Intuitive Swimming Testimonials

An email from Phil:


Hi Brian, thank you for taking the trouble to ask about my swimming. I have to say it's a hell of a lot better having practised your most excellent approach of being more mindful, aware and being in the present throughout my swim sessions. This has helped to transform my front crawl technique, in particular body position in the water and breathing. Hope all is well with you mate. Best, Phil

Phil - British Champion in GB Masters over 70s

A testimonial from Hinna:

A testimonial from Paul:

I have never been a good swimmer, and up to 15 months ago had never had a lesson.

On making the decision to have lessons I ‘learned’ how to swim, but soon plateaued so that I was as usual the slowest and most exhausted person in the pool, which was a blow as I could run, cycle and row without any problem whatsoever.  

I had to stop doing ‘crawl’ after 25 meters as I was totally out of breath and my arms felt like jelly. 

Swimmers with appalling technique would pass me as if I was motionless.

I felt I was putting in huge amounts of effort and getting nowhere.  

I was intrigued about Brian's unique approach after watching his webinar and so took the plunge so to speak and enrolled in his course for three months.

His course is based on applying the Alexander Technique to swimming, and consists of weekly zoom meetings and an online course you can access, where he lays out in detail the foundation of his approach.  

It certainly is different.  

Brian makes you think of your swimming in a totally different way.

In the weekly zoom meetings he will pick out a problem and dissect it in his own unique way, and then discuss ideas for rectifying it, in ways that you haven’t thought of, all based on his style of the Alexander Technique.  

Because his approach is uniquely based on you the individual, it’s difficult to describe exactly what he does, as his guidance to me was based entirely on me, and how I was swimming, and to what Brian calls the ‘intention leading the movement.’  

After 3 months, I feel I have nearly developed my own style, based on me, and feel much more confident with my stroke, am certainly quicker, and am feeling much more comfortable in the water.  

It’s still a ‘work in progress’ but I now have the ability to modify as I require, based on the approach instilled into me by  Brian.  

I am very pleased with the way my swimming is progressing now and feel I have more than broken out of my plateau with crawl, and I know I can approach any further plateaus in the same way.

This would apply to other strokes as well as I am confident I can apply it to any other stroke I want to.  

I thoroughly recommend Brian and if you want to improve your swim, then it is money well spent.

Brian puts in a huge amount of work, records and summarizes each session so that you don’t sign off and forget what you have discussed. He also gives his summaries of other students' calls, which you can also learn from.  

Before joining Brian, swimming was a chore, it was difficult, it was deflating.  

Now it’s fun, experimental and exciting all I can say is give it a go.

A testimonial from Ismenia

 
Hi, my name is Ismenia and I came here to tell you what I got from having the course with Brian Holliday in his Intuitive Swimming Course.

I was having swimming lessons once a week. So my, my first challenge when I had my first call with Brian was, how to merge what I was doing with my swimming lesson with Brian's approach.

They were very different. Very different.

But I feel I managed to do it because since I did the first modules of the Intuitive Swimming, one of the thing I kept that I really enjoyed was floating and pushing and glide.

So for my Back Crawl. I now have a different experience because I make a different experience because, well, I would say all of the strokes because I glide.

I push and glide, and guess what?

I really enjoy gliding.

It's just, I wasn't aware of gliding, pushing and gliding. I know my teacher used to tell me, push a glide, but it wasn't after I went to have the course with Brian, have the coaching calls with him, we spoke about this and I actually think that there was a game changer for me.

Push, glide and float, which I am enjoy very much every time I swim. It was quite beneficial for me, beneficial for my swimming because I now can feel and only feel, but enjoy me in the water.

And since then I started swimming when I was visit my parents, and I'm okay in the deep.

So, definitely if you want to change your experience in your swimming, And I know that it's a competitive part, which is great because that keep us to go further.

But before that, it's more about enjoyment.

Okay?

It's more about feeling great in the water, feeling all the movement when you do the front crawl, when we, when we, when we turn, when we are swimming on the side.

So that was definitely a game changer in my swimming.

And I really appreciate Brian's guidance because I know, especially for me, I learned swimming about four years ago as an adult. And I was scared. I had fears, a lot of fears but now I'm okay.

I'm good. I love it.

And because I feel safe.

I know what to do and I enjoy my body in the water more than ever.

Thank you, Brian.

And I do, I do recommend this course to everyone who has that fear of the deep and want to change the experience of your body in the water.

Thank you very much for listening.

Email Feedback from Andy

Andy has been reading through the Mind Body Water Unity module.

"My swim afterwards was a minor revelation".  

"My stroke was so quiet and smooth and it felt easy"

"It is the first time in my life that I have felt supported by the water".

Andy also emailed me to say:

"Inhibition is working - the 'Pause' leads to a new option:

I have been finding the concept 'inhibiting' quite useful in general (sitting, bike, swimming).

I was very aware of pausing my instinctive response when something happened (a wave, a change in the feeling of my swimming etc).

I felt it gave me the opportunity to relax and this felt more effective at moving me forward".

Video Feedback from Martyn

Martyn has been using my Live Every Stroke concept of Expanding Awareness to help with his ADHD.

(I've obscured his image for privacy reasons).