Welcome to Confident Swimming—Oxford’s Adult Swimming Lesson Specialist
Are you looking for Adult Swimming Lessons in Oxford?
With over 16 years of dedicated, full-time experience in teaching adult swimming lessons in Oxford, Tim at Confident Swimming offers a unique and empowering pathway toward helping adults of all ages learn to swim, and improve their swimming ability.
A Message from Tim…
At the start of the new year, I am always genuinely excited about meeting and helping the new and brave adults who have made the courageous (and exciting!) decision to finally learn to swim in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s! (I’ve not yet had anyone in their 90’s… yet!).
I look forward to introducing you to a unique system that I have created and refined specifically for adult learners, that offers a guaranteed, empowering, and fulfilling pathway for you to not only ‘learn to swim’, but to find relaxation, joy, and freedom in the water, whether this is for:
• social reasons, such as enjoying time in the water with friends and family, and for yours and their safety
• health, exercise, and fitness goals, or for stress-relief and the mood-enhancing, therapeutic benefits of swimming
• or simply for a personal challenge, goal, accomplishment, or a calling to connect with water, and master the swimming potential within you!
I can’t wait to be of help! See you in the pool :)
Benefits of Learning with Confident Swimming
Tim will always be in the water with you
This allows me to give support and guidance from within the water, which is essential for a majority of adult learners. Many programmes will bypass in-water support by giving kickboards to hold on to lesson after lesson, and focus too much on ‘kicking’, which more often than not, prevents the true development needed to master swimming. Being in the water also allows me to demonstrate key movements and practices, and makes the sessions more relaxing and enjoyable!
Tim will be your only teacher
There won’t be any adapting to different teaching personalities, communication styles or being given confusing, conflicting or fragmented advice. You will only have one teacher with you throughout your whole swimming journey, with over 16 years of dedicated experience in helping adults learn to swim and achieve their fullest potential in the water.
Tim is committed to your holistic development in the water
Many adults give up learning to swim after months and months of attempts because they find themselves stuck… able to travel a short distance, or perhaps a length, but with an underlying sense of tension and breathlessness that still pervades their experience and relationship with the water.
At Confident Swimming, we will take a completely different approach. A sense of understanding and relaxation will form the core of your swimming experience, and we will not only develop in you the ability to swim from A to B easily and efficiently, using a variety of strokes, but also the ability to be comfortable, safe, and completely free within water of any depth; an aspect of learning to swim that is often neglected
Contact Tim
The most important thing when learning to swim as an adult is that you feel comfortable and relaxed with your instructor and learning environment. You can schedule a call with Tim at any time if you’d like to chat anything over with him directly—he’d love to hear about your swimming experiences and future goals.
Our Oxford Venue:
the voco Oxford Thames Hotel
Our one-to-one adult swimming lessons take place at the beautiful voco Oxford Thames Hotel pool. The venue offers:
• free parking and changing room facilities
• easy access by bus (via 3A from the City Centre)
• heated pool (of 1.2m in depth throughout)
• an ideal calm and relaxing environment for learners
• our own private swimming lane and learning area
The perfect venue for your new swimming journey…
Learning to swim should never feel like hard work.
Learn more about the Confident Swimming 3-Stage Adult Swimming Lesson Programme:
Stage 1: Foundation Pathway
(Beginners)
Our Foundation pathway will help those completely new to the water, or those who may need to start afresh to fill some missing gaps in their development. You’ll learn how to acclimatise and adapt to the water environment, developing a fundamental sense of stability (a hidden yet essential process) and understanding the importance of our breath, our posture, and of developing our hand-water connection throughout the process of learning to swim.
We’ll cover and master essential, foundational skills such as being able to float and glide (and return to a standing position safely) as well as bringing in some basic swimming movements, in a completely relaxed, independent, and controlled manner.
After completion of the Foundation pathway, you’ll be set up to proceed with two further pathways, completely unique in their own way, and we can work on both simultaneously: Versatility / Safety and Stroke Mastery / Efficiency.
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Our Foundation pathway will help those completely new to the water, or those who may need to start afresh to fill some missing gaps in their development. You’ll learn how to acclimatise and adapt to the water environment, developing a fundamental sense of stability (a hidden yet essential process) and understanding the importance of our breath, our posture, and of developing our hand-water connection throughout the process of learning to swim.
We’ll cover and master essential, foundational skills such as being able to float and glide (and return to a standing position safely) as well as bringing in some basic swimming movements, in a completely relaxed, independent, and controlled manner.
After completion of the Foundation pathway, you’ll be set up to proceed with two further pathways, completely unique in their own way, and we can work on both simultaneously:
Versatility / Safety
and
Stroke Mastery / Efficiency
Stage 2: Versatility Pathway
(Beginners / Improvers)
Our Versatility pathway will enable and empower you to feel safe, relaxed, and in control in the water. You’ll learn to master the hand-water connection, and develop total control over your body in the water, so that you can feel free and ‘at one’ with the water at all times — and at any depth.
This will involve learning to swim the ‘head up Breaststroke’ (an often neglected swimming skill, because it can be inconvenient — and often challenging — for teachers to teach). You will learn how to float and swim on the back in a relaxed and effortless way, including sculling on the back, treading water, and being able to rotate in the water from front to back, and back to front, as well as move in all directions. You’ll also learn to transition between ‘underwater’ swimming and ‘head above water swimming’ with ease, giving you total versatility and control in the water, and helping to equip you with necessary water safety skills — and the ability to simply enjoy being in the water — for the rest of your life.
For many adults wanting to learn to swim, the skills we learn in the Foundation and Versatility pathways are often the missing piece of the puzzle in their search for basic comfort, ease of swimming, and enjoyment of the water.
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Our Versatility pathway will enable and empower you to feel safe, relaxed, and in control in the water. You’ll learn to master the hand-water connection, and develop total control over your body in the water, so that you can feel free and ‘at one’ with the water at all times — and at any depth.
This will involve learning to swim the ‘head up Breaststroke’ (an often neglected swimming skill, because it can be inconvenient — and often challenging — for teachers to teach). You will learn how to float and swim on the back in a relaxed and effortless way, including sculling on the back, treading water, and being able to rotate in the water from front to back, and back to front, as well as move in all directions. You’ll also learn to transition between ‘underwater’ swimming and ‘head above water swimming’ with ease, giving you total versatility and control in the water, and helping to equip you with necessary water safety skills — and the ability to simply enjoy being in the water — for the rest of your life.
For many adults wanting to learn to swim, the skills we learn in the Foundation and Versatility pathways are often the missing piece of the puzzle in their search for basic comfort, ease of swimming, and enjoyment of the water.
Stage 3: Efficiency Pathway
(Improvers / Advanced)
Our Efficiency pathway will focus on refining and improving the efficiency of your swimming strokes, which may be for exercise / health purposes, for competition such as triathlon, or for any other specific goals. Our focus will usually be on the Front Crawl, and / or Breaststroke — although Backstroke and Butterfly can be included if desired.
Most people struggle with their strokes because they are fundamentally tense and out of control when swimming, and this is often due to lacking basic coordination and balance in the water, or through simply having the wrong perception that we need to try hard or put in a lot of effort to swim well.
When mastering your strokes, you’ll learn my concept of ‘focussed effort’, so that you’ll be able to apply your effort in the most efficient and effective of ways, using the correct muscle groups, at exactly the right moments in the stroke. This results in less ‘wasted’ effort, enabling you to incorporate much more relaxation into your strokes, helping them to become more sustainable, enjoyable, smoother, faster, and more efficient.
The perfect swimming strokes are a fine balance between effort, but also relaxation — and this is why you’ll see extremely efficient and fast swimmers, look so smooth and relaxed!
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Our Efficiency pathway will focus on refining and improving the efficiency of your swimming strokes, which may be for exercise / health purposes, for competition such as triathlon, or for any other specific goals. Our focus will usually be on the Front Crawl, and / or Breaststroke — although Backstroke and Butterfly can be included if desired.
Most people struggle with their strokes because they are fundamentally tense and not fully in control when swimming, and this is often due to lacking basic coordination and balance in the water, or through simply having the wrong perception that we need to try hard or put in a lot of effort to swim well.
When mastering your strokes, you’ll learn my concept of ‘focussed effort’, so that you’ll be able to apply your effort in the most efficient and effective of ways, using the correct muscle groups, at exactly the right moments in the stroke. This results in less ‘wasted’ effort, enabling you to incorporate much more relaxation into your strokes, helping them to become more sustainable, enjoyable, smoother, faster, and more efficient.
The perfect swimming strokes are a fine balance between effort, but also relaxation — and this is why you’ll see extremely efficient and fast swimmers, look so smooth and relaxed!
I can’t wait to be of help!
An exciting and empowering journey awaits…
What’s different about our swimming lessons for adults?
If you have attempted to learn to swim in the past, but didn’t get to where you dream of being, I can promise you—there is hope! Tim at Confident Swimming offers an alternative approach to learning to swim as an adult.
1: In-Water Teaching and Support
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I will always be present in the water with you throughout your development as a swimmer. I am able to provide the necessary—and often essential—support and assistance in your early stages of learning that will enable you to become truly independent, in control, and empowered in the water.
Group lessons will often bypass this essential supportive step by giving you a float/kickboard to consistently hold on to, creating a dependency, instead of enabling you to develop the most important connection of all when learning to swim: the intuitive connection between your hands and the water.
Being present in the water also allows me to visually demonstrate movements, practices, and perform the strokes for you to see as we progress—making them easier for you to understand.
2: Video Analysis and Accelerated Teaching Methods
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I can offer instant video analysis of your technique from within the water, allowing us to pinpoint areas for improvement on-the-spot, helping to accelerate your stroke development.
After our session, I can send you copies of any footage taken, enabling you to review your technique and track your own progress over time.
3: Mastery of the Fundamentals
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Many people struggle to swim easily and efficiently, not because they are being taught the wrong technique, but because they are missing the underlying fundamentals to correctly apply that technique. Other teaching approaches will often have you try to do too much, all at once, and far too soon, offering a purely ‘mechanical’ approach to learning, without necessarily developing you appropriately as a swimmer, exactly where you’re at—it's no wonder you always feel tense, uncomfortable, and always get out of breath when swimming!
Whether you are learning to float and move through the water for the very first time, or if you are refining your front crawl stroke to further improve your swimming speed and efficiency, we will build things up at every stage from the core foundations, of developing:
• Coordination
• Balance / Core Stability, and
• a State of Relaxation in the waterThese are the hidden, and so often neglected fundamentals, that are absolutely essential to developing smooth, easy, relaxing, safe and efficient swimming.