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Focus Point Swim

Each length has one focus – head, kick, reach, breathing – so swimmers practise thinking about their own technique.

Stages
Stage 4, Stage 5, Stage 6, Stage 7
Difficulty
Developing
Skills
Body Position, Stroke Efficiency
Equipment
None
Age
6–99 years
Group size
1–20 swimmers
Time
About 5 minutes
In a lesson
Introduction / Warm-up, Skill Development 1, Skill Development 2, Recap / Safe Exit
Shared by
SwimShare Resource

What it develops

  • Build continuous swimming distance
  • Swim with fewer, longer strokes
  • Swim continuously at a steady pace
  • Swim further with pace awareness
  • Improve stroke efficiency on all strokes
  • Swim continuously with controlled pace
  • Keep technique and stroke count as distance increases

How to run it

  1. Swim a width focusing only on the head position.
  2. Next width: the kick.
  3. Next width: the reach and entry.
  4. Last width: breathing. Swimmers say which focus felt best.

Teaching cues

  • One thing at a time.
  • Feel it.
  • Tell me what changed.

Make it easier

  • Two focuses only.
  • Kick with a float for the kick focus.

Make it harder

  • Swimmer chooses their weakest focus for a length.
  • Keep all focuses together for a final width.

Common faults

  • Trying to fix everything at once.

Corrections

  • Name the focus before each width.

Assistant / L1 role

  • Give feedback on the named focus only for one swimmer each width.

Helps with