MY GOLDFISH ARE LEARNING TO SWIM LIKE BUTTERFLIES

Ugh! The Spring weather in Michigan has been frigid this year. So my kids have especially been enjoying jumping into the comfy 90-degree heated indoor pool for their weekly swimming lessons at Goldfish Swim School.

This month the kids have been working on improving their butterfly and breast strokes.  We received our quarterly progress reports on my son and daughter's proficiency on what they are being taught in their PRO 2 swim class level.  The butterfly and breast strokes both came up on their progress reports but for completely different reasons.  My daughter excels at the butterfly but needs to make some improvements on her breast stroke. While my son is the opposite; he's doing great with his breast stroke but needs to improve upon his butterfly technique.

My swimming skills are adequate but limited pretty much to the general freestyle stroke, doggy paddling, and floating on my back.  So I've been learning quite a bit about all the different types of strokes along with my children while our family has been going to Goldfish Swim School. For those of you who like myself may not know the ins and outs of all the different swimming strokes, here is a description for the breast and butterfly strokes:

The breast stroke is a style of swimming where you push your arms forward and then sweep them back in a circular movement while the legs utilize a motion that has them tucked in toward the body then kicked out away from it.

The butterfly stroke has a swimmer's arm move in a windmill fashion from the back to front of the body while doing dolphin kicks. These kicks mimic the movement of a dolphin's tail with the legs being kept together and moving up and down with knees bent at the motion's upswing. Butterfly strokes can be difficult to perfect but when done right make the swimmer look as if he or she is flying through the water.

These two strokes have been what my kids have been working on mastering during their recent sessions at Goldfish Swim School.  With my son, the teacher is working on his arm motions being more accurate and having him not use different types of kicking styles while doing the butterfly. For my daughter, the instructor is working with her on head placement to make her more efficient with the stroke and improving on the kicks to add more speed to her pace.

It is nice that my children get a lot of personalized attention at Goldfish Swim School.  Their classes never contain more than four kids in a session and they always get a lot of one-on-one instruction. After each class, the teacher at the edge of the pool always provides me with an updated evaluation on how each one of them has done in the class and what she would like to see them improve upon.

Many Goldfish Swim School locations, including the one we attend, have Open Swim hours during weekday lunch hours that are free for families who are enrolled in swimming lessons to get in the pool to practice swim strokes or just play around in the water. During my kids Spring Break week off elementary school this month, we took advantage of the Open Swim time on a couple of days.  Of course my son and daughter spent some time practicing their butterfly and breast strokes while we were there, but they spent a bulk of the time having some fun with their good ole dad in the pool.

I have to say we've had a "golden experience" during our time being involved with Goldfish Swim School. For more information and to find a location near you, please visit goldfishswimschool.com.

A GEEK DADDY is a brand ambassador promotional partner with Goldfish Swim School.  My family receives complimentary products and services in exchange for sharing our experiences with the swim school.  All opinions expressed are honest and my own.