules, and, since those rules fail so often, it makes the water a terrifying place. Notice as you go through class and play in the water what you're doing and think about whether or not you could do the same thing on land. The Water Rules are often different. One way you get control of yourself in the water is observe how the water and land rules are different and learn how to use the Water Rules to your advantage. Wow. That was long. Sorry. Short exercise. Get rid of the kickboard and get a pool noodle you can destroy. Use it to float like you did the kickboard. IF you feel ok floating with it, cut it in half and see if you still feel ok floating. If so, cut it in half again and put one half in each hand. Feel ok? Keep halving the noodle until it's as small as it needs to be for you to understand that the noodle (or kickboard) is not the thing holding you up... it's the water. Take your time on this. It's worth the trip. This Water Rule a fundamental and critical to understanding and feeling comfortable. Note: Occasionally what students find is that they are putting a lot of pressure on the kickboard/noodle, as if it is the thing holding their whole body up. As the noodle gets smaller, they find their hands going down toward the bottom of the pool and assume they are sinking (Land Rules). If you experience this, experiment with what actually happens as your hands move toward the bottom. Does the rest of you follow? Do you speed up like you would on land? I think you'll be surprised at what you learn. BEST of luck on your journey Neelu.@@neeludevi5814

Thanks @Perrychristenberry1913 for quick response. I dont have the pool noodle yet, I will get it and try the exercise. Today I tried to use smaller board I have and tried to float, it was good. I was telling myself that I won't need anything to float and reached to point where I was barely touching the board. Thanks a lot for guidance 🙂

@@neeludevi5814Wonderful. Sounds like you may not even need a noodle Neelu. You are soundly on the right track.