I love swimming and I find it an enjoyable way of exercising! I can undoubtedly say that now although this wasn’t always the case when I was learning to swim. It has taken me quite a while to be able to say that I truly enjoy swimming.
Learning to swim by holding onto a pole
I grew up, as many did in the UK, learning how to swim while holding onto a long pole held by a swimming instructor who was not in the water with me, but standing on the side of the pool yelling. I would hold onto this pole for dear life gasping for breath, feeling terrified of letting go. Eventually when I did let go and somehow managed to stay afloat, the pole would follow me, giving me a little prod now and then. This made me feel even more terrified.
Then, as I was learning to swim, it was all about keeping my head above the water at all costs. I felt that if I went underwater, surely I would drown. My time in the pool was full of gasping through my mouth, swallowing and breathing in water, spluttering, not being able to see (no goggles offered at the time), feeling terrified of being splashed or pushed under – and a little bit of swimming!
I’m sure many people can relate to this – swimming for survival is the way many learn to swim. For me there was a severe lack of joy and a great deal of anxiety associated with learning to swim this way.
Later on as an adult I bought myself a pair of goggles and taught myself to swim breast stroke while putting my face partially under the water. This was progress but I was still full of fear of getting a mouthful of water and not being able to breathe.
Learning to swim – breathing through my nose
About two years ago I was introduced to a completely different approach to swimming by Simone Benhayon…
I was invited to breathe in and out through my nose, not my mouth. This initially created more panic in me as I couldn’t imagine ever being able to get enough air. The gasping was an old and ingrained habit! But slowly, slowly I taught myself to do this… initially by not swimming and simply getting used to being under water and breathing out through my nose. I began to find a beauty in this and marvelled at the quality of my breath under the water and the wonderful bubbles that I would create. This felt gorgeous, and for a while it was enough just to do this.
After a while, with the help of my goggles, I felt confident enough to go completely under the water and glide along while breathing out my amazing bubbles. No swimming involved… just gliding and stopping, gliding and stopping. I found a joy in this which felt totally different to any other time in the water. It started to feel like fun!
Over time I have taught myself to swim front-crawl (freestyle) while breathing through my nose. It is still a work in progress, but I am discovering how to remain connected to my breath (and my bubbles!) while swimming. I can still panic a bit, but what I have discovered is that if I take in water while breathing through my nose it does not go into my lungs, therefore I am not going to drown! This discovery has just been amazing, and I have become more and more confident in the water.
Staying with my breath and the bubbles, focussing on the quality of my movement and the sensation of the water (instead of focussing on the fear), has changed my experience of swimming completely. The feel of my body moving through the water can feel absolutely divine.
Growing confidence – in the water and in life
A few days ago I went for my swim, and without thinking I just began to swim. I pushed off into crawl, immersed myself in the water, breathed out my bubbles, enjoyed my body and the way I was moving in the water, and found that I was feeling joy while I was swimming. Even coming up for air was joyful! I cannot express how amazing this feels.
This ongoing experience is giving me growing confidence in my life too. The same principles apply when breathing my way through life. By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.
Breathing through my nose as I was re-learning to swim has enabled me to find joy through swimming; it has truly made a difference to how I feel about being in the water. It has also made a big difference to the quality of my life. What an incredible gift! Thank you Simone Benhayon.
By Rebecca Turner, Beauty Advisor, London, UK
I have loved reading this blog, as well as many of the comments. This impulses me to give another chance to regularly swim and keep observing my movements, being with myself in it and learning how lovingly and fluent I can be in life..
Learning by fear increases the constant anxiousness in the body for any new experience.
Fear based learning makes our whole body contract whereas when we are encouraged to explore our own relationship with an activity we can stay with the joy and playfulness that naturally comes to the surface when we allow it.
Learning to blow bubbles in the water through our noses is one of those things that has changed so many lives as we all should learn to eventually learn to swim without the fear associated with being thrown in the deep end and then struggling to get a gasp of air. As children or even babies we should learn to blow bubbles and play in water and this would save so many drowning’s as fences don’t seem to keep children out.
“By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.” A beautiful way to swim through the waters of life.
I love how your experience in water is also flowing over to give you more confidence in life, ‘By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.’
This is inspiring Rebecca, thank you for sharing your experience.
Surrendering to the love we are within and appreciating the exquisiteness of our divine quality that is innate in us all, is a joy that cannot be contained and through our movements we reflect this glory as we imprint the world with the love we are all here to live. Our power is our connection to our love, our Soul that when embraced we are then governed by a divine quality where fear does not exist.
It is inspiring to read that it is possible to heal the anxiety of being taught to swim. I’m also in the process of teaching myself to swim and to have a different relationship with the water, as I have anxiety left over from nearly drowning in a riptide many years ago. It just goes to show these experiences do not leave us just because we get older.
We don’t think much about being afraid of the water yet as you described the pole I remember the feeling physically in my body of gasping for air and hoping they wouldn’t take the pole away. How much is that transferred into the way we approach life?
It is utterly amazing how supportive it is throughout all aspects of life, to learn how to swim with Simone Benhayon.
Thank you for sharing Rebecca, like you I had a fear of putting my head under water, holding my breath. It would be something new to try to breath out of my nose and get over the fear of the water going down into my lungs. It sounds so joyful for you to have learnt to swim this way and how it has effected other areas of your life.
I used to love swimming and even did a bit of competition when I was young but I had never truly connected to what it meant to be in the water and how much the water could reflect to me about my quality of movements. Having swim session with Simone Benhayon has changed that completely and has brought major changes to not only my awareness but also to the way I swim.
I’ve recently started swimming and find it really enjoyable. Each time, step by step learning something in each swim. Reading about you enjoying bubbles underwater got me reflecting on my own – breathe out as hard as possible to keep the water out! I do feel tired after being underwater like that. Definitely something to play with on my next swim! Thank you Rebecca.
Doing anything with fear immediately contracts us and puts us on the back foot, what is so awesome about the inspiring and supportive way that Simone Benhayon teaches swimming is that the tools we are given are equally applicable in other areas of life and thus we can move confidently in the world whatever we are faced with.
I love how Simone Benhayon is teaching people to breath through their nose while they swim. It is a super supportive way to swim.
I was just reflecting on why so many people feel anxious or have trouble breathing when they swim – it is like it is a reflection of how we do life and in our current day, many are not breathing the rhythm of their own breath but are breathing stress and anxiety and so this is felt in the water as it highlights our movements so clearly.
I love swimming this way too Rebecca. I can remember learning by swimming in my pyjamas – sink or swim it felt like. What you describe is so different – connecting to your body, breathing and moving with the flow of life. It’s something we can apply to all of living not just our time in the pool.
So many lessons in what you have shared Rebecca, as so much of life we are thrown in the murky deep end and prodded until we feel like there is no other way. When the reality is, we all can choose to float to the top breath our own breath and live the love we all are. Appreciating the love we are is an awakening that as you have shared Rebecca is found, even when we swim, so, so much of life will always equally provide opportunities to live the loving light we all are.
What a real and important sharing of the true beauty and joy of learning to swim from a new unique way whilst breathing through your nose and the quality of your every movement whilst having fun . A real testamont to Simone Benhayon.
Rebecca, you bring a whole other level to swimming, and life /— a joy most would not experience in a movement of exercise. “By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.” A Joy to read!
Swimming can teach us so much about how we move in life, and every time I swim I notice different things to do with my stroke, breathing and rhythm that make so much sense to how I am outside the pool!
I can relate to the fear and panic felt in the water, as a young child I didn’t have this but later as an older child I developed this after I had broken my nose and struggled to breathe in the water, from there on, all of my movements were tense in the water and there was no flow. I have now come back to enjoying being in the water more, also through the inspiration that Simone offers.
I was back in the pool this morning. I’ve come such a long way with my swimming. I can now do lengths of freestyle without panicking. Ever time I get in the pool I learn something new, and my experience tells me a great deal about how I am living.
Yes the reflections we are offered by how we move in the pool are so supportive for exposing how we are moving in our lives and the patterns that are keeping us stuck unless we are open to exploring a different way.
Thankfully I did not learn to swim holding on to a pole however the whole idea around swimming was for survival and the teaching I received was hard and very impersonal. What a joy to relearn to swim with Simone Benhayon….she is awesome with children and adults alike. My swimming is changing all the time and now I am swimming the crawl, or free stroke, like I am gliding through the water rather than fighting my way through and I am really enjoying myself in the process.
I am sure the swimming instructor’s pole haunts many a beginner swimmer and most likely has turned many a person off the joy of swimming – and when you stop and consider how much you now love swimming Rebecca that is really quite sad.
I was always afraid of the water it was like I had a memory of a bad experience with water. A friend taught me to swim and I felt save in the water , in that I could swim and would not drown , but I still had this fear about the water. I trained in water life saving . But swimming for me was always about controlling my fear of the water.
This all changed when I received swimming lessons from Simone Benhayon . The change from breathing through the mouth to breathing from the nose was huge . Breathing this way allowed my body to understand there is no danger , to be present with what my body is doing and therefore no tension or rigidity.
It is inspiring to feel Rebecca, how addressing our fears, who we are not, allows us to embrace more of who we really are giving way to a greater sense of confidence, which is our natural way of being. Through our connection to who we are, our essence, we realise more and more the potential of the greatness we are born to live, with whatever it is we do.
Connecting to our breath whether on land or in the water really does connect us to the breath of the divine and can unlock the rhythmic way we then breathe and move with. Thank you Rebecca .
I have just had a swim session with Simone Benhayon and once again I am utterly blown away by the insight and support she offers. Today I learnt powerful tools to help me stay connected throughout my day.
So so much more then just a regular swimming session.
Simone Benhayon is offering the world a true way to breathe through the ocean of life.
It is through our breath that we connect to God and through our movements that we become vehicles of the divine.
I remember one swimming session with Simone Benhayon where for the first time in my life I felt like I am able to swim on my own, and swim well. It was incredible, at the beginning of the session I couldn’t even swim in any style known to mankind, I had invented my own style of swimming which kept me afloat and that is all that mattered to me. However by the end of the session I was able to front crawl and that to me was just out of this world.
There is no doubt Rebecca that the quality of our breath and movement effects everything that we do. I love what you have expressed here, thank you;
“By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear”.
I am not the biggest fan of swimming probably because of the association of those poles and I can also recall going under the water many a times and dreading the swimming classes at school.
But what you have shared here is that there is another way and as I read the ‘gliding and bubbles’ I could feel the fun in that – it feels nurturing, loving and a true way to swimming.
I love the way that water magnifies our movements. The simple act of breathing is amplified by the bubbles. When we swim it reflects how we move through life – how can it not?! The water shows us how we are living. We can literally see it as the water moves, and we can feel the effects of it in the movement of the water. What a gift to learn to swim with this awareness. Swimming is a great deal more than just a sport or form of exercise, it’s a whole lesson in life.
Lovely to feel how your growing confidence with swimming is reflected in your life.
Not until I heard Simone Benhayon talk about the fact that we learn to swim out of fear of drowning did I ever consider what a terrible and unsupportive foundation that is – certainly not enjoyable and the terror and fear you describe, holding on to a pole and trying to stay afloat, I can also relate to.
Amazing sharing Michelle about growing confidence in the water! Swimming can sometimes be fraught with a panic, a need for survival, or even then competition. Its important to enjoy something like swimming as its very beneficial for our bodies and our fitness!
Re-learning to do things is always a humbling experience. Quite often I have found I have grabbed on to something I’m proficient at and use the skills in a re-call mode, but this is robbing us of feeling the delicateness and openness of the occasion which is how we would perhaps be a part of it on the first time.
Loved your sharing Rebecca, its beautiful how life changes around when we start connecting to joy within. I too have become more confidence with the breathing technique Simone has shared, it takes all the panic out of swimming. I love water and swimming so much more joyful now.
When I re-applied the way I go about swimming, from a connection to my body then a number of things changed, I could breathe through my nose with ease, there was a natural sense of trust and like I didnt need to gasp for air or keep pulling and kicking in a way like I am trying to get to the other end. I also noticed the feeling of “squad training” energy not be present and could feel how there were so many instructions about technique and form which simply did not aid the feeling of connection in the water. What’s the point of making it ‘look good’ or ‘right’ and ‘polished’ if there is no fun or enjoyment?
Its amazing how so many things change, by technique and by strength when we are applying wisdom to them for instance feeling connected to our body in the pool, and breathing through our nose instead of our mouth, and not being breathless or exhausted from swimming, but having fun and enjoying the water! Same could go for a lot of things we do.
Its remarkable to think that learning to swim as a child could be so cruel and lacking in understanding. I think an instructor in the water, particularly in the initial period of learning is so important. Swimming should be something that is enjoyable and allow a freedom in the movement. Thanks for sharing your story Rebecca, the level of patience to develop your swimming and breathing through your nose feels like a key part of the process.
Re reading your blog inspires me to pick up regular swimming again, as I love swimming and the reflection the water (and our bubbles) offers us.
It’s very inspiring to read that it is possible to swim in a way which takes away all of the panic of being in the water, and to be able to be confident with your face in the water without having the water go up your nose, which is a horrible sensation is worth exploring.
“…. swimming for survival is the way many learn to swim. ” Very true Rebecca. Learning to breathe in and out through my nose and thus feeling confident swimming free style has changed my attitude to swimming. Thanks to Simone Benhayon and her beautiful warm pool in Somerset.
I used to struggle swimming and although I could swim breast stroke I had no idea how to do the front crawl. I found breathing and coordinating my legs and arms a real challenge. I then took part in an amazing 2 day course with Simone Benhayon called “swimming without survival” and it had transformed how I view being in the water. I now find I can swim the front crawl and I love to practice it!
I swam a lot as a child and teenager, but then as an adult dropped it. It was upon meeting Simone Benhayon and understanding and feeling for myself the benefits of swimming with a certain quality that I now swim weekly again. It supports me hugely in life if I am open to listening to what is magnified to me about my life and I cannot imagine now not swimming as there is always more to become aware of and or deepen in myself .
Oh I would love to have the opportunity to re-imprint the way I was taught to swim and to bring that back into my life as part and parcel of my exercise rhythm. Who is to say, from reading this blog and the comments we couldn’t give it a go as a start?!
I agree with Leigh’s comment, I had a pool session with Simone Benhayon yesterday, incredibly healing and the water really does magnify how I have been living my life.
In July I had a swimming session with Simone Benhayon, I very rarely get into the pool, on holiday yes but thats about it. This was a very revealing session that exposed a lot about how I was living on land in my life in general with this perception that I could not swim (figuratively typing). So in September I went back into the pool, not for a session, but just to see if I had changed in my approach to life since. I could feel very much like you shared Rebecca an old sense of how I was taught to swim and how I felt during those swimming lessons. Towards the end I found that gasping for air was such a drain on my system whereas breathing through my nose felt much more supportive and that my movements were supported by the medium around me. It’s like the pool magnified how I go about living life and just goes to show when we take notice in the greater detail of life we can learn so much more about the whole.
Swimming for joy rather than swimming for survival. This is a beautiful way of relating to life and the way we live.
I love that Mary and it reminds me of how free and playful I can feel in the water and how to bring that flow and lightness into my daily life.
Wow Rebecca that is crazy that you get taught to swim by a pole. It shows the lack of humanity we bring into businesses when at the end of the day it is always all about people first.
I love what you share here and how you have re-imprinted your swimming experience thanks to Simone Benhayon.
Being able to get in a pool, swim and to have the way and the quality I am swimming in reflect back to me how I am living is truly remarkable. Through having pool sessions with Simone Benhayon I have totally changed the way I view swimming, not only do I now love swimming, I also see and use it as the healing it is.
Swimming in the way you have now learnt is definitely divine and how we should all be taught how to swim. There is no need for, or benefit from, fear based swimming…. when swimming in the way Simone teaches provides everything we could want plus offers us connection to a quality that can be taken and lived outside of the water as well, and as such support to transform our lives.
As a child I used to swim a lot, I loved the water and grew up training in swim squads and going to the beach with my family. It was my favourite thing to do. Then I broke my nose a few times and I used to find it difficult to swim, I would panic when I was in the water as I couldn’t get a proper breath. This went on for years and I gave up swimming. Then when I met Simone I learnt to again relax my body in the water and learn how to get a breath through my nose- it made a huge difference and I am now enjoying swimming again.
I love the way you talk about quality and your joy of re-learning to swim, because when we have learnt to do something in a certain way, it is beautiful to re-imprint it in a more loving and honouring way.
When our quality of breath and our movements are equal we leave behind a gentle ripple rather than a disturbing wake, which is very much the same regardless of whether we are in the water or not.
And how extraordinary that such a barbaric way of teaching beautiful young children to swim continues… However the extraordinary Simone Benhayon is revolutionizing this whole teaching process in the UK… What a blessing
I love how Simone Benhayon teaches swimming and everything else that comes with it about Life. I swam a lot as a child and was always confident in the water however I would push and strain my body so there was no quality which is pretty much how I was on land too. Now when I swim it is simply about my breath and building consistency and connection with my body. In this the quality and ease I swim is so much more gentle and I find whatever I learn during my lengths transfers to my day and being on land and in life if the same quality is what I choose.
“Then, as I was learning to swim, it was all about keeping my head above the water at all costs. I felt that if I went underwater, surely I would drown.” I had the same fear, so i would close my eyes and swim. I preferred back stroke as i could see everything and felt more in control. The fear of drowning did not go until is started to use googles when i got a lot older. Now i love preferred its really joyful and full of fun.
I love swimming and I learnt to breathe through my nose with Simone as well. It took a while to change and relax with this new way of breathing, there was often fear associated with it at first and I would struggle to breathe at times and take in water, this was always reflecting to me something about the way I was living that I could learn from. Now when I swim the nose breathing happens more naturally and it supports me to stay connected with my whole body and not to push ahead and swim as fast as I can but to enjoy each moment and the quality this can bring.
I find no other activity can I feel each part of the body move in every stroke. So learning the ways we can make swimming effortless are really fun and very supportive for our health . What I find in the water is that often I will go into old habits of trying and pushing, but in fact with the right technique and gentle breathing swimming is effortless and the beauty is everyone can learn to do it. Sharing our joy of being in water and how swimming can be easy is something that feels really important as swimming really should be for everyone.
Every time I have a swim session with Simone Benhayon I learn something, feel another revelation in my body and have something else I can work with in life after I am out of the pool. I recently had a group session with her and learnt when I get myself out of the way and instead make it about my connection to the Universe there is a flow, ease, simplicity and grace not the upward struggle I have lived many times. I was never confident in water (or life) but both are slowly changing as I have more confidence within my body and have deepened the relationship with myself .. forever work in progress. How people have learnt to swim is shocking! Being followed and prodded by a pole is surely common sense that it is not the most loving or supportive way for the learner! With Simone it is the complete opposite, she is in the pool with you, you feel her support, love and care without ANY judgement, she gives you permission to be which I guess is why she has won so many awards for her teaching and continues to do so ✨
Growing up I enjoyed swimming but now I can honestly say I love it, I took many years of teaching myself to swim as I only learnt the basics in lessons as a child, and it was so worth it, as now I can glide effortlessly in the water and make swimming whatever I want it to be. Swimming should be effortless and it should feel fun moving in the water, and there is no reason this is not attainable for everyone. Making the bubbles as you did Rebecca is a great place to start, enjoying the water first, then the learning becomes easy from there.
I can relate to the panic and fear around learning to swim and being in deep water. I am sure many people can relate too. To breathe through our nose while swimming was unheard of until I was introduced to Universal Medicine. It sounds so much more natural, supportive and loving for our body. I noticed when we go into survival mode, fear and panic we tend to breathe through our mouth. So, swimming while breathing through our mouth we are telling our body it is in fear and panic mode. No wonder I never really enjoyed swimming, I often felt I could never get enough air, my body was always tenses and hard, hence the tendency to sink instead of floating effortlessly. I would love to learn Simone Benhayon’s swimming technique.
For me re-learning swimming was very important as I originally learned to swim to survive and not to drown. That means that every lap I swam was in this energy. I was not aware of it, in fact this was the normal way to be in the water and I have to admit also outside of the water. To survive my day was my normal way of living. Since I have re-learned swimming like you have so beautiful described, my life has changed as well – I am much less exhausted and can work so much more only because: “Staying with my breath and the bubbles, focussing on the quality of my movement and the sensation of the water (instead of focussing on the fear), has changed my experience of swimming completely.”
It gives me great confidence hearing how far you have come developing your swimming style, especially considering you had a bumpy start and anxiety surrounding swimming. I love Simone Benhayon’s swimming techniques but have not yet been able to commit to practising and achieving what you have. I am very fearful in the water, I was never able to swim freestyle, even back when I was breathing through my mouth. The only style I could do is doggy paddle and breast stroke, never being able to dive has been a shameful subject too. Your story gives me hope for change, if I commit to practising, thanks for your story.
It is so amazing to find an instructor who teaches that swimming is about joy not about survival. Simone Benhayon brings a certain quality to her swim sessions which allows the swimmer to learn so much about themselves. I always come away from swim sessions with Simone feeling more clear and more true full.
I’m finding that keeping connected to me whilst I am swimming is what makes swimming enjoyable and not a chore or a marathon. It means that through this connection, I take me into each arm movement, each breathing cycle. I am very much there, present and aware rather than off in the mind somewhere, checked out on my next to do list priorities. No, mind and body are in synch, like they should be.
I remembered some of my lessons of swimming from school days as I was reading. We did not have a pole to hold on to but white polystyrene boards each that were our connection to staying afloat I remember kicking my legs wildly at first when I realised they would sink and possibly me too if I didn’t keep kicking. There was no talk about breathing that I remember. The lessons were definitely fear provoking rather than assuaging which I am am sure they were intended to be. Luckily my mum loved swimming so persuaded my Dad to have a swimming pool built into our garden. This was a huge bonus for me because the emphasis became more one of play and exploration. Later my own love for water found me training in water therapy and spending several years practising this. My life in the water is continually changing and having for the last several years been having water sessions with Simone Benhayon I too have discovered so much more about myself and how my movements in the water reflect how I live on land.
Before having swim sessions with Simone Benhayon I swam for survival which meant my nervous system was constantly in flight or fight, now having learnt how to breath through my nose, I am actually enjoying swimming and have turned something that I used to find quite stressful into something I now love.
I was fortunate to be visiting the Sound Foundation in Somerset (UK) and had the opportunity to enjoy the swimming pool located there. The water was beautifully warm and felt like silk on my skin. When leaving the pool I felt as if I had had a healing session.
I love swimming to Rebecca and I am in the process of learning to swim whilst breathing in and out through my nose; I have had glimpses of gliding and connecting to my breathe and it does feel divine.
Thank you for the gentle reminder and motivation to feel the gloriousness of gently gliding and connecting to my body.
I really used to not like swimming, I found it a chore, since also being inspired by Simone Benhayon and her swim sessions this has changed and I now enjoy being in the water. The water reflects so much to me about how I am and where I am at. I have learnt loads about myself through swimming.
This strange ‘pole’ method of teaching would be laughable if it was not real, and in fact so much of education is a variety of the ‘pole’ method… prodding people who either sink or swim and without a thought to their well being
I can relate to the bits of your blog Rebecca about being taught to ‘swim’. I never bothered much about swimming for years; it was just something that I knew I could do well enough not to drown if I fell into deep water but I never considered that I could enjoy it as a form of exercise. This changed when I moved to a hot climate and swimming was a common form of exercise. Over the years I have continued to swim and I have found my own rhythm and way of breathing from side to side through my nose. I can now say I love it and even though I probably don’t fit the mould when it comes to technically correct movements, I just work on connecting with what feel right with my body and go from there.
I’m so glad I came back to this blog as I have simply not been in a pool for ages. I used to have monthly lessons with Simone Benhayon but since my daughter has started school it has become more difficult to get down to see Simone during the week. I have always been confident in water, as from an early age we would swim in rivers surrounding the farm I lived on. You just jumped in off the bank and if you didn’t swim you sank. My swimming technique though leaves a lot to be desired though resembling more of an out of control egg beater than a dolphin style creature taking 400 strokes to do a lap instead of the average 12. Anyway you have inspired me to go for a swim today thank you.
Great blog Rebecca. I went swimming this morning for the first time in many years and boy did my body love it. I loved the feeling of my body gliding through the water and feeling my arms moving and my breath moving through my lungs. It felt amazing.
Wonderful blog Rebecca. I have also began swimming more at home and have been gliding through the water, teaching myself to breathe through my nose. I used to always breathe through my mouth and didnt think it was a problem until one day I was in the pool and began to feel how I was gasping for air and how un-natural this felt. I had a go at breathing through my nose and well… it was like a breath of fresh air. Now I have been practising it as it has taken me a while to get used to but I am enjoying swimming so much more, feel so much more relaxed in the water and have a lot more fun.
I too Harrison have noticed a real difference since breathing through my nose, there is something a lot more graceful about it, and breathing through my nose I find encourages me to be more present and aware of my body.
Beautiful Rebecca. I love what you have shared about the direct relationship of when you work on one area of your life it builds your confidence not only in that aspect but also how that confidence lifts and lightens other parts of your life too.
This is great Rebecca, I love that a gentle breathing rhythm has allowed you to overcome your fear when swimming and that the same gentle breathing rhythm helps you be less anxious, more confident, when immersed in life.
The turn around point for me always happens when ‘fun’ or ‘joy’ steps in. As this did for you when learning to swim by breathing through your nose. It lightens us up to new possibilities and breaks old destructive patterns which hold us back. Lovely to hear of your experience Rebecca thank you for sharing.
Yes I agree Marion, when this occurs for me as well I feel it makes a huge difference in my confidence and how I understand things, my enthusiasm increases by 100%
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your swimming experience, I have always had a fear of putting my head under the water, and trouble holding my breath. It was great that you were able to continue and get over the fear, swimming sounds like something you really now enjoy. I have always loved floating with gentle waves coming in and going out, but not face down of course.
when I first read about the English way of teaching people to swim, I was stunned, horrified that such an archaic method of instruction survived… And then I remembered the outback Way of teaching swimming… Which was really just to chuck you into a dam or river, and see if you came back out… thank you indeed Simone Benhayon .
I have a go at this way of swimming every time I go swimming, which is not very often, but the more I do it the more familiar and normal it feels. Conversely, breathing in and out of my mouth reminds me of the panic of survival in the water. I have found that it has influenced my awareness of my sleeping at bedtime as well which is a side bonus for my husband as it is much harder to snore with a closed mouth!
Swimming by breathing through the nose sounds quite interesting and beneficial, not only to the act of swimming but also to the fact that you apply the principle in helping yourself stay connected in your everyday living
I learnt to swim in the UK in unheated outdoor pools so there was a definite sense of survival rather than pleasure. It is beautiful that so many children are now learning to swim with Simone Benhayon breathing through the nose and feeling at one with the water and themselves.
I agree Mary, it is gorgeous to see the children as they arrive for their swimming lessons with Simone Benhayon – they can’t wait to get changed and into the pool and after a session their eyes are shining brightly with the joy and fun they have experienced. Simone is revolutionizing swimming with breathing through the nose and I am sure our lungs are enjoying this too!
This sounds like awesome fun Rebecca, I haven’t really got swimming in my rhythm but I want to add it so I can learn to be in the water and be with me.
To be honest I have always found swimming pools to be intimidating, not being a confident or strong swimmer I always felt really stupid in the pool and clumsy and I have always felt intimidated by lifeguards or swimming attendants (It would feel as if they really wanted to be there and they where acting cool). Simone Benhayon through lessons in the pool has helped me so from believing in myself, showing me I am not stupid and helping me to build my confidence with me. Like Rebecca shares Simone teaches from in the pool (not from standing on the side) she interacts with everyone, is very present and you know she is with you 150% in that moment with you, she has helped (probably thousands by now) of children and adults. Simone brings Love to her work and all that she does and is an incredibly lovely lady.
It is a truly lovely to breathe through your nose and glide through the water gracefully as if not disturbing it compared to the swim to survive consciousness that drove our learning. I have always loved the water but when we remain with ourselves, deeply connected and breathing through our noses, the water and being with it in this way, feels that much more divine.
Thank you Rebecca, I was taught swim at a very young age by my father, he would be in the pool and the first thing he taught me was not to be scared of being under water and to be confident to keep my head above the water when I needed to which was great. I did however learn to breathe through my mouth. When I swim now in this way I get out of breath quickly and feel like I am trying to achieve something in the way I swim. I am totally inspired by your blog Rebecca and look forward to the next time I am at the pool to take it at a natural pace and begin to learn to breathe through my nose!
I agree Michael, it makes a very big difference to the way the swim feels whether I breath through my nose or through my mouth. There’s a lovely steadiness when I breath through my nose that allows me to feel my whole body, it feels very natural. If I were to breath through my mouth there is a sense of snatching the breath into the body, where the focus in my body feels quite disjointed. In fact since I learned to front-crawl it was always to use the nose breath…I can’t imagine how difficult and tiring it would be to do otherwise!
In re reading this blog I am still holding the fear of the past swimming experiences and realise there is so much trauma in my body. One that comes up is watching my two brothers being rescued from a ‘sink hole ‘ in the river, they both just disappeared and my father dived in and bought them both to the surface to be revived. You have revealed once again my trepidation at swimming and the holding back which will be reflected in my life.
I can’t believe how you were taught to swim with a stick??? This sounds crazy to me, but I guess would be considered normal for anyone in the UK. I was taught to swim by a lovely lady who was in the pool with us. I do remember being scared when I learnt to dive. More recently after some swim lessons from Simone Benhayon I commenced breathing through my nose and the difference has been nothing short of profound. I feel so much more connected to and aware of myself in the water. I also enjoy feeling how I am in life is reflected to me in the way I swim. For example if I have been totally stressing over study I may find that I am short of breath and feel a bit uncoordinated in the water. There have been times when I have felt great and balanced with work, study and relationships and swimming is just a breeze, gracefully so. I can’t thank Simon Benhayon enough for suggesting I try breathing out of my nose – it has transformed my relationship with swimming.
I have always loved swimming and have always been at ease in the water then for a long time in my life I didn’t swim. Now when I go in the water it is for very short times.
I was surprised how difficult I found swimming especially trying to breathe through my nose. Your blog has given me some real clues Rebecca and a big part of that is re imprinting the way I have been with my rhythm of breathing. Also perhaps it is not about trying but just being with the breath and the water and forgetting about any goals. Just being with myself.
I am still yet to try this one, breathing in and out through my nose whilst swimming. I have swum alot in my life and even the thought of breathing in and out of my nose whilst swimming makes me nervous, and throws my gentle breathe out of wack. I can feel a sense of panic.however I am going to give this a try.
It did me too Heidi but after a few goes it became easier. I now breath through my nose no problem, for me it was a case of not giving up on myself and knowing that it was possible.
This blog is a great reminder of the simplicity of coming back to yourself through your breath and how this relates not just to swimming but the quality of connection that we bring to all aspects of our lives. It is also inspiring how Rebecca could re-imprint past patterns and fear that were formed as a child – it is never too late to come back to ourselves!
There is so much that is being taught now that actually takes the joy out of the experience. It is essential that when anyone takes upon themselves the role of teaching that they know themselves, are connected to themselves and are able to being, stress-free, a clear path of connection to whatever the subject is.
Yes Alexander, I am with you here – it has been a while since I have been swimming too, and am aware of the ‘pull’ to go swimming again.
This blog is a true inspiration and I look forward to enjoying the gliding through the water and breathing through my nose as Rebecca describes so beautifully.
This has been a very inspiring read Rachel – I love the way you persisted with swimming, starting with simply blowing bubbles and moving on from there. It is our commitment and consistency that supports us in breaking down those false ideals and beliefs. I have always loved being in water and exercising in it but haven’t done this for some time now apart from the occasional splash in the ocean every summer. Your joy of swimming and the inspiration of how it has impacted your quality of life has inspired me to go back to swimming and exercising in the pool – thank you.
That is a great lesson for me as well Paula, even as an adult it is ok to take baby steps when overcoming our fears, this is the respect and understanding of ourselves that is needed to move on.
I’m very inspired of your blog Rebecca and all the other comments. I haven’t swum for ages. After reading this I feel like going for a swim now. What I can certainly confirm as well, pushing the body doesn’t make sense. To feel the body while I’m exercising and to stay connected to myself is very important.
I have never tried to swim the way you described but I am very inspired to do so next time I’m in the water. I don’t look forward to doing the crawl because like that my head will be partly under water. I have the same memories like you Rebecca about the hook and the way I disliked the swimming lessons. To be continued.
I too was petrified of water as a child, but there was something that I loved equally about it too. I built trust with me in the water and overcame this panic. I have spent many hours working and playing in the water since. I am looking forward to breathing through the nose in the water next. This is a new concept to me.
I was amazed at how differently it felt to learn to swim while breathing through our nose. It is an entirely different rhythm, that begins to flow so easily and encourages me to stay more connected to my body. Swimming a lap become something joyful rather than pushing my body along.
Hi Toni, yes thankfully this is now an outdated practice in the UK. No more poking with poles. It was indeed terrifying.
A close family member is in his late 60’s and is still afraid to swim after being thrown in a freezing cold pond when he was ‘taught’ to swim at school. He said that this was normal practice and most of the boys then grew up scared of the water.
As you say Rebecca, by consciously breathing gently through the nose, remaining aware, staying with your own breath, can have a most amazing outcome, not just in the pool, but in every aspect of life. You with you = Joy.
My relationship with swimming has been transformed after having had sessions with Simone Benhayon. She has presented to me in the most beautiful and simple way that swimming is a reflection of how I live my entire day. I can now say I love swimming. The exercise is a bonus, as what I most love is learning more about myself through how my swim feels. There is so much going on and now every time I swim I get to observe another aspect of myself and how this translates to the choices I am making during my day. Thank you Simone. While you live in the UK and I live in Australia, your swimming lessons inspire me everyday.
I agree Vicky Geary – Simone Benhayon is a great inspiration to many with her swimming lessons. I love seeing the school children in the pool with her – they learn to swim with simply enjoying the water and as their confidence blossoms forth from within they too love their swimming lessons – hundreds of children from the local area in Frome are benefitting from these lessons with Simone and this spills into their everyday lives too as they learn to treat everything in different ways than before these lessons.
I was taught to swim in a less pressured environment, but haven’t ever considered swimming to be a ‘joyful’ experience. Your blog has inspired me to want to get in the water and try and blow bubbles out my nose – I am looking forward to summer!
I was very blessed learning to swim in Australia where the teachers are in the water with you…but I always remember being terrified and the teachers were always yelling. The sensation of being on the brink of drowning was very strong as a child, so strong that the smell of chlorine always makes my stomach churn…even today. Yet I loved being in the water alone…diving under the water, floating and playing. The moment I had to swim in a certain way I was lost.
Re-learning to swim with Simone, the support that comes from breathing through the nose instead of the mouth was the first time I knew that swimming could be beautiful. This is still in development for me
It is truly amazing that the simple act of breathing through your nose while swimming can have such an impact on the quality of your whole life.
This is beautiful and inspiring. When I learnt to swim in primary school it was all about survival and swimming galas. As I got older I experienced an incident where I became afraid of the water and ever since found it difficult to trust myself in water. Since having a couple of water sessions with Simone Benhayon, I too am learning to breathe through my nose and experience the bubbles! My confidence in the water is coming back and I am beginning for the first time in my life to feel what it’s like to glide in the water and to actually enjoy it!
This is great Rebecca, to read about nose breathing whilst you swim. I have tried it too, and also enjoy the bubbles felt during this style of swimming. It’s amazing how swimming through water is a great reflection and gives insight to how we move and travel through our day.
Swimming, like walking, is a very powerful means to develop as a being. It may sound weird but it is true. It is amazing the extent to which we can heal old hurts, fears that we hold in the body by connecting to the fact of who we are. When we do so, joy is there smiling at us.
The initial swimming lessons you were talking about sound really horrible! It really made me feel a similarity between that and university study. It feels like we are often ‘thrown in the deep end’ with some sort of lifeline attached, but it is not necessarily a true support and we can feel ‘prodded’ and flounder along the way. Imagine if we had an education system where people felt supported first in who they were, so could then move through the process of study and learning knowing who they are and not feeling the constrains of the system around them – though it does exist. This would be revolutionary and would certainly resolve a lot of the stress, anxiety and exhaustion experienced in the world!
Wow Amelia what a change this would bring to studying and the age old institutions that hold these systems in place.
Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine constantly reflects that our whole way of living can be one of true support, thus inspiring our blossoming forth to live all that we are, from our natural essence, the divine core of our being.
With anxiousness, stress, overwhelm, disease and illness figures increasing beyond measure – studying the way Serge Benhayon lives his life would be a revolutionary way forwards for humanity to return to and enjoy fully.
Simone presented to us in a swim session the fact that most are living for survival and that this is how most tend to swim in the water. This was such a simple presentation but enormous because as soon as most of us let go of the survival the joy and fun naturally began to come out.
Incredible gift you share with us Rebecca ,there is so much that we can learn from this, having a swim session with Simone is like no other swim session! You really are learning about life, your part in it and how you can change the areas that are not evolving. It is incredible the universal wisdom that is shared in such a down to earth way in just one swim session!
It is so true that when we stay with our breath, connected to ourselves we are able to remain with what is true and move through life with a far more joyful quality. A beautiful reminder and a joy to read again Rebecca – thank you.
If I were a really curious scientist I would read your words Carola and go investigate why that is so.
Rebecca, I just love how learning to swim all over again has had such an impact, not only on your new enjoyment of swimming, but also how it has naturally flowed on into your life; enjoying the quality of your breath in the pool and the quality of your breath in your life – that is truly inspirational.
I am inspired to start going to the pool, and glide around in joy!
After reading your wonderful experience Rebecca of how it is now relearning to swim with joy by breathing through your nose, it sounds like fun and less stressful. I am not a great swimmer, but used to fear drowning when l was younger. Definitely feel inspired to try a different way of swimming when I next go to a pool.
So do I Loretta, I must try swimming by breathing through my nose
Great image of a ripple effect Gill, going through the air and into and through our bodies. I sometimes shudder and wonder if this is because of picking up something. Even that is a gross example as obviously some emotions and thoughts, have even more subtle effects – like radio waves. If we felt how all this affected us as every ripple in a pool, it would bring us to a great deal of responsibility around claiming ourselves – making our inner being the true foundation for how we travel and express in life and not being pushed and pulled in every direction like in a really busy and blustery swimming pool
Such a great blog Rebecca, recently I decided to go swimming and breathing in and out through my nose initially takes some getting used to. I find the more relaxed and connected I am the easier it is, I used to feel quite tired after swimming but this time I noticed how much lighter I felt after my swim. Simone Benhayon’s water classes certainly inspired me to appreciate my time in the water and connect in a way I had never experienced before.
As I have developed water confidence, it has shown me how much I can actually handle all the challenges in day to day life and not get overwhelmed or loose connection with my breath – just like swimming, I can breathe and move through the water without fear of drowning.
Yes very blustery. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if the effect of our words were visible -rather like seeing your breath on a cold day .
Yes very blustery. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if the effect of our words were visible -rather like seeing your breath on a cold .
It never ceases to amaze me how the English teach their own to swim. Having grown up in Australia, I was never subject to such abusive teaching methods. However, this is not to say our own system of swimming teaching is perfect, and a single lesson with Simone Benhayon taught me to appreciate the water and swimming in ways I had never considered before, opening my eyes up to developing a relationship with the water that was purely based on fun and connection, rather than competition and technique.
I love how you give yourself time to play with your breathing while swimming and make it about the joy of being in the water and not the achievement.
Simone Benhayon is Amazing and her dedication, commitment and Love for others an inspiration. She has (and still does) teach me so much. The other day I was in my favourite park walking and had an epifany. I understood what Simone teaches about swimming, or I should say had a deeper understanding, and how being in the pool gives us a snapshot of how we are with ourselves outside of the pool in life, everyday living. Who knew swimming could teach us so much about life, how we are in life and how we live our life? With Simone that is what you get, and so much more, her swimming lessons are lessons on life itself. Amazing : )
You have me all bouncing with joy to get in the pool again Rebecca. A far cry from when I was younger and resented it. Thank you for sharing!
Your blog about swimming is so lovely that I almost cannot wait to have a swim very soon. I always loved being in the water. And having a focus on my bubbles whilst swimming sounds like a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing Rebecca.
I know right Lieke? I am the same after reading this blog and can feel how much I have loved swimming in the water when I was younger, only I came to resent it after swimming became all about the number of laps one can do in a pool rather than just the joy of being in the water.
Thank you Rebecca, it is lovely to read about you enjoying swimming. I am aware that not everyone does, often being in the water is an exercise in survival. Simone Benhayon has brought swimming in to a whole other realm of experience, she has introduced it as a part of life – not something to be done, but something to be lived and enjoyed.
Rebecca, I had the same experience ‘ By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.’ Learning to swim as Simone Benhayon teaches empowers us not only in the pool but in our life as well. We have the choice to connect with our breath and our movement in every moment of our life so we can choose the quality of the way we live.
I love reading your blog, Rebecca! You write with such a humour and joyful insights.
Well, my experience with swimming was not very pleasant. I learned to swim in the Black Sea when I was five years old on school holidays with my grandparents. The swimming itself was fun but water was going into my ears and often I had ear infection with a lot of pain and going to doctors instead of the beach.
When I was young I liked swimming under water and wasn’t afraid of jumping from the cliffs or diving. Over the years I developed “grown up woman” style-no hurry, head above the water, froggy leg movements, safe and steady. I never went to public pools as I don’t like chlorine, I prefer to swim in the lake or sea, even river. Until three years ago I attended swimming group session with Simon. At first we have been just walking in the pool and started learning to be aware of our movements. I was glad that we are not swimming as I knew by then that people are swimming through the nose and I couldn’t imagine it let along doing it! But eventually I started slow by slow with a lot of caution breathing in and out through my nose. Every session with Simone is a gift. We learned so much in one our. The main lesson is we can’t divide swimming or other activity from life-it is all one and the same. How we live so we swim.
Since having swimming sessions with Simone Benhayon I have become much more aware of my body in the water, how my arms and legs move and how I breathe. What I have noticed just lately is how I will take an extra breath when I start to push myself in the water and I have noticed that I do this at work too, when the day is really busy and I loose my rhythm then there is like a gasp to try and catch my breath.
I too have had the pleasure of totally relearning to swim with the amazing Simone Benhayon. What blows me away every time is the way I swim directly reflects the way I have been living and there is no getting away from that fact. If I have been charging through life just trying to get things done without taking much notice of breath, that is exactly how my swim will be. If I slow things down, be aware of my breath and be more consciously aware, this definitely shows in the way I swim. So the bottom line is not only is it more enjoyable to swim now but it’s a lot more besides. Very revealing!
Rebecca, I feel the joy on your blog expresssing how now you have learned to breath your own breath while swimming, being more connected to you.
It springs to mind how right from small we receive programmes of how to be, how to behave, how to carry out certain expectations of someone or something, that ” such and such has always been done this way”. I can’t say that I am a swimmer and haven’t made the opportunity to learn to swim breathing through my nose – however, just to hear about it feels wonderful. It seems, on looking back through childhood, parenthood we have a greater influence, dare I say, a damaging influence on our young, more than we would like to admit at times – but like you say Simone Benhayon has shown you there is another way.
Rebecca, I would love to experience what you have experienced with Simone Benhayon. It feels so harmonious and natural without the pressure to have to perfectly learn strokes of different kinds. My memories of learning to swim are pretty awful and unloving so I look forward to reimprinting this one day!
It’s amazing considering we live on an island how many people in the UK cannot swim, but if fear is the way of learning that most people were offered, it’s not really surprising. Heated indoor pools used to be a luxury for us older ones, but now are commonplace, often with shallow pools for smaller children to develop confidence playing in the water. The Creative Aquatic pool is always warm and Simone makes learning to swim fun.
Its funny, well bizarre and awful really reading how people were/are taught in the UK about learning to swim with THE POLE. In the outback of Australia you will find the most common swimming lesson was being picked up and chucked into a dam or river and seeing if you could get out. Neither technique supports the deep and loving connection that is possible in this most potentially beautiful of experiences, re-connecting with water, which Simone Benhayon now brings to so many 100’s even 1000’s of children.
Did the dam or river have crocodiles?
A realistic question Kevin! No doubt it would be an added incentive to return to dry land after being “chucked into a dam or river and seeing if you could get out”. Only providing you were not ‘frozen in fear’ at having been chucked in in the first place.
A far cry from the deep and long lasting foundation that Simone Benhayon supports children of all ages to build in themselves through playful-ness and fun in the water, blowing nose bubbles in preparation to swim effortlessly and bring this to their way of living on a daily basis – Wow.
Rebecca, breathing though my nose has brought a whole new experience to swimming. I have always loved swimming and to slowly learn to reimprint my swimming by breathing through my nose has also been a life changing. To begin with I also went into panic that I could not get enough air, but slowly and surely this has begun to change to really enjoy the amazing difference of breathing in this way.
I’m truly inspired by the way you describe shifting your experience in the water and how you now relate to your breathing and your body when swimming. I’d prided myself over the years on being an 80-lengths in-one-go person, but more recently came to appreciate how front crawl breathing just isn’t the way. It just felt too on-off, intermittently grasping a gasp which was, if I’m honest, out of kilter with my true breathing rhythm and this made me question what I was swimming for. The answer? I was swimming to get to the other side, attain a goal, rather than enjoying each and every moment along the way. Either that or I’d zone out and go off into my head. So you’ve inspired me to get back to swimming in a way that truly supports my body. Bubbles here I come! Thanks, Rebecca.
Very true Cathy. I find breathing through the nose makes me a lot more present in the moment and the movements become much more rhythmic rather than mechanical which is what it felt like when I was swimming to ‘get to the other side’.
I love your honesty here Cathy – exposing the pride, the push in attaining goals and being out of kilter with your true breathing rhythm.
Wow, what great choices you have made to bring this deeper awareness of yourself and returning to swim to enjoy the bubbles as you glide, without attachment or agendas through the silky feeling of the water in the pool at the Sound Foundation! Enjoy…..
I didn’t realise learning to swim could be such an unpleasant experience. I have always loved being in water and water activities. I agree that what Simone Benhayon brings to her lessons is truly transformational in all aspects of our lives.
I agree Lorraine, I have always loved the water and don’t even remember learning to swim. The trauma that others seem to have experienced learning to swim in their youth is astounding and saddening to me. Why it was considered an appropriate way to be with children, or if it still is, is a question that needs to be asked. Is there an awareness of the long term effects on peoples sense of self and consequent behaviour patterns.
Yes, me too, next time I go swimming I now want to go and have some fun with the bubbles.
The process of reimprinting swimming sounds a wonderful experience and one that, through the simplicity of breathing through your nose, benefits both your swimming as well as how you are in yourself, in your everyday life.
I went swimming recently, and was not feeling so good in myself. Having had so many beautiful experiences in the pool previously I found that I was placing so many expectations on my swim to somehow sort me out. In effect I was expecting and wanting my swim to give me joy. Of course it didn’t give me joy! To begin with I was simply magnifying my misery in the water! When I noticed this I encouraged myself to come back to myself and simply focus on my movements and the sensation of the water. I realised that I have the power to choose joy or not in every moment. Nothing can bring it to me. The joy can be found in the smallest of movements when I focus on the quality. Every moment is a new choice, and everything needs to be appreciated. I cannot take anything for granted.
I was feeling tired today and I can really relate to what you say here Rebecca about magnifying the misery. I was in the pool and I suddenly realised and thought, hey, that misery’s not me and I came back to feeling my body with gentle hand movements through the water and my breath.
You make a great point here Rebecca, nothing can bring to us what we are not already. But everything that we are can be chosen at any moment.
Thank you for this lovely article Rebecca, that is about much more than just swimming. This is wonderful, ‘By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.’
I supported someone at work today in the hydrotherapy pool. There is something so lovely about being immersed in the warm water.
I agree Natalie, and from my own experience I find being immersed in warm water in a hydrotherapy pool quite a wonderful way to carry out some of my Esoteric Connective Tissue Therapy exercises – not that I actually swim, but, nonetheless find this nurturing therapy very supportive.
So true Rebecca. It is an amazing gift. Since I have learnt to swim front crawl while breathing through my nose, it has changed the quality of my activity in the pool. Because it requires you to be more present, I can feel every stroke as a much deeper movement throughout my whole body resulting in a presence that I am getting more familiar with choosing in the rest of my life.
Hello Rebecca, thank you for writing an article about the simply life changing swimming instructing done by Simone Benhayon. I was taught to swim not with a pole but with a hand pulling my hair on the back of my head. Every time I was told the word “breathe” the hand would jolt my head to the side so I could breath. It was scary for a child so young. Simone gave me a different perspective and a different breathing point, through my nose. It has changed my life in and out of the water.
I love this quote from you “The same principles apply when breathing my way through life. By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear.” No more needs to be said, thank you again.
This is really gorgeous, Rebecca. It made me want to go swimming! I used to love hanging out at the bottom of the pool and playing in the water. As I have got older swimming became quite a “serious affair” mainly meant for exercise and that was it. Maybe it was because most of the pools I have been in lately have been in gyms where splashing around and doing a cannon ball would not go down so well. But I still have that lovely feeling of just playing in water and how it feels to be held by it, how it brings my full attention to my body because moving in water is so very different to moving through the air. It is almost impossible to ignore the sensation of the water moving over your body as you move. It is a wonderful way to build awareness of the body, and the techniques taught by Simone Benhayon are simply amazing!
For me this applies to everything- if we are pushed or let ourselves be pushed into doing something because thats how it is, it must be done, or we don’t have a choice – it usually leaves us with stale memories – but this was of learning something – starting with connecting to ourselves and honouring how we feel – is how we could approach every new task if we choose to.
What an opportunity
Rebecca what a beautiful reflection of life through your journey to swim without fear into the divine fluidity of your breath. Gorgeous.
I learned to swim through play in water of different depths as I grew older, and this gave me confidence at being in and under the water, however, I was never a great swimmer, and could only do breast stroke. As I’ve got older, I’ve found that doing breast stroke hurts my knees and neck, so I’ve learned to do front crawl (freestyle) and breathing through my nose makes me take my time and it feels great to do. Before, swimming used to be my ‘thinking time’ but I was not connected to my body at all. Now, taking my time and being with my body feels great, but if I think I take on water, so it’s a great marker for conscious presence.
Thank you Carmel, swimming was thinking time for me too, yet I loved playing in water as a child and still love playing on water today many, many years later! Since I had a couple of lessons with Simone Benhayon I have completely changed my relationship to water and swimming. Gone is the competitive drive from my school days swimming, and back is the flow and grace of gliding through the water, not really bothering about time and length but very focused on what my body feels like, what the water feels like around me. Although I don’t get a chance to swim very often, my body and soul love it when I do.
I know how amazing it feels to be confident in the water – without any pushing or pressure.
I remember as a child I used to just lay on my back in the water and looking into the sky , this gave me a feeling of joy and inner balance, I was feeling aligned with the water. Swimming itself as practised in school was not fun at all, it always came with the expectations from the teacher to swim in a certain way and we had to compete with another. Re-learning swimming in this light and joyful way with Simone, is so inviting and a fun thing to do. Amazing for kids to start their experience with water in this joyful way.
Joyful swimming Rebecca – I can relate to your experience about re-learning swimming. I nearly was drowned before my body started to swim and I was 51 years old when I found out that this “way of learning to swim” was memorized as anxiousness in my body. I was not afraid of the water but somehow I was not a good swimmer. After I had some swim sessions with Simone Benhayon I could let go of this anxiousness I was not aware before. Like you Rebecca I also started joyfully with the gliding and stopping and bubbling. Now I love to swim with breathing through my nose and if you will see me now swimming you can not hold back to join me in the pool.
A one-time reluctant swimmer who definitely wouldn’t put her face in the water, today I was swimming along, face in the water, watching the bubbles and when necessary taking my head out of the water to breath, and somewhere in there my legs and arms were moving – so natural, so much fun.
So thank you Simone and Rebecca for making me aware of different choices I could make in the water which have brought about this massive turn around.
Thank you Rebecca. Great to read how you have turned your experience of swimming around into a fun and supportive activity. Simone Benhayon has an awesome way of teaching swimming to everyone no matter what their age, previous experience or ability. I know I have benefitted and rediscovered my love of swimming through the lessons I have had with Simone and love how swimming supports me in everyday life.
It is amazing that kids are taught to swim for survival and that the joy and beauty of being in the water is often replaced with fear! I don’t have any bad memories of being in the water when I was young, and I have always loved being underwater, but learning to breathe through my nose while doing freestyle with Simone Benhayon was absolutely amazing. At first I also thought I would not be able to get enough air, but what I learned was to relax and just take my time, and I could easily get enough air. It opened up a whole new awareness for me being in the water. Immensely revealing and very joyful.
Rebecca I love this post, and also reflected on my own experiences and way of swimming as a child – always with such race or a target to push myself through to the other side of the pool, puffing away with panic before it all started again, and no less being congratulated on achieving the length(s). Awful now as I look back, and realise, and thanks to your own insights here Rebecca, that this ‘puffing to achieve for some sort of recognition’ has been the pattern of my whole life (!) What I found amazing and confirming in re-learning to swim in a connected way (thanks to Simone Benhayon inspiration too), is that the way we swim and how we feel in our body in the water itself, is reflective of the way we live and feel life. It’s so completely true what you say – over these past 2 years of swimming with connection to myself and my body, I’ve also found that my confidence has grown, thank you for this confirmation Rebecca! Swimming supports true confidence!
Growing up in the UK (pre pole days) my trips to the pool with the rest of my class were fraught with danger as I tried to avoid the bullying from a student that had been going on for sometime. He cornered me one day and while the teacher was distracted pushed my head under and kept me there for what seemed like hours!!
I took in copious amounts of water and decided there and then that I would never put my head under the water again.
Easier to do in my native Wales but not so much when I moved to Australia. Still, in the intense heat of a Queensland summer I would venture into friends pools only up to the point where my head would be above the water and my feet firmly on the ground.
This has been revelatory of how I’ve lived my life, going so far but never all the way!
Thank you Rebecca, time for me to go all the way!
A great article Rebecca. I too am gaining more confidence with the breathing in and out through my nose. I have always loved swimming and it has been a very enjoyable part of my life. To enhance it with a difference breathing technique is just beautiful.
In reading this blog Rebecca I got a real sense of how patience and perseverance can take us a long way. When we struggle with something it can be easy to give up and just say we can’t do this. Yet I can look back on many of my most satisfying moments and they have involved being patient and persevering when things haven’t flowed, then the joy can come through as it clearly has with your swimming. Swimming as a metaphor for life is one that is certainly worth considering, conquering one challenge can open up our world to the possibilities in other area of our lives.
Dear Rebecca, your blog has inspired me to re=visit swimming, thank you. Will let you know how I go 🙂
I love what you share here Rebecca, I also love the way of swimming I have learned with Simone Benhayon. It is such an ease to float through the water without fighting against it or against the fear of drowning .
Lovely Rebecca.. having really settled into breathing through my nose and swimming for many years, it is such a transformation from my old way of swimming that I still wonder at the gracefulness of it all… especially morning swims in summer at 4 am when it is still dark, and you just glide through the water with a feeling that you could just go on and on … thanks indeed to Simone Benhayon
Love what you share Rebecca, I can relate to being fearful in the water and never really enjoyed swimming. And than about two years ago I had a pool session with Simone Benhayon at Creative Aquatic which changed the way I feel in the water forever. I never could do the front crawl and was convinced it would take me weeks or months to learn. But with the breathing technique and feeling the support of all that water reflects back to me, I just swam and within the session I was doing the front crawl naturally. There is so much Joy in swimming and also a great learning in what it reflects back in our daily life.
Beautiful to share Rebecca thank you .The true benefit and joy of swiming joyfully learning with Simone Benhayon Creative Aquatic has changed my life and many many others everyday.Reimprinting swiming breathing and strokes has a huge impact on everyday life for everyone.
“The feel of my body moving through the water can feel absolutely divine.” I absolutely agree with this. There are moments when I am swimming where the feeling of my body moving in the water does feel absolutely divine, there is a joy, a flow and an ease.
I haven’t yet felt what you share Gyl, when swimming in the water. As Lee shares ” I can’t wait to get in the pool again’ and give it a go.. even if this ease, flow and joy is for three strokes. I am learning to build my consistency.
Thank you Rebecca, I too hated my swimming lesson as a child – all I have is a recollection of a man at the side of the pool with a metal pole and a big hoop on the end. This would be in front of you the whole way up the pool incase you felt like you were going to drown, you could grab out and reach it. Thank goodness for Simone Benhayon who has shown there is another way to learn and enjoy swimming. I don’t have experience of this myself, but have read lots of testimonials to the amazing person and teacher she is, and that her lessons are fun.
I can’t wait to get in the pool again Rebecca and start swimming with a deeper awareness of me – it has been so long since I have been swimming and I love the water and the freedom my body has.
Rebecca, also loved your comment that water would not enter your lungs with the nose breathing technique – this is a revelation to me!
Yes Francene this information is also for me a revelation – I was not aware of it before.
Francene, Thank you for highlighting this point in Rebecca’s gorgeous blog.I had not appreciated this fact before either – “that water would not enter your lungs with the nose breathing technique”.
It makes total sense to swim and breath through the nose to support the lungs in this way. A deeper self nurturing naturally called for by the body and in a playful way with blowing bubbles through the nose in the water.
Ha ha me too Francene, what a very obvious point but one I hadn’t considered, I thought I was more likely to drown breathing through my nose … even in shallow water I might add, but the more I felt which created more panic in my body rather than my head, it became blatantly clear that it was mouth breathing my body dos not enjoy.
Rebecca, I remember those terrifying moments of learning to swim in the school program. For me there was definitely no fun and joy but tension and nervousness of running out of breath. I have relaxed into swimming as an adult and had heard of Simone’s technique. I will be practising this next swim season. Thank you.
Thank you Rebecca. I made a similar experience, that in changing my breathing into a breathing through the nose my swimming is becoming much more flowing and harmonious.
A great blog Rebecca. It got me reflecting on my days in the pool a long time ago. I swam when I was young and got most of the certificates but all of it was done in a competitive way and as fast as I could. Then before my kids I swam for a while at the gym doing laps and generally exhausted myself doing that. After my second child, I decided to go swimming early in the morning before my partner went to work. The pool was outside so it was very cold going from the change rooms to the pool, you just wanted to get in and get started so you could warm up. I never enjoyed it but convinced myself, it was good for my body doing the exercise but the whole time, disregarding my body and pushing it to do a certain amount of laps. Not very loving.
Rebecca, I went swimming yesterday and inspired by your blog I really enjoyed finding my own rhythm with my swimming, I enjoyed playing in the pool and didn’t push myself to achieve a certain number of lengths, it felt lovely and I enjoyed watching my bubbles too and I felt how lovely and graceful my body felt as it glided through the water, thank you for the inspiration.
I recall a pivotal moment in my understanding around being in water, offered in a water session with Simone Benhayon, where it became clear that water can feed back to us what is going on for us inside. Like a liquid mirror, where the reflection is felt instead of viewed through our eyes. Just walking in a pool and feeling how when I walk fully with myself, the water does not resist, whereas when walking without presence, the wake is not only behind me, but all around me, influencing my next step. To live with this awareness out of water, is to live the truth of what quality of life we are actually choosing and what we can choose.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your story, so lovely to feel how far you have come since the swimming pole , in Australia the instructors from memory are in the water with the students and I grew up at the beach and swimming in competition not to survive but to beat your opponent . So it was very rare to swim and just enjoy the experience with myself there was always some thing to race to at the expense of my body and friends. I am slowly learning like you how beautiful it is to just swim and play in water not have any other reason except to be with myself.
Is it possible that there is more to swimming than just moving through the water? It has always struck me as fascinating that in general we tend to place much effort in how we look, the clothes we wear, how our hair is, makeup etc. And yet, at a public swimming pool we are essentially wearing something that could be considered not much different to underwear. Standing in public in our underwear, with wet hair, perhaps no makeup or with mascara running down our cheeks. There is an openness and an honesty that comes with this. It is very difficult to keep up any kind of pretence about the body we may have, or to maintain any kind of illusion about perfect skin, or hair. You are who you are at a swimming pool, and very publicly so. This to me, is fantastic.
This is a very good point Shami. The swimming pool is a place where we are all equal in the sense that we cannot use clothes or makeup to create some sense of identity. We are all in our underwear so to speak, and are all in exactly the same boat. Very refreshing and very healthy!
Thank you Rebecca for your inspiring learn to swim lessons. I don’t like swimming due to the way I was taught in my school days. We lived in the country and did not have ready access to a swimming pool so I loved the beautiful slow running river and the beautiful rocks, River Gum and Willow trees. I have wondered why we weren’t taught to swim breathing through our nose? It would make more sense to me and obviously a much more pleasant experience from what you have revealed of your lessons with Simone.
Rebecca, your story has inspired me to get my goggles out of the drawer and go to the heated pool we have in our neighbourhood for a gorgeous swim! I have always loved swimming, and swam ever since I was a tiny toddler– first with all the joy in the world splashing at the waves, feeling how gorgeous my little body would feel in the water and then years later I got into competitive swimming that took out a lot of the fun I would feel. Swimming became a bit of a goal, a means to an end instead of the simple amazing fun that is so simply was.
Reading your blog I was reminded of that joy again, a huge joy that I’ve felt in the water in sessions I’ve had with Simone Benhayon as well. Thank you for the reminder, I now can’t wait to play and swim.
Me too Katerina, reading the blog and then the comments I feel like I don’t swim enough, and that it was something I love doing when I get the opportunity. So perhaps, just like nose breathing, I need to embrace it as something that offers me great support and create space.
A beautiful article I could feel your joy and the confidence in which your shared your journey. Simones way of teaching is amazing as I have found it has changed the way I swim and my breath in the pool and in my daily life. Breathing through the nose creates a beautiful opening in the body and really supports building the confidence in the pool.
Having grown up on a boat, I learnt to swim when I was so young, to me it is like walking. I love swimming, but not in the waves. I used to think I liked playing in the waves, but I now realise that I was actually always quite nervous and would just toughen up so that I didn’t look like I was scared!
Since I was young I would often spend hours in the pool or at a calm beach, and would love to play around with holding my breath, and seeing how long I could stay under water if I was very still. If I relaxed, and hardly moved, I needed less air.
Only recently have I been experimenting with breathing through my nose and not through my mouth. It’s interesting because my habits of gasping for air are so strong, but like many of my old habits, I just have to slowly practise different ways to be able to feel which way works for me.
Rosie, my habit of gasping for air was also very strong. I found that this was because I was holding my breath under water. Now when I breathe out gently through my nose while under the water I find that when I come up for air all that is needed is for me to breathe in gently. No fuss, no gasping, no problem. It is a beautiful discovery which helps me to stay calm, centred and still.
It’s great to read about how you have such a different more supportive way of swimming
I have really enjoyed reading your blog Rebecca, and all the comments too. I am inspired to try breathing through my nose next time I am in the water, and also to be more aware of how I am breathing throughout the day.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your joyful experience of swimming now transformed after lessons with Simone Benhayon. I see Simone teaching so many children and adults and it is transforming peoples lives amazingly and reconnecting us all to the real joy of swimming, being in water and simply being ourselves in life. Beautiful reflections, love for everyone and total dedication Simone Benhayon offers us all she is and lives. A very inspiring blog!
Wouldn’t it be great if we teach children from a very young age the joy of swimming which they carry within them naturally, instead of teaching them to swim from a fear of drowning?
I have found many things to re-learn from attending the courses presented by Serge Benhayon. I’ve discovered an inner being that almost commands a quality of living that affects every part of my life. Applying this inner knowing has re-written the way many things are now done.
The pole method sounds thoroughly traumatising! so the difference in the way you describe the way you swim now – with joy – is a joy to read about too. Awesome reflection on having confidence in life there too – thanks Rebecca.
This blog reminds of the quality that we have the potential to live with. This brings an awareness that our swimming like any other activity in our lives can be a marker of where we are at.
I learnt to swim in Africa and it was fun and warm. When I came back to the UK it was cold and horrible so I gave up and I’ve never enjoyed it since – except when I was able to get underwater in warm seas. But what I get from you, Rebecca, is how much you have taken from what Simone Benhayon as shown you in the swimming pool and applied it in your every day life and I can relate to that. Thank you for the reminder.
This is the amazing thing about what we are shown, that everything affects and applies to everything. There is no stone unturned and there are no walls to hide behind. Wether we are in the pool or in a space shuttle, by the very essence of our being what we do affects everyone everywhere.
I’m left with a light feeling around swimming now Rebecca, thanks.
Gorgeous to feel your expression and your wonder of: “the wonderful bubbles”, you would create breathing out under the water. Thank you Rebecca, for allowing me the possibility of truly enjoying swimming again, and it not just being a physical exercise.
I am in the process of teaching myself front crawl, building those muscles unused to the ‘windmill action’.
Similar to you Rebecca, my body feels “absolutely divine” when underwater swimming and floating, even though there are some residues of fear as I approch the deep end.
However, thanks to Simone Benhayon’s trust in me finding my way, I have gone from a terrified onlooker to a joyful ‘water baby’ !
Breathing through my nose very gently has changed my life. The connection with myself is constantly deepening by this way of breathing. Swimming with breathing through my nose is work in progress for me but your blog Rebecca is a great inspiration, thank you!
Swimming breathing through my nose compared to swimming breathing through my mouth is a totally different experience. When I used to do the latter I would rush through the laps not feeling my body nor enjoying myself and counting each lap until I had done my quota for the day. Now when I swim through my nose, which I learnt from Simone Benhayon, I glide through the water connected to my body, loving the rhythmic way my body moves and stopping when ever my body feels it has had enough. Thank you so much Simone for supporting me to enjoy swimming and get the true benefit from being in the water. This way of being in the water inspired me to be a different way in life and totally changed the way I lived and I have witnessed thousands of other people’s lives being transformed from learning to breath through their nose.
This is so beautiful Mary-Louise, ‘when I swim through my nose, which I learnt from Simone Benhayon, I glide through the water connected to my body, loving the rhythmic way my body moves and stopping when ever my body feels it has had enough’, I can completely relate to this feeling, I enjoy myself and being in the water when I breathe through my nose and find that I do not push myself, I’m not counting lengths just playing and swimming, whereas breathing through my mouth feels like it is more about getting the lengths done and is not so flowing and playful.
Thank you Rebecca for your article of which I can relate too. Through my learning program as a child, I had a few panic attacks when with an instructor. I was spending most of my summers as a kid on the seaside so I had no choice but to learn. I have tried swimming breathing through my nose once but would need to practice a bit more to feel comfortable with it and I am sure it is.
Rebecca that was beautiful to read. I could feel your joy as you discovered the joy in swimming. What a great marker you have discovered for yourself. Life is full of fears, if we stay with our breath and in turn ourselves we move past the fears and find joy was there all along.
This sounds amazing Rebecca, I will have to start experimenting with this kind of breathing when I go swimming, before reading your article I would have assumed that I could not get enough breath if I breathed through my nose.
That’s so horrible Rebecca (and also with my warped sense of humour quite funny) picturing you swimming along being prodded by a pole! I was a real water baby and had not trouble in still water or in surf, What I hated was the horrible competition which was also there in body surfing as well as surfing, Fast forward many years and yes, gliding majestically through the water blowing bubbles and breathing through my nose felt like a huge step up in my experience of swimming as joyful rather than a little frantic and show offish.
Hi Simon, yes horrible but also very comical. I can see the funny side now. Your experience of the water and swimming sounds and feels so different to mine. It is wonderful that we can unite in finding joy in the water, and in the bubbles!
I have delayed commenting on your divine blog Rebecca and I think I need to have swimming lessons with Simone ! My relationship with water is very similar to yours and it is filled with fear of drowning, this lack of air in my lungs that progressively fill with water and fear of dying pure and simple. I have come a long way though because I can now just about do breast stroke but I would love being able to put my head under water which I can’t. I find it delicious to be in the sea or a lake though and feel the water on my body and the water supporting me. Being able to breath under water through our nose is for me an absolute revelation.
I’m with you on that one Gill! When I was learning at a tender age, crawl seemed to be the stroke that was taught first, and I remember having no idea which direction I was going in as I thrashed and gasped like some out-of-control human torpedo!
Wow, thank you Rebecca for your article. I am still scared of deep water at the age of 64. Anything above my waist is not for me. We were thrown into the water and that is how we suppose to have learnt to swim. Of course this approach did the opposite. Water for me is still scary, however, having read your article I am inspired to use Simone’s techniques and finally have fun in the water.
What a horrible way to learn to swim! I learnt mainly through play and have always loved the water. I never really enjoyed freestyle until I learnt to breath through my nose. It’s like you settle into a beautiful rhythm with just you.
Thank you for sharing this Rebecca, I am inspired and took myself to the pool yesterday for a play! It was enough to just begin to breathe in an out through my nose, feeling the bubbles and my breath… This did feel amazing as you share and I could connect with my own gentle, steady rhythm. I look forward to exploring this!!
I feel to explore this as well Clare, definitely, as I do not swim much at all.
I feel to explore this as well Clare, as I do not do much swimming at all!
It is only since swimming with Simone Benhayon that I do not enter water going instantly into fight and flight mode – my whole experience of learning to swim was peppered with barbaric practices billed as character building – being thrown into the deep end, cold water submersion, threats etc. With the support of Simone swimming for me is now an expansive and nurturing experience.
Amongst lots of other magic you shared I read loud and clear the transformation from rigidity and fear to the joy of feeling your body gliding through water – thank you, Rebecca.
Rebecca, following your words is very stilling, light and fun. Thank you.
Lovely to read that you are feeling the joys of swimming, thank you for sharing Rebecca.
The suggestion given by Simone Benhayon to breathe through the nose when swimming is more than just a tip. This way of breathing makes swimming joyful, playful and even liberating. I was never a strong swimmer while growing up as I could just never figure out the breathing despite being athletic and coordinated on land. So when it came to nose breathing I broke it down in a similar way to Rebecca. I would inhale through my nose, push off my feet and glide through the water exhaling through my nose, then stand up, inhale and go again. I did consider it probably looked perplexing and amusing to the pool guard but I didn’t let this stop my exploration. Then I did the same but instead of gliding I would swim freestyle for a few strokes, put my feet down to inhale and keep going. This gradually developed into normal freestyle, nose breathing and exploring how many strokes between inhalations and how it was easy to inhale when I turned my head to my right but when I turned left I felt like I did not have enough time and space. I am still exploring and look forward to swimming with ease but even at this stage it feels amazing and am touched by the extent of wisdom the Benhayon family offers humanity. I don’t know of any other that turns swimming on its head to reveal the potential, power and joy available when swimming with nose breathing.
Rebecca you have bought a lot to the surface for me.
My introduction to swimming was in the local pool, in our underground tank and a waterhole, each represented a different experience.
The tank was all about play, I can feel the joy of swirling the water even now. The local pool was a combo of play and school swimming lessons a freezing outdoor pool where I enjoyed the shallows but feared the deep end.
The water hole was great fun but I can still feel the tremendous fear? I remember my father diving off the cliff edge and pretending to not come up …. I can feel that anxiety in my body now. Also the depth of the water was unknown no one had been able to dive to the bottom so my imagination would invent all sorts of creatures lurking below. So I can see why now I love to play in the water in the Re-Connect pool noodle classes by Danielle Pirrera but the suggestion to go to the pool and do some laps has me riveted to the spot. Your blog has exposed many life patterns that can be shifted both in and out of the water.
This blog describes the experience of re-learning to swim and breathing through the nose beautifully. I find being in the pool and swimming very supportive, it is a great place to get connected with our own bodies. I can also feel when I swim that I really claim myself as a graceful, gentle and powerful woman, a lovely confirmation.
Rebecca, I remember well from the UK the tyranny of the pole holding swimming instructors and how much fear and anxiety could be generated by a half hour swimming lesson in an indoor pool: horrific! I lost my aquatic breath anxiety by seeing how Queenslanders ( Aussies ) absolutely love the water, and then by pretending to be a dolphin in the water.
I visited Simone’s pool twice and found after both visits that my joy in the water was enhanced considerably when I returned to Australia. Truly remarkable. I have now become a true water baby – I love it.
Very interesting Rebecca, I taught myself how to swim however I am going to try and breath through my nose, thanks for the tip
I never really liked swimming much and am not very good at it. Reading your blog I am inspired and looking forward to having another go!
Rebecca, I would love to reimprint my swimming in the way you have described, without the fear and anxiety but with effortless surrendering to the breath, a reflection of how I am endeavouring to live daily!
…inspires me to enjoy not ‘the water’ but ‘me, in the water’…
Rebecca you have just reminded me of the terror I used to feel at swimming classes at junior school in the UK. You describe it to a tee, including the instructor prodding the pole at you! And it was always so cold in the water.
I love how you describe the steps you took to oh so lovingly re-introduce yourself to being in and under the water and gradually being able to swim. Its very inspiring. Thank you.
I didn’t realise that people learnt to swim with a pole till I spoke to my taxi driver and he explained his experience and suddenly I understood why there where so many people with a fear of water – it sounds traumatic! I too have had the grace to be taught to swim by Simone Benhayon, who has supported me to really enjoy both the exercise and the opportunity to have time specially dedicated to me, feeling if my body is tight, or my breathing is off. And there is no better feeling than being underwater!
I hadn’t realised that many people were taught with the aid of a pole, until I spoke to others as well as this was not my experience. Even though this wasn’t the case for me I din’t learn to swim with joy. We had to keep going backwards and forwards drilling our strokes. It was only on the last swimming day of the term that we could have a “free swim” and play in the water. Observing how Simone teaches her lessons to children is that she makes it playful and fun from the word go whilst teaching the necessary skills. I would have loved to have learned swimming this way as a child.
Thanks Rebecca – I love this and can feel the joy you express. It reminds me to apply gentle breath whenever I get anxious or stressed. Everyday can be a day in the pool!
You have got me pondering here Rebecca on what else I was taught as a means of survival, when in reality it has its own beautiful rhythm and joy to bring to my life.
What a amazing analogy to how we are in life: we learn to survive but always feeling the lack of a meaningful, soulful life till we re-learn to live, re-learn to enjoy our breath (connection to the world and God), re-learning connection and re-learn to live truthful relationships (with ourselves and to others). Thank God for Teachers like Simone Benhayon who are supporting us to re-learn life.
Rebecca its amazing to hear how you have turned around your fearful experiences of survival swimming, which as you rightly say is so common for many here in the UK. Pools like gyms can be intimidating spaces, but to have the will to playfully explore and teach yourself bit by bit is truly inspirational. The joy and magic you found through simply blowing bubbles is testament to your self commitment.
I too can share in your joy of learning to breathe through your nose, with thanks to Simone Benhayon.
My front crawl has totally changed, the fast paced drive has gone and a steady care for the way my body moves has evolved naturally. Its like having a date with my body, being consciously present with my breath and listening to how each part feels as i move, I never imagined that front crawl could feel so graceful!
Rebecca, I feel like testing this technique out very soon. Thank you.
Rebecca. What a fantastic blog. I can relate to hanging onto the side of the pool for dear life, and if I couldn’t touch the bottom of the pool what was the next step. Kick like mad and aim for the shallow end, holdings one’s breath under the water until I could see the bottom of the pool.
Eventually I lost my fear of swimming and just let my body relax, breath gently and enjoy the experience.
Since those early days, I have be swimming in the ocean with Dolphins, and they are very caring, and will swim along side you, and be playful with you.
Lovely blog Rebecca. I haven’t been swimming for quite some time now and reading and feeling the joy of your blog it makes me want to get back in the pool and get my bubbles going!!
The simplicity that breathing through your nose offers means that it completely slows your mind and body down, to be one with you, and to take the day as it unfolds in whatever way it may.
By being more consciously present with our bodies in every moment we know we can accurately feel what is happening in each moment and confidence grows. I like this idea of feeling those ‘gentle bubbles’ at the tip of the nose both in and out of the water to stay connected with my body.
Thank you Rebecca, this is such a beautiful and graceful article to read. It reminds me of the joy and grace I feel and being in water and my body. Supposedly I learn to swim underwater and loved being down there, much more so that the swimming lesson with those poles and bog hoops. Feeling your body glide in harmony with the water, as if they are one, with such joy and ease is such a beautiful feeling. This blog has inspired me to have fun again in the pool and just enjoy being with me, with no need for a goal or an outcome.
That is so true Gyl to be in the pool and feeling the simple joy of moving in water. It is totally fun and freeing to swim and play, with no imposing goals or outcomes.
Love your story Rebecca, I love to swim and many years ago used to enjoy swimming 30 laps or more of the local Olympic pool, but this was my escape from life, or as I thought, my form of meditation and time to just be with me, but there was also a push on my body and I would feel proud of my accomplishment as I pushed to do more and more laps in the same time frame. Whilst I haven’t swam this way for years now, whenever I did swim it seemed to be so hard to push my body this way. Then along came Simone Benhayon’s swim classes, where I was given the opportunity to truly feel me and the gentleness of my body in the water. Now when I swim breathing thru my nose I feel no effort and if I wanted could probably just keep swimming for hours as there is no strain on my body or my breathing and I love being able to be with me and be so present rather than checked out and swimming like a robot.
I absolutely love the sound of that! Swimming and feeling complete joy. Whilst it’s a bit tricky getting a lesson in with Simone, (I’m in Australia), when I get an opportunity to be in the water, I like to pratice this technique.
Learning to take things really slowly and be present the whole time is the challenge for me. Not allowing the pressure of other swimmers in the water get to me, and allowing them to overtake me as and when they want to, without feeling like I’m a burden is what I find I need to practice first. Because if I don’t have that covered, then it’s hard for me to stay present with my own breath while I’m miles away thinking and worrying about everyone else, and as a result I end up gasping for air, kicking too fast and getting water up my nose, a feeling that is most uncomfortable.
You raise a good point, Elodie, about ‘beating yourself up’ with comparison of where other swimmers are at, and making yourself lesser because you feel to go slower and might be an inconvenience to them. Whereas actually going slower, being present with your body and breathing in through your nose in the water is precisely what would benefit all swimmers! So, rather than being an inconvenience, you’d be a role model they would feel whether they notice it or not.
Elodie, I have found that by staying with my breath first it then helps me to deal with all the other people in the pool. If I try to deal with everyone else without first being in connection with my breath I am completely lost and very likely to get stressed. In fact when I am with myself and my breath I am not disturbed in the slightest by the other people in the pool, and actually end up having fun with them!
It’s amazing how supportive simple exercise in the form of swimming can be in every aspect of our lives and days, I have found I am forever learning more and more within the pool, which in turn is revealing more to be learnt in my day to day life
Thank you Rebecca – what a wonderful Blog. To connect with the joy of swimming and then swim from there. This is very powerful indeed. My relationship with swimming has been a little different – I went into heavy squad training as a young girl and then into the competitive side and it has taken me quite a while to clear this way of swimming. The energy that I used to swim in was really awful compared to how I have re-learned to swim, through breathing through my nose and being in my body. I have also had moments in the pool where I know without doubt ( because it does not exist ) that my body and I are divine.
Simone Benhayon thank you for your amazing swimming lessons.
Gorgeous Rebecca to read how you re learnt to swim by breathing through your nose and hear of the joy and flow you’ve experienced from that reflected in your life. I’ve always loved water and over recent years I’ve enjoyed just being in it much more, floating around as opposed to focusing on swimming lengths as a sport or exercise that now seemed filled with a drive. I’ve not been particularly aware of how I breathed whilst swimming, strange really, apart from quickly snatching what I could to be fast and in turn making it about the outcome ie the speed as opposed to the journey but reading this I was reminded of being underwater as a child and breathing out through my nose and enjoying the sound whilst watching my bubbles of air float to the surface. After some consideration, I breathe out through my nose when I swim but breathe in through my mouth so I look forward to trying this out and seeing how I get on. Thank you for the inspiration and to everyone for all the comments here, it takes swimming to a whole new level!
Wow you have inspired me to re-learn how to swim as I never put my face in the water because it brings up panic. I love the idea of blowing bubbles – can’t wait to get to the pool to try it out.
Wow – what an amazing sharing. I had no idea swimming lessons could be so cold, distant and terrifying. Interestingly though as I read I remembered my own swimming lessons, in which I totally revelled in being in the water, so much so, I took my floaties off and effectively sank and had to be resuscitated. That was definitely traumatic way to come around on the side of the pool. I still love being in water, but not really a stroke swimmer, definitely always refused to race, but always bettered my previous record treading water and similar…but freestyle totally eludes me. Inspiring hearing about the experience of gradually embracing nose breathing and even the stroke. My local pool just closed for the winter, but I’m keen to play with the nose breathing and can already feel what a huge difference it will make to the quality of me and the water, in the bit of experimenting I’ve had a chance for these last few Summers I feel a nose breath in, more than triples my lung capacity and the water glides so much more, like it is thinner somehow. I’m inspired, thank you!
Learning to swim for joy instead of fear is a revolution. Simone Benhayon has changed the learn-to-swim industry globally and these same principals can be transferred across to many other activities where we learn because we have to and are told to, for good education or good health and never for the absolute joy of enjoying being with our self and our body.
I was reminded of the disastrous swimming lessons I endured at school. In one I was forced to tread water wearing clothing. It was freezing and I sank like a stone as I was unaware just how absorbent my warm woolly jumper would be once it got wet. My teacher had to rescue me (reluctantly). It took a long time to live down the humiliation. I became afraid of swimming after that and faked allergies to the pool water to avoid all future swimming lessons. As a consequence I never really learned to swim very well.
You have inspired me to revisit my relationship with swimming as the way you swim sounds beautiful and I would like to try it. Thank you for this most wonderful swimming lesson Rebecca.
Rebecca I loved reading this deeply healing and very inspiring blog.
Deeply healing as it has brought so much to the surface for me of some very old stuff around being taught to swim in freezing cold sea water and the fear and panic that came with it, gasping for breath throughout, turning blue and shaking all through my body with teeth chattering on getting out of the water. Lessons with the school in the swimming pool were no less of an ordeal as well as the common factor of freezing cold water and the body reactions similar to being in and out of the sea.
On the other hand, your blog is so inspiring! Feeling how you have brought the fear of being in the water to the absolute playfulness and joy of being fully aware of your body with in the water and now in daily life too – all from having fun with glorious bubbles through your nose!
I feel the pull to return to the swimming pool and enjoy this playful aspect along with the joy of being with me in the water again.
Thank you!
Wow, Rebecca- swimming with Simone sounds great. When she comes out to Australia, Melbourne one day I will look forward to having a swimming lesson with her, without mouth breathing. It sounds very natural and fun.
What a complete re-imprint of experiences in the water – I can feel how you’ve been so gentle and playful this time round – joyful!
Love the way you put your bubbles into focus. It is never ever to forget to have an eye on the joy factor! Joy is not just a by-product – it’s key. BUBBLES!
Great blog Rebecca, It’s crazy how swimming is taught as more of a survival technique over first it being a joy to swim and be with your body. I feel that if we were taught to swim the way you have described your swimming with Simone then we would actually feel more comfortable and confident in the water over fearing it or having to go into fight or flight mode as soon as you get into the water.
Ariel I agree and isn’t it a bit crazy that swimming taught as a more survival technique is recommended???? I could not believe that parents agree to this way of learning to swim because their kids must be a bit traumatised at the end of such a lesson – but that showed me that we as human beings don’t care enough about what is actually and deeply good for us.
Gorgeous blog Rebecca. The joy and delight you now experience with swimming is gorgeously palpable. I love swimming and very much enjoy the playfulness that swimming brings out in me. I have also attended Simone’s swim class and it has brought a whole other awareness and learning about how I am in the pool and how this is a reflection of how I am in the world. Her classes are so unique and inspiring, worlds apart from any other swim class I have ever attended.
Thank you so much Rebecca, reading your article just connected me to the loveliness of breathing my own breath through my nose, I can’t wait to play with this next time I go swimming.
I love the way you present that it’s not about going ahead, getting faster or getting it over with, it’s just being with you and your whole body, moment by moment. I have yet to get over the fear when breathing through my nose in swimming, but can totally relate to how much better my body feels when I just swim, with no goals. Thank you.
Wow Rebecca, what a turn around from your initial swimming lessons. You have inspired me to try this. I have heard of people breathing in and out of their nose whilst swimming before and thought to myself that I could not possibly do that. I have swam a lot in my life but with a pressure that I must swim a certain amount of laps to achieve my expectation of fitness etc. It was always done with a hardness and driven by results. It had never occurred to me (in the past) to slow down and connect to me whilst swimming. It sounds so beautiful. I will be trying this one.
Your blog and all the comments here have been a real eye opener for me, Rebecca. I had no idea there were so many people who feel so much fear and anxiety where swimming is concerned. I learned to ‘swim’ in the States when I was 2 or 3 years old in an outdoor pool with my sisters. We had no armbands, no pole, just the fun, caring support of a trained swimming instructor (not that I remember but that is how the story goes and the feeling I have confirms it). We lived in California for a year when I was 4 and spent the majority of our time either poolside or beach side. I loved being in the water, it became our playground….we slid down water slides and jumped off diving boards and splashed and swam in the waves. When I was 5 we moved to The Netherlands where I started school. Part of our schooling was learning to swim at the local indoor pool. The teachers wouldn’t believe that my sisters and I already knew how to swim so along with the other children we had four bands of cork floaters tied around our waists. We couldn’t move but they sure kept us afloat! My mother actually had to come to the next swimming lesson with us to convince the teachers that we did know how to swim and that we wouldn’t drown without the cork floaters. I remember feeling the fear and apprehension in the teachers as they finally relented and allowed us into the pool unaided. Then, when we actually began to swim the front crawl feeling their complete disbelief that this could even be possible in children so young. But these swimming lessons weren’t any fun, there was such a seriousness about them and I would imagine that it left more than a few of my schoolmates with the feelings of fear and anxiousness. In high school I was a member of the swim team but even in the training sessions, swimming lap after lap after lap we managed to have great fun and I don’t ever remember it being a chore. So joining Simone’s swimming sessions felt a natural thing for me to do. I suppose because I did not have to work through any fear or anxiety associated with swimming I felt free to really explore her suggestions from the very beginning and I’ve had several very revealing moments in the water that were a reflection of how I was living in my everyday life. I am truly amazed at the way Simone will suggest, for instance, to swim seven laps, and how the way I swim each lap is a reflection of how I go about each day of my week or that swimming up and down the pool will reflect how I go about my day, the first lap being the first half of my day, the second lap the latter part of my day. I have found that what Simone presents in her swimming sessions is revolutionary and very very reflective and revealing of how I live my everyday life. The way Simone conducts these swimming sessions with the utmost love, truth and clarity is a beauty to behold.
Simone’s classes sound extremely healing, another modality I’m looking forward to trying.
Thank you Rebecca for this very inspiring blog. I enjoy the water although I am not a good swimmer, I do have the swim to survive feeling. Yet reading your blog I could feel my body relax with the awareness of my breath.
Although I did not have terrifying swimming lessons, I did have a lifelong fear of having my face in water and being unable to touch the bottom. It came from a scary event in a swimming pool when I was five, pushed and held under maliciously by someone much bigger than me, and I had to fight to get away. After that, I would vomit at merely the smell of chlorine, and because of that never went to swimming lessons held by my school. But when I was 28 years old and a SCUBA diver (the mask made all the difference for me – being able to see the beauty of nature underwater), I thought I’d better learn to swim. So I taught myself by watching good swimmers. I became a very fast, very strong, confident swimmer, the water became my second home. But I didn’t know about nose-breathing till Simone Benhayon spoke of it. I tried it and it was awesome. I haven’t been swimming in pools for years but once I get back in, I’m keen to develop this lovely new way.
I remember that anxiety of not being able to touch the bottom of the pool you mention Dianne, and realise that I still have that today. There is a fear of being “out of my depth”… a bit like the feeling of being overwhelmed by life. umm something for me to ponder on!
Rachel you’ve just reminded me: a friend once said to me if I got scared in the ocean, to lie on my back and float. To really relax into it, let my neck go soft and head tip back, and just breathe through my nose until I was back to myself and calm. Once I realized I could not sink, that the sea held me up and I could just breathe without tensing up or doing anything, it made such a difference. So actually, in a way I had been introduced to the nose breathing quite some time ago before I met Simone Benhayon, the maestro of swimming. In the less dense fresh water you can do it too, might just have to move your hands a little to maintain buoyancy……
Hi Dianne,
That’s a great tip to share! Yes I have always been nervous and scared of summing in the sea… In Europe I have often gone to the Mediterranean and only gone in when calm.. sometimes it can be like a mill pond, but even then I would stick very close to the shore. I was petrified of the ocean on visiting Australia and wouldn’t get in as the waves looked so powerful….
Well actually Rachel, the waves are powerful. And so it’s important to discern lovingly when it’s safe to go in, and quite different from being afraid.
Dianne thank you – your comment has reminded my how much I love just lying on the surface of the water on my back and letting go – its like lying on a bed with no pressure, just a feeling of lightness and weightlessness – I have found the more I surrender, the more supported I feel by the water.
Definitely a metaphor for life here!
What an important distinction Dianne, it can be foolhardy to override a nervousness that is informing us that something actually may be dangerous. That is a natural human instinct and not to be confused with anxiety that can be there for many different reasons. We have to accept the fragility of our human bodies and take care of them by being more discerning in situations that may cause us damage.
I love that last paragraph, Rebecca, about how we breathe through life and how the quality of our breath and our movements affects everything. Experimenting and learning in the pool with Simone has been a huge support in bringing that quality to life, and clearly seeing the ripple effects of everything we do.
From one giraffe to another, what you say is so true though, it is the dry times between swims that support us to swim well. I know now that when I slip into the water these days, how my body feels when I swim and how my breathing is, offers me a direct reflection of how I have been living on a daily basis. I have learnt to befriend the water and appreciate its qualities. Thanks to the very loving guidance by Simone Benhayon, I have been wowed by the magic I have experienced in a realm that used to be so threatening.
Absolutely Mary – Simone Benhayon’s incredible way of teaching has been recognised nationally, and she has won numerous awards from various organisations around the UK. Her integrity and work/teaching ethic is truly one of a kind.
The fear around learning to swim is very common and for some people it never goes. How beautiful to read the pure enjoyment you have swimming now and how this has assisted in the confidence you feel in your everyday.
What you have shared Rebecca confirms something that I have increasingly become aware of lately – when we make it about protection by having fear and insecurity, we tend to go into a raciness and seem to be totally at the whim of our fight/flight nervous system. This seems to have something to do with breathing short, sharp and often out of the mouth and can only end in a state of overwhelm with a lung full of water. But instead of coming from a point of fear (disconnection), if we come from a point of stillness (connection) we are able to move in and with this quality, something that breathing gently through the nose seems to encourage. I love your analogy of breathing through life. I’m finding if I too move through life with this quality of breath then I am less affected by what is going on around me. By observing and not absorbing my surroundings my lungs not only remain free of ‘water,’ there is also more space for the expansion of joy to be felt.
This is such a great sharing Rebecca – learning how to swim from the inside out, not the outside in.
Learning to swim with a pole prodding you sounds like something out of the dark ages – no wonder you felt terrified. What you have accomplished here, with Simone’s awesome guidance, is truly transformational.
I’ve always loved swimming Rebecca, but after reading your gorgeous blog I can recall for myself all of the anxiousness that came about with it ..from learning, to being in classes where I could never get the technique ‘right’, I loved backstroke but had a fear of running crooked into the lane rope as I once cut my arm on the plastic of it. I haven’t yet tried nose breathing but have always wanted to, thank you for your inspiration with this and for sharing what is actually possible ~ to swim in a way that is harmonious to your body and the water itself.
Wow it’s so lovely to read all the comments and read of everyone’s experiences with swimming. It’s a new joy in my life that feels so great to share.
I have always loved the water theres just something about it that brings out another playfulness, when I hear about how traumatic some peoples experience has been it truly blows me away.
It is so empowering to be able to re-imprint that what the true experience of swimming should be…. FUN
Absolutely Jamie.
We have the potential to stop surviving and suffering in life and bring fun back to all we do. But that change comes from the quality of which we live and how we choose to be in the world. The more love, playfulness and joy I bring into how I live, the more I stop seeing life as a way to get by but actually a continuous learning and growing.
I love the way you enjoy your bubbles – or should I also say, how you enjoy your breath! The way you wrote about the bubbles reminded me of how a little baby is so content with the simplest of things as he joyfully explores them. Very lovely.
Yes, I agree Rosanna, “bubbles” reminded me of how children (and babies) are so content with them. I suppose they are able to find true beauty in simplicity.
I agree Rosemary. I too could feel the beauty on offer via these bubbles: they are beautiful because they are formed by the quality of the chosen breath. Ever noticed the shapes that we cut in the water when we are in a panic, the way Rebecca has described her first swim lessons to be? This can also be applied to life. Our movements carve shapes in the air and the loveliness or ugliness of these is determined by the quality of the way we choose to move.
True Liane, and there’s nothing lovelier than watching someone walk or move in naturalness of their own grace.
Powerful grace and presence.
Yes indeed, Liane, and Simone has brought to our awareness in the water sessions how our quality is magnified in the water, so we get a very clear reflection of how we have been living. This is an incredible support as a truthful check-in point.
It reminded me of this too Rosanna, ‘The way you wrote about the bubbles reminded me of how a little baby is so content with the simplest of things as he joyfully explores them’, it is lovely to watch how babies and young children enjoy the most simple things, like looking at their hands and playing with their feet and with children on cold mornings enjoying seeing their breath as the air is so cold.
Bubbles! YEAH!
I see as well the similarity to a baby here, which is enjoying being and exploring in absolute innocence. With bringing joy back into our lives we also claim our innocence back. Beautiful!
And I guess life is much more easy and joyful if explored, if life gets space to unfold instead of tried to control….
Again: Lets go for Bubbles!!! Let’s bubble together.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing so beautifully your transformation in the pool. Your joy at discovering and playing with gently breathing through the nose and watching the marvellous bubbles whilst gliding through the water is deeply felt.
Swimming lessons for me at school were notoriously bad – everyone did anything that they could to get out of them. We had an open air pool – in England’s climate…with no heating (I’m sure!) and cubicles with plastic curtains that blew every which way in the wind, exposing our changing pubescent bodies to all around. It was a truly hideous experience before we’d even got in the pool. We then had our lesson, propelled by fear and competition. Followed by the race to get dressed and to the next lesson before the bell rang and punishment ensued. Consequently no-one ever dried properly and our long hair stayed wet and cold for hours to come.
As you can imagine the thought of swimming has not been so appealing. However having been to the Creative Aquatic pool I have come to understand that it does not have to be that way. The water is gorgeously warm and there is the time and space, should I allow myself, to look after myself throughout the whole process.
Learning and allowing ourselves the time to re-imprint activities, lifestyles, behaviours is so important for it takes the previously harmful and fearful and turns it around on its head. It doesn’t always have to be that way.
I used to avoid swimming at all costs, I’d love going to pool but would spend all my time in steam, sauna and jacuzzi and it would be very rare if you saw me in swimming pool. Since having a session with Simone Benhayon I have ventured back into the pool to now find myself actually enjoying it, in fact I now swim 3-4 times a week just for ten minutes each time yet I can really feel how this ten minutes offers such a great support to the way I’m living.
I know all too well the ‘survival’ style of swimming you talk about Ariana, and it is the very nature of breathing through your mouth in the pool that engages that “survival intensity”. I have found the more I have consciously chosen to live to a quality in my day to day life; dry-side, rather than just a functionality , then the easier I find it to breath through my nose when it comes to swimming in the pool, as I have less of that ‘survival’ momentum running.
It is so gorgeous to re-read this article Rebecca, I went swimming yesterday and instead of pushing myself to swim so many lengths I was inspired by your article to just enjoy being in the water, I was more playful and noticed my bubbles too and just enjoyed going under the water, thank you .
Your beautifully joyful blog Rebecca allowed me to feel just how much I love swimming. Maybe it’s time to re-connect with it once again. Thank you.
I love this Rebecca.
I appreciate the beauty of what you have described, gliding and playing in the water. Everyone deserves to experience this way of swimming.
Great blog Rebecca! I used to love swimming when I was younger but in later years have resisted going for various reasons. I have recently started going to the pools again regularly to do some exercises, but still holding off on putting my face under and doing front-crawl! You have inspired me to start building up to this on my next trip to the pools, thank you 🙂
Gorgeous Rebecca. I’ve had swimming lessons with Simone Benhayon since I was quite young, and find that the breathing through your nose technique is absolutely fantastic. Even though I might be moving fast through the water, bringing focus to my breath makes my stroke much smoother and allows me to stay present with myself. I highly recommend trying it.
Wow Rebecca,
Thank you for sharing 2 very different experiences.
You are right that we are taught to use swimming as survival – which has always made me feel anxious.
I was taught to swim by taking big gasps of air. But they way you describe you now swim, and have a relationship with water and your breathing, sounds worlds apart.
I don’t breath through my nose when I swim – but after reading this I am so inspired to try this and change the relationship I have with the water.
Everything you have said apart from the first way you learnt to swim I nodded whole heartedly with as I read your blog Rebecca. Just yesterday I was in the Creative Aquatic pool and was with my daughter who has learnt to swim with Simone Benhayon – to watch her learn is remarkable and worthy of a blog of its own, truly miraculous. We were on the side of the pool just making bubbles and relaxing our bodies and breath as my daughter was doing a lot of gasping and panicking. I really enjoyed this and we had so much fun just looking at each other under the water blowing bubbles from our noses. When I then swan freestyle my whole swim felt different I was at ease in the water like I had never felt before, and it allows me to just be myself on land too as you have expressed Rebecca. I too have loved and learnt so much about living through relearning to swim from SimoneBenhayon. Amazing.
Gosh Vanessa, from your example it shows that when we get our breath right and allow joy and playfulness what follows can only be harmonious.
The more I am with myself, the more lovely it feels to swim, to feel the water flow around my body as I slide through the water, such a gorgeous feeling.
I can really relate to your earlier experiences with water and swimming. I would panic and was not a strong swimmer at all, but had a really vivid imagination and used to think sharks would be released in the pool and that would make me panic even more! With great thanks to the dedicated swimming instructor Simone Benhayon I have such a different understanding of swimming. She has helped me overcome fears and I have never known anyone to teach like her. I now have more awareness of my body in the water, am playful in the water and enjoy it, not panicking and can swim the front crawl which I thought I would never be able to do.
Thank you for sharing Rebecca, I don’t have a problem putting my head under the water now, although I used to. I still struggle with my breathing.
It struck me that I don’t really know how I breath when I swim. Nose? Mouth? I’m so much looking forward to explore this! Thanks for your gorgeous article, Rebecca.
Wow – it’s so lovely to read how many people absolutely love swimming, and the huge benefits everyone feels from such a simple form of exercise.
Thanks for this blog Rebecca, I haven’t been swimming in a long time but I know the feeling of enjoying being with my body when I go walking and the joy that this brings. I am quite inspired to go to the pools for a swim now!
Me too Brooke – I had forgotten how lovely swimming is when your are connected and breathing your own breath.
Thank you Rebecca,
I wanted to know more about what Simone does and reading how it transformed how you swim and how it has supported you out of water as well makes me feel that anyone can learn to swim and breathe this way to be more with themselves which is a joyful experience in or out of water! I can’t wait to try this when the weather get warm here.
Rebecca I was always reluctant to swim as a child due to the swimming lessons I had where the instructions were given by the side of the pool and it was presumed you would know how to handle the water and depth. Thank you for sharing how you were supported through every stage of your lessons and that the fear was met with the joy you felt when you created those sweet little bubbles.
Thank you Rebecca for your inspiring sharing. It was beautiful to feel your joy as you connected to your breath as you began to swim, let go of your fear and how this has extended through your life. A beautiful reminder of how when we make loving choices in one area of our lives it flows into the other aspects of our lives, as they are all connected through you.
I couldn’t agree more, Rebecca. Simone Benhayon has also shown me a new way to be in the water, but also in life and in relationship with myself and others.
This is so true, I feel exactly the same, Simone Benhayon has shown me an easier way to swim and how to let go of anxiety but also shown me a more loving and committed way to live.
Yes Janet! Simone Benhayon has shown me there is an art of being in the water which reflects daily choices and living. She is more than “just” a swimming teacher she is a teacher of life. Swimming has taken on a whole new dimension for me personally. I have so much appreciation for what has been shown to me by being in the water.
I agree Rachel, Simone Benhayon showed me this “art of being in the water” as well. For me swimming and being in the water is now a reflection of how I lived my life and that is an incredible gift. Therefore I am deeply thankful that Simone Benhayon had offered me and others this wonderful opportunity to understand more of myself.
This is wonderful to read Rebecca, I have had a very similar experience, when I was young I had the long pole in a group swimming lesson and never really developed a swimming technique and never felt confident in the water, I had a fear of putting my head under the water and never wore goggles. After having adult swim lessons at Simone Benhayon’s swim school, on the first lesson I wore googles and went under the water and was surprised that actually it’s ok and yes enjoyable.
Dear Rebecca, your blog reminded me how I love to swim and feel my body stretch out and glide through the water. From as today I will focus on my breath more and open myself to a deeper joy and connection to my body. Thank you.
I went swimming yesterday on my own for the first time in ages and was inspired by this blog to remember the joy I felt as a child playing in the water, which was so different from the anxiety of swimming lessons. As I swam I felt the loveliness of stretching and practising breathing through my nose and feeling the detail of my movements.
You’ve brought back memories of my experience of learning to swim. In the last swim session there was a rite of initiation of having to leap from a high ledge into deep inky water and swim to a hanging ladder. It was a harbour pool surrounded by a slimy rope lattice, supposedly shark proof. I love water but have never felt comfortable swimming as it’s something I do rather than feel into. Rebecca you have inspired me to this time gently take the leap to re-imprint by blowing bubbles and feel the joy of my body moving through the water.
Developing a connection through our breath is our first port of call. It is my number one marker. This blog is much more than about swimming, but is a lovely reminder that as life tries to get the better of us, we simply need to breathe our own breath to bring us back. This is a great blog Rebecca.
I have also been very aware Matthew, that all I experience and feel in the pool is a reflection of how I live in my life. It gives me a whole picture of the energy I live in, my relationships with myself, people and the world, where my comforts are that take me away from myself, and the health of my body. It also usually tells me how I have been living in the last few days! All this and enjoying it too, as Rebecca so clearly expresses in this joyful blog. It doesn’t have to get heavy, just being in the water and enjoying my movement is enough.
Beautifully written Matthew, this is so true, ‘as life tries to get the better of us, we simply need to breathe our own breathe to bring us back’. Swimming is a great reflection of this.
Since reading your blog Rebecca, I have been swimming and I recalled your joy at creating bubbles under water, a simple act that felt great. This evening, for the first time in a very long time I noticed the beautiful abstract bubbles I was forming under water and it reminded me of the games I used to play submerged as a child full of playfulness.
Thanks for sharing Rebecca, that is a great point about…
“This ongoing experience is giving me growing confidence in my life too. The same principles apply when breathing my way through life. By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear”.
I feel this as a great tool to re connect as when I’m out I can no longer feel my chest moving up and down so I then become more present with my breathing and then I’m more me again.
I’ve always loved water and used to go in the water nearly everyday but I used to hate swimming pools – or least the pressure I felt to get to the other side in a certain time. It wasn’t a matter of fitness as I was very physically fit. It was the anxiety that I wasn’t fast enough-aka good enough, and would incur the wrath of someone because my rhythm didn’t suit theirs.
Learning to breathe though my nose and staying with myself is something I’ve taken out of the pool too. I used to go to swimming lessons when I was young and the fear of not keeping up was the same fear I had at school and the same fear I can have at work when I think there is a lot of work to be getting through. It’s like I pile on everything I have to do into one moment and feel like I’m drowning.
Coming back to my breathing and one stroke or one task at a time is very healing. Simone has been an amazing instructor of not only swimming but living.
Thanks for sharing this, Karin. It is amazing what we can put on a moment, and what a pressure or tension this can create. Thanks to my swimming with Simone, I am re-learning to just connect to myself, my breath and my body in the water and it is such a support now in my day.
Such a fun blog to read Rebecca, I could feel how you began to enjoy swimming when you started lessons with Simone and practiced breathing through your nose. Simone has an amazing way of making you feel at ease in the water by bringing the fun back into swimming. I always used to think that swimming was about doing lengths, but now I know it offers so much more than this. If I have had a tense day at work and I go swimming I can feel how my breathing changes, it looses its rhythm and I start to get anxious about reaching the other end of the pool. Once I am aware of this I can gradually bring myself back and take my swimming more gently and find a rhythm to my breathing again. This is something I have been able to take into my life and it has helped me if I get anxious at work.
Thanks for this beautiful blog Rebecca. I have never liked swimming as I never had the opportunity to learn to swim properly as a child and was terrified of drowning, though I have improved somewhat with my own makeshift way of doing it.
You have inspired me to have a go at learning this way, it feels so gorgeous, your connection to yourself with it I could feel so very strongly. Thank you.
So beautiful Rebecca, to read how you started to enjoy swimming, step by step undoing the old survival habits and letting go of all the fear. I too am very inspired by Simone Benhayon and today I love front crawl and breathing through my nose, it is just the most exquisite and divine way to be in the water.
I don’t consider myself a classic swimmer but I do love swimming regularly for exercise. While I haven’t had the opportunity to train with Simone Benhayon, I have nonetheless been taking the time to focus on my breathing and just feeling how my body is going with each stroke. I find after swimming that my whole body feels refreshed and I am vitalised to move on into the day ahead.
There is something special about swimming that really does leave your whole being revitalised and refreshed. So much has changed for me with swimming as I no longer push myself to see how many lengths I can complete (which was hard work and not particularly enjoyable – it also left me exhausted) instead I enjoy the whole experience and swim as much or as little as I feel to and the difference is evident with the rejuvenated feeling I am left with.
Awesome blog Rebecca. I too had the opportunity to learn to swim with Simone. I never liked swimming and I only could do some breast stroke swimming but it would give me neck and shoulder pain because of holding my head above the water. I only took 3-4 swimming sessions with Simone and she didn’t teach me techniques, just to be confident and connect to myself in the water. That was enough to try and enjoy a couple of times a week at our local swimming pool and to learn how to swim crawl or freestyle and absolutely enjoy swimming. It was amazing to experience that swimming is not about the technique, but about how you are with yourself!!
I never recall any fear around learning to swim as a child. All I can remember was knowing how to swim and really enjoying it. Mucking around in the water and doing my own thing was fun but actual formal swimming stokes, particularly freestyle felt awful but wasn’t sure why. Recently I have taught myself to swim freestyle breathing only through my nose, it has totally changed how the stroke feels and I feel doing it. I can now swim this way continuously for an extended period of time simply because it feels so good. I highly recommend giving it a go.
This blog has taken me back to my early experiences swimming which were in some ways different to yours. I remember loving swimming and remember my swimming teacher was always in and out of the water with us. She was passionate about it which has given me a wonderful foundation to swimming and a love of the sport. I was though, taught to breath through my mouth which invariably meant gasping for air. When I was first introduced to breathing through my nose I felt this was impossible but over time I have learnt to adopt this way and have found a grace emerging in the way I swim.
Thank you for your lovely flowing blog Rebecca and gorgeous to read how that joy and confidence through your connection to your body in the pool is naturally reflected in other areas of your life.
Thank you Rebecca I loved reading about the joy you have discovered in re-learning to swim using the amazing techniques of Simone Benhayon and how this has supported you in other areas of your life as well. I feel inspired to have another go at swimming and work on my breathing which I have found so challenging in the past.
Thank you Rebecca. Reading your blog has been very healing and inspiring for me to reflect on the quality of my relationship with swimming.
So true…I’ve only had a couple of sessions with Simone, but the difference in how I breathe, move and feel while swimming is amazing. It’s gone from a chore to a joy.
I love the way Simone introduced breathing through your nose while swimming. I haven’t had a swim lesson with her before but I heard that’s what she teaches so each time I go swimming I give it a go and it is so beautiful so joyful and such a great activity that you can do to just be with yourself and feel your body going through the water.
Rebecca how amazing that what you have learnt and experienced in the pool has also become your experience out of the water. You are enjoying being you both in and out of the water.
What a great blog Rebecca- thank you. It was a total joy to read and it is the first blog that I have read about a truer way of swimming, so this was refreshing. The way you learnt and I suppose many many others have learnt to swim seemed very damaging.
It’s also lovely to feel how it’s never too late to reimprint something in a way that is supportive, expansive and joyful for the body.
Thank you Rebecca as you described the way you swam and felt the joy of being connected to your breath this supported me to deepen my connection with me. Very awesome, thank you 🙂
I agree Bianca, reading Rebecca’s experience I feel how the breath helps me reconnect to myself. I only very occasionally swim but when I do I love the feeling of gliding through the water and the lightness of the body. Learning to breath through the nose would make the whole experience so much more enjoyable.
Rebecca, I am so looking forward to getting in a pool and spending some playful explorative time with my breath and ‘bubbles’ in the water after reading your blog! Your description of this is absolutely gorgeous, and it demonstrates the power of true teaching – teaching that doesn’t push us, or force us into trauma (that can ‘stick’ for a lifetime), but encourages us to simply claim what our own bodies can do, to explore and discover this for ourselves.
I have swum with Simone Benhayon’s support and amazingly inspiring and joyful tutelage before, and found that it’s actually so easy… Am definitely inspired, and looking forward to more time in the water, especially through our Australian winter this year.
That my experience of swimming can be so different from one time to the next reflects to me how much the way I live impacts on how easily I can swim. I enjoy the practice of breathing through my nose as I know if this comes easier that how I am living has also been simpler and more harmonious. It is great to read of your experience Rebecca as I am sure for many it will be heartening to hear that you can turn around a bad experience and gain joy in swimming through learning and applying some simple techniques. Of course the right teacher always helps!
Hi Stephen G, yes I also find that my experience of swimming can be different each time depending on how I have been living my life. If I am feeling not quite myself I find it quite hard to breathe at all. I spend some time in the shallow end simply breathing out under the water and coming up again over and over again. This always helps me come back to myself and regulates my breathing.
Rebecca, you highlight very well the importance of breathing, not just in swimming but in other areas of life as well. I took up the piano when I retired seven years ago and my teacher is always telling me to breathe! Apparently, while concentrating during challenging passages, I have a tendency to hold my breath and my technique becomes more harsh and laboured, until I arrive at the end, red and panting!
In effect, it’s just like when I learnt to swim!
I find this too Stephen, sometimes when I’m swimming it flows and feels easy and other times I’m struggling, it’s great to have the reminder that it reflects how I have been living, ‘That my experience of swimming can be so different from one time to the next reflects to me how much the way I live impacts on how easily I can swim’
I loved being in the water as a kid but also learnt some ‘bad habits’ with swimming. I was completely focussed on being able to get enough air, and it felt like a struggle to get to the other end at times. I was introduced to nose breathing a few years ago too. It feels so much more natural. I have had to go back to basics but the enjoyment of hearing the smooth breath underwater, the way the water glides over my fingertips and no push to get to the other end are bringing the original joy back that I felt in water as a child.
Reading your blog Rebecca and your experience with swimming is so far removed from how I have ever experienced swimming. When I was about four I was taught to swim in the ocean by my mother and I remember going under and lots of water going up my nose and I have never liked my face being in the water ever since. So to read that you can breath in and out whilst in the water and the water will not go into your lungs was quite a revelation. I can see why you would have a feeling of panic initially but it feels like it was well worth relearning to swim in this way. Very inspiring.
Just to clarify Julie Matson, I do not breathe in under the water. I breathe in through my nose when I come up for air. My discovery about the water not going into my lungs was when I accidentally breathed in some water. Instead of the choking and spluttering I experienced when this used to happen when breathing in through my mouth, I noticed that this did not happen and the water simply went down into my stomach as if I was swallowing it. I can deal with that! It was this experience that made me realise that I do not have to panic and that I am not going to die.
This is a really educational blog Rebecca! I really had no idea that there was a difference between oral and nasal breathing while swimming. I must try this out!
Wow Rebecca, “breathing our way through life” – how beautiful is that. It illustrates so vibrantly the lightness that our way through life can have and the rhythms that are its basis.
Thank-you for sharing your experience Rebecca, such a transformation, and how beautiful your experience is in the water now. Showing us that everything when done with presence and quality, brings about true responsibility towards others and our part in that.
Rebecca, my childhood learning to swim experiences also left me feeling unconfident in the water until eventually as an adult I taught myself to swim, ad hoc mind you and not with my head under the water. I could really feel and connect to the beauty of what you have shared here and am inspired to develop a whole new relationship with being in the water and swimming.
What beautiful awareness Rebecca that life in the water is a reflection of how we are in life.
Absolutely Adele. And what I am finding is that swimming the front crawl is a reflection of how I deal with life. Can I move my limbs, breathe, and negotiate and respect others in the pool? It is exactly the same as life except it is magnified. I have learnt much from how I swim, and as I have learnt to swim more gently, with more space and without rushing this has shown me how I can be in my everyday life.
Rebecca I can so relate to your initial experience of learning to swim. I distinctly remember my swimming lessons as a child and feeling sick before I went every time. I remember not feeling supported and that it just did not feel right.
Now I love being in the water, paddling and swimming and would love to re-learn to swim with Simone as well. The quality you are talking about with your breath and movement in the water does sound amazing – how awesome for you to be able to experience now!
I remember the way I felt before going swimming too Amelia Stephens. I felt so anxious that I would shake. There is something about the swimming pool that magnifies everything, and I would simply feel frozen with terror. It feels so important for children (and adults) to be introduced to the water in a loving and fun way that helps them to feel confident and safe.
I have never really enjoyed swimming as a form of exercise,s and usually only wallow in the water in the height of summer to cool down. However, your blog has inspired me to get back in the water and give it another go, thank you Rebecca.
Thanks Rebecca for sharing this journey. It’s hard to even contemplate that this is how kids are taught to swim. The pole method is not my experience but can feel the disconnection between coach and student and how there is no support to learn but only survive. I loved this comment especially “I began to find a beauty in this and marvelled at the quality of my breath under the water and the wonderful bubbles that I would create. This felt gorgeous, and for a while it was enough just to do this”.
This was such a lovely blog to read Rebecca and it actually brought up quite a lot for me too. Although I didn’t learn to swim in this way (with the teacher using a pole), I do still feel quite a fear of the water as swimming as you said was taught as a means of survival rather than enjoyment. I really feel trying some of the techniques you have described, as taught to you by Simone Benhayon, would make such a difference to how I feel about being in the water. Thank you for sharing your story, it has definitely touched a cord in me.
This is such a beautiful sharing Rebecca, what a joy to read the change in your approach to swimming, and the ripple affect this has had on your whole life.
Rebecca thanks for sharing your story about swimming. I have recently taught myself to swim breathing through the nose. Albeit that it has taken some time and patience what I have found that by breathing through the nose there is no way that I can push my body. It has called me to deeply connect with my body and only going at a speed and lengths that allows me to continue to gently breath through my nose. I have found that I feel much more lovely in my body when breathing this way and have applied breathing through the nose in all of my exercise.
I fear water and can barely swim but would love to learn about Simone’s technique. Reading your blog Rebecca I could feel you gliding effortlessly and joyfully through the water while breathing your own breath. A celebration of life!
What a gorgeous reminder that swimming is joyful, when you learn to do it with gentleness and care.
Swimming lessons were different in Australia. Teachers were in the pool with us, but there was a lot of yelling and pushing and expectations and tests.
I could swim, but gee it was tied up with fear and so much anxiousness. As an adult the smell of chlorine would bring up the same feeling of anxiousness I had as a child. My skin would crawl and tingle with the same old fear I had at age 5.
This feeling is still in me, but less so now. You have reminded my to return to the pool Rebecca, and feel the bubbles from breathing out through my nose, and the beauty of the warm water against my skin.
Oh yes Rachel – the memories and the smell of chlorine!
Oh yes… the childhood memory of that pervasive smell of chlorine after being in the pool, that just followed you around all day and sometimes still there the following day even after showering again! Then the memory of the blue skin, the chattering teeth and the mug of hot bovril or oxo trying to restore the circulation again!
I agree with you Rachel – Rebecca’s blog has me feeling I just want to go and get back into the pool again and enjoy the bubbles and the silky feel of water gliding over my skin when being connected to myself.
Swimming is such a natural everyday activity in the Australian climate. When I first heard about how kids in the UK learn to swim with a pole I was a bit shocked as something like this is unheard of in Australia. Its so wonderful to hear how you have transformed your swimming experience to one that is joyful and that you look forward to. And yes that glide, flow and caress in the water – just divine.
I agree Marika, even having grown up in the UK, I was shocked to read about learning to be taught on with a pole, it sounds like something from the past and is no wonder that it instilled fear rather than a sense of joy to learning to swim.
I remember feeling quite challenged at the notion of breathing through my nose as I swam but now do it easily, and in fact, swimming and breathing through my mouth now feels awful as I gasp for air. There is an ease I feel in my body when I now swim and breathe through my nose, and a lovely rhythm that develops between my breathing and how I move my arms and legs. This is all based on what I’ve learnt from sessions with Simone Benhayon.
I have to say I am horrified at hearing how children are taught to swim in the UK. It’s completely different to my experience as a child and is not how I taught children when I worked briefly as a swim instructor. No wonder there is a lot of fear held about swimming, or rather drowning, and it seems like a dislike of swimming. This is not something I can comprehend as I have always loved being in the water and started swimming lessons at school so am also very confident in the water. I wanted the same for my son so as a new Mum I took my child along to baby swimming classes but he hated them and yet when we were playing in the pool by ourselves he clearly loved being in the water. So what was going on? I then heard Simone Benhayon talking about how learning to swim is really learning not to drown and so it is driven by fear. This made so much sense to me when observing my son and I decided I didn’t want him to have any fear when being in the water. So I never took him to another baby swim class but played with him in the water and let him discover in his own time what he can do in the water. At age 9 he loves swimming and playing in the pool. I can feel the same joy in you Rebecca as you write of re-learning to swim. I’ve played around a bit with breathing through my nose and I have to say the stillness I feel when I do so is exquisite. It’s not mastered yet but is definitely a whole new way of swimming.
Wow I love your blog. I too grew up in the UK and never had great swimming lessons. I taught myself how to stay afloat and I am able to do a few meters of swimming but then I start to tense up, get tired and sink. So I swim with contraction in my body. Your blog have just reflected to me that I hold my body in contraction also when I am out of the water. I would love to relearn how to swim with joy and openess in my body. I am very inspired, thank you.
An amazing blog Rebecca. One that will inspire so many of those who have had the similar experience of swimming that you had in your childhood. I was one of them myself and always terrified of deep waters where I could ‘possibly drown’. Simone Benhayon has and continues to inspire countless people with her ground breaking and amazing teachings. Teachings that can bring changes to your whole life and not just in swimming.
Thankfully our experience learning to swim in Australia is ‘poles apart’ from yours. Our instructors at least get in the water with us (maybe it’s too cold in the UK?). But in all other respects it’s the same, and here maybe with an overlay of being ‘beach fit’, able to ‘survive’ in the surf which can be rough. I remember as a child being dumped by waves on a number of occasions and thinking I was going to drown: this was seen as unpleasant but a normal part of beach life. Today, no way would I stay in a surf that was rough in any way.
This is an amazing story Rebecca. I don´t know any better swimming teacher in the world than Simone. Great she gave you the needed support to overcome your fear in the water. I can really feel your joy whilst swimming now- gorgeous.
Thank you Steffi. Yes it is very gorgeous and very joyful. When I go swimming now I can’t wait to get in the water. It is so much fun.
I have always loved water but at the same time also feared it somehow. I could swim but was not really enjoying it and always had difficulties to breathe. Breathing through my nose while swimming had never occurred to me until I was introduced to it by Simone Benhayon. With breathing through my nose and learning how to crawl instead of breaststroke, I have slowly come to enjoy swimming. Thank you Rebecca for sharing your joy of swimming.
I too love the water Esther but just thinking about having to put my head under water and coordinate my breathing with the movements of my arms, legs and whole body really leaves me feeling quite uncomfortable and to be honest a little bit fearful too. Maybe its time I did something about it.
I am sure many people have been instilled with fear by the way we are thought to swim. Simone is in the water with those she is teaching and helps everyone feel confident and playful. I have learned a lot from her even though I had no fear and always loved to be in the water. I can now feel where I am with myself by simply feeling the quality in which I move and breathe in the water. So simple yet so profound.
What a difference in swimming there is. The way I learned it, was out of fear to not drown. Nothing playful in that experience. An achievement is what it felt like. Learning to swim with Simone has changed my confidence in myself and in life. I especially love feeling every tiny detail of my body (when in the water). This connection to my body and staying there, being present with what I feel my body is builds so much confidence. Is also makes sure I don’t overdo it. And I love what I get reflected back when in the pool with bouncing onto people or the opposite: very fluently swimming with each other, hardness in my body, water in my nose or ears ect. Always a mirror of what is happening in my life as well.
A great sharing Rebecca. I relate well to your experience of learning to swim, very fear based and filled with dread and fear of drowning.
I love how you finish off here;
“This ongoing experience is giving me growing confidence in my life too. The same principles apply when breathing my way through life. By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear”.
Great how swimming has supported your confidence and joy on a daily basis. A true inspiration.
Thank you Rebecca. This is truly beautiful to read. When I learned to swim I loved being in the water but not the swimming classes. It was terrifying and especially swimming under water would make me feel very scared of not being able to come up and breath again. I love how you reflect on breathing with swimming and breathing in life. I can reflect that I was afraid of being out of my home and in the world for a long time. This has now changed a lot as I learned to stay with myself in the world so I am really looking forward to go and swim again.
What a wonderful blog, Rebecca. I can feel the joy in your description of the bubbles and how they are a constant reminder that life does not need to be feared. By staying connected to the loveliness of your own breath and the quality of your movements, you are choosing something beautiful that can stay with you every moment of the day, whether in or out of the water.
Feels very inspiring and also very revealing about the otherwise functional way we have been taught to swim instead of the true joy truly swimming with ones body. That swimming breathing though the nose bit is huge.. it causes so much tension in the body if you don’t..
Beautiful sharing of your experiences and learning Rebecca, I loved your conclusion: “By enjoying the quality of my breath and my movements and staying with myself in every moment I feel more joyful and feel that I can embrace life more fully and without fear”. It makes all the difference doesn’t it – and the breath is the key in all.
Until 2 years ago, my head was never under water. Sometimes I would make my hair wet and go under water, but always with my hand closing my nose. Even under a rain shower, I would not go fully underneath it, as this panic came over me. I would never dive into the water, as I needed to close my nose and it’s quite weird to dive with one hand…but then I had swimming classes with Simone Benhayon and everything changed. I started practising and within 1,5 years, I dive, I swim under water from one end of the pool to the other, I jump, I have fun and, this is the ultimate, I can actually do the front crawl and breath through my nose. At age 41 I have learned to swim, thanks to Simone.
Thanks for sharing Rebecca, as swimming has never come naturally to me I have avoided the pool; but now you have really inspired me to dive back in and work on my swimming breathing through the nose.
Dear Rebecca, I have never been a swimmer, I do enjoy being in the water and such, but as for swimming, it is not something that I have ever chosen to do for fun or exercise. On reading your experience though I can feel how so very supportive it can be to swim. Thank you for sharing how much you have learnt here for your self, as it is not just about the swimming, but about a dedication to ourselves, to truly support our bodies in every activity we choose to do.
Wow, what a horrible way to first learn how to swim! (The big metal pole thing) no wonder many people don’t find a joy in swimming.
I really loved hearing about how you re-learnt about swimming and it gave me a few tips on how to start breathing through my nose and getting used to it…I’ve tried a couple of times but the old habits kick in and I haven’t quite got the knack of breathing out of my nose whilst underwater just yet. It will be fun to try and practice !
I know what you mean Emily. I’d heard of Simone Benhayon’s swimming methods and this summer gave it a go. At first it was difficult but it became easier as I persisted and didn’t worry too much about breathing in a little bit of water. It’s a trust exercise in many ways! I didn’t know about the bubbles part so that’s super-helpful.
Rebecca I can’t imagine what it would be like learning to swim hanging onto a pole. No wonder there was so much fear about the water for you. I remember as a child the joy in hanging off Dad when I was in the water. He was never too far away for me to explore. I don’t spend a lot of time in the water now and have felt to get back into the water and certainly re-establish the joy that I experienced as a child as well as teaching myself to nose breath when swimming.
Reading your blog Rebecca resonated very much with glimpses I have had from learning to breathe through my nose whilst swimming, and it also brought back the potency of the swimming classes I have had with Simone Benhayon. In fact your expression of the joy you have reconnected to in swimming and spreading out further from that into the rest of your life made me want to go and jump in the pool immediately.
So true Josephine – the Joy is contageous.
I love your blog Rebecca – as a swimming teacher, it is awesome to hear how you have begun to enjoy swimming and being in the water, it really is a lot of fun! From what you have shared it seems many other adults may benefit from the technique of breathing through the nose as suggested by Simone Benhayon, I have swum this way for a long time now also under the recommendation of Simone, and find it is fantastic!
Rebecca I really enjoyed reading your experience of transforming your childhood swimming to on filled with joy. Thankyou.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your story of learning to swim, it is great to read of how you have discovered a love for being in the water that wasn’t there before. There are so many people in your situation who were not given a positive experience of swimming, how wonderful that you found a teacher who brought the whole experience to life for you.
Absolutely Stephen – finding a teacher that makes swimming about the quality of being in the water, enjoying it and using your stroke as another way to express is something very, very rare.
What I love about this is how you have taken what you have learnt to support you in the pool with swimming, namely connecting to the quality of your breath and movements, and brought this outside of the pool to support you in life. Something we can all be inspired by.
After I swim I am always left feeling so strong and solid in my body. So much is going on when we swim – arms are moving, legs are kicking, we are turning our head to breathe, sensing when the end of the pool is, and feeling how lovely the water feels to move through it. I love how when I focus and feel all of this happening there is no room for anything other than the moment I am in. Such a simple activity has become so enjoyable.
That’s so true Vicky, there’s something really whole-of-body about swimming. I love feeling supported by the water and weightless too!
Gorgeous Vicky, I can now relate to what you are sharing. What a joy!
Yes at times there seems to be a lot going on – kicking, arms, breathing (and sometimes even tumble-turns), but when we bring a focus to our swimming everything seems to become much less complicated and our stroke falls into a smooth rhythm.
It was gorgeous to feel your words become so joyful when you started to describe this new way of swimming Rebecca. I could sense it especially when you said how you glide. I remember learning to swim, and passing a test when I was young swimming with all my pyjamas on. My memory of this, like yours of the pole is more like an advanced kind of water torture than fun. So powerful then to feel how you are today and appreciate that swimming is in so many ways, a perfect reflection of how we are in life.
I almost felt like I was swimming along with you Rebecca Turner – a very beautiful description of your experiences. I am definitely inspired after reading this to have a bit of a play in the pool next time. I have been relying on my ‘pool noodle’ and kickboards to keep my head out of water, but it is time to take the plunge….with playfulness.
I love your sharing of swimming so much that I want to get into the pool and share the fun with you. Rebecca this has been very inspiring to go and play with the nose breathing technique. It’s great how you explain that you took it step by step. How amazing would it actually be to learn swimming from young by Simone Benhayon.
I have never heard of breathing through the nose instead of the mouth while swimming – this inspires me to give it a go. I can see from the comments though how it would connect you more to your body which is a good thing. Thank you Rebecca.
Me too Christine, I have never heard that either, however I have given it a go, breathing through my nose – it feels very different and is something I want to get more used to.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your journey with swimming from the frighten child reaching out for the pole to a woman in the joy of her breath and body in movement. Feels absolutely gorgeous.
Great testimony of how enjoyable swimming can truly be when we are connected to our body and breathe through our nose; it makes so much sense and it takes the fear and anguish away.
It is so beautiful and healing to re-claim oneself and hence enjoying oneself in whatever one does, like taking something back that seems to be lost by an event in the past or that simply slipped away. Coming back to oneself, the fullness of who we actually are is an amazing joy.
Alex I can feel the joy and freedom in re-claiming something that, for whatever reason we didn’t feel we could do or like doing. These experiences are a simple joy as the tension is released and the relaxation returns, freeing up a huge amount of energy so we can just be with whatever it is that we are doing. There is no unnecessary taxing or draining on our bodies and we have the energy and vitality to complete the task, then more than enough for what is next.
Do so agree Alex and Sandra. When I was supported to find my own form of expression through sketch notebooking I was amazed at how much the grade e art report (some 50 plus years ago) had been affecting my life..without my consciously being aware of it.
A beautiful testament to our having a constant choice, which if we let go of what used to be, can bring a different result
I enjoyed reading this Rebecca. I could feel your fears as I, too, have experienced the same feeling of panic when attempting to swim and breathe at the same time. I loved your analogy of enjoying your breathing and movements not only in the water but in life.
When I first swam with Simone Benhayon I used so much force to get me through the water. A few years on and I am now gliding through the water with a grace and a power – amazing really, and that is with almost no instruction but a hugely supportive and loving presence on her behalf, allowing for my self-awareness to grow as she responds to questions and comments in the clear and equal space she holds. A great article, thank you Rebecca.
I have never been a strong swimmer, and I spoke to Simone Benhayon about it a while ago, and she told me to practice breathing through my nose under water – which I have been doing every time I have a bath, and I could feel how tense my body was when I tried it the first time, and I am gradually getting used to allowing my body to just be. I can see how being in the water relates to how we are in life as well.
It is such a joy to be able to swim with no fear. I was there with you in the water bubbles and all. As a youngster I was taught to swim in the North Sea Brrr!!! add to the fear the immense cold and jelly fish was not a good combination. Swim I did – to survive. Hearing your experience Rebecca fills me and I’m sure many others with inspiration. Thank you.
Yikes, I remember learning to swim in jelly fish too, in a natural sea pool – very off-putting! It’s interesting how we can have all these ‘adverse conditions’ experiences when learning to swim. Is this supposed to toughen us up, prepare us for the ‘rigours’ of life in some way?
I am sure we could collate a great book of learn to swim stories that highlight how the impact of the swimming lessons have been with us ever since. I remember feeling the cold and never being able to last long in the water before shivering and turning blue. Somehow this always went un-noticed and I had to remain in the lesson until the very end.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing the beauty and harmony that one enters when movement, breathing and being fully present in the body all comes together in a unified way.
I can totally relate to the panic that swimming lesions would entail – minus being poked with a stick, more often than not I would prefer to swim on my back so that there was no possible way I could drown. The struggle to keep ones head above the water – just as I remember those times I remember the tension in my neck especially. But what was once an experience of stress and fears of drowning then for years after I have avoided swimming – what reading this blog has got me thinking is what if it doesn’t have to be that way? This blog has got me wondering not only about my avoidance to swimming because of past experiences but are there other parts of my life I am avoiding due to holding onto ‘the last time I did it is was horrible’. What if it was how I approached the situation rather than the actual situation? I am curious now to see how I would respond in the pool without the fears from past experience. Thank you Rebecca.
Loving this attention given to fresh starts – no longer do I need to be a victim of past experiences – every moment is new and up to me to choose. Thank you.
Lovely Matilda, “no longer do I need to be a victim of past experiences “. This is very true, we have the power to re-imprint all the time with a brand new joyful and loving experience.
Leigh, I also found swimming on my back safer and that’s how I swam for a long time. With the understanding and support from Simone and how to feel joy in the water, now I love swimming on my front and playing with my breathing. This has also supported me in looking at what I was avoiding in life for many years as the fear of survival was there for me.
I went and had a joyful swim yesterday that was most confirming, so it was so lovely to read your blog Rebecca.
As you say ‘swimming for survival is the way many learn to swim. For me there was a severe lack of joy and a great deal of anxiety associated with learning to swim’. This so reflected my experience of swimming and hence life. Through learning again in later years I am now able to connect to the joy and wonderment of swimming under the water, as my joy in life grows too.
Breathing through the nose is a work in progress but as I connect more to my body I find that my anxiety lessens and I am now able to move through the water with more ease. I still am surprised when I can look through my goggles and see the underwater world, and I too love to see the bubbles bubbling up to the surface and just enjoy the fun of bubbles.
I still am surprised that I trust myself more in the water, and although there is still a little residual fear of drowning I am gradually allowing myself more fun in the water without constant anxiety. I know I will visit your blog again as my joy in swimming increases.
For me too this new way of swimming was a very profound experience! To not survive in the water, but live in the water, the same as I would on solid ground.
My first swimming lessons were from men from the Navy, they just threw me into the water and I would be punished because I had so much fear. Not a very nice way to connect with water.
Now I love to experiment with breathing through the nose, making slow movements so I have plenty of time to breathe and to be playful.
Swimming has always come very natural to me… I love the water. Thank you for sharing your story. I really enjoyed reading your article on your journey with swimming…. it all makes so much sense. I too have felt how amazing I feel as my body moves through the water when I am truly present with myself.
Hi Rebecca, even though swimming has never been a big thing for me, I really enjoyed reading your blog. The way you describe your feeling in the water, the joy of breathing through your nose and the confidence it has brought into your life in general, I am asking myself; where is the nearest pool for me? I could feel the amazingness you portray, – thank you for writing about the true joy of swimming.
I very well know this feeling of being scared to drown, and actually feel very uncomfortable swimming, Thank you for inspiring me to look at this as a way of not being scared in life, as I have the opportunity I will surely get back to swimming and exercising with my breath.
And the water may help Benkt, if you see it as something that can support and work with you rather something to be feared.
Susie. Just love the way you see the water as a support mechanism, and not something to be feared.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing. Simone Benhayon is amazing and teaches a way of swimming that is entirely different from any other way, and it works.
She also suggests that the water in the pool is a reflection of the sea of energy we are ‘swimming in’ in the outside world, and that every movement causes a ripple and effects everyone else, everywhere as the ripple never stops. Hence, “The same principles apply when breathing my way through life”.
It is also interesting to note that when we are learning to swim, how we are so scared of sinking to the bottom and can’t understand how we could stay afloat, but when we have learned to swim, we can’t understand WHY we were so afraid, is in fact easy. Is it just a state of mind, after all many babies can swim under water without any hesitation, with their eyes open, then one day that all changes and the fear comes in and we tell ourselves we CAN’T swim, just shows how the mind has control over us.
That’s really interesting about babies Sandra Hendon! I’ve seen those amazing pictures of sub-aquatic infants and they seem totally in their element. Perhaps they think it’s a bit like the amniotic fluid that they were living in, not long before.
Brilliantly put Sandra, the teaching that ‘every movement causes a ripple and effects everyone else, everywhere as the ripple never stops’, is extremely practical, and knowing that I have this responsibility has made a huge difference to the choices I’ve made over the last few years.
Great point Sandra. Illustrating that fear and anxiety are indeed created by the mind, and that when we connect to and trust our body it knows exactly what to do when we allow it to just be. This applies to so many aspects of life.
Wow Rebecca what a beautiful turn around in your swimming and your life and so inspiring. The work of Simone Benhayon is changing peoples lives and bringing a real joy to swimming for everyone, something much needed in all our lives and the confidence and commitment that comes with it .The true way to swim and the way we are taught is revolutionary, being brought to us by Simone Benhayon and has completely changed my breathing , swimming and life also.Thank you.
Thank you for sharing Rebecca. I have always loved being in the water especially the sea. However, when it has come to swimming pools, like you, I had the fear factor of drowning come in. The thoughts ‘can I make it to the end etc’- usually this was with swimming pools where I could barely stand, so I literally had to get to the end! I too have also been supported by Simone Benhayons simple and very practical approach to swimming, along with finding the pool she runs, creative aquatic extremely supportive, I can stand anywhere in the pool. What it means is if I feel to stop I can, no panick. I now find it a real pleasure to swim there whereas before I would hardly ever go in a swimming pool.
Gosh Rebecca you describe so joyfully the experience of swimming with your body instead of swimming for survival. I remember the pole although I was never prodded by it! It was totally about survival and that fear stays with you in how you swim so to learn to swim so joyfully is a miracle.
Your comment Judy makes me realise just how much we teach our kids to do things from the perspective of survival rather than the perspective of fun and enjoyment. How gorgeous for all those kids who have the opportunity to learn to swim with Simone, where the emphasis is on learning to have fun in a very safe environment. This is surely the way we should be teaching all our kids all their life skills.
Yes, absolutely Rowena. We are taught school subjects in much the same way – to have security and safety in our future. When there is that ‘push’ or fear running the show, our bodies harden, shut down – and our awareness and focus becomes limited. How different life would be if learning did not come from this fear, but instead, allowed children to feel supported to open up and enjoy expanding their awareness and understanding of life.
The energy in which we are taught as children seem to stay with us forever so it is so important for the educators to bring all the care and love in their way of teaching as possible. Love back into education please !
I was re-taught to swim by Simone Benhayon too and now I’ve got to say it’s one of my all time favourite things to do! Not that I couldn’t originally swim, but the way I was taught freestyle was with such panic – always gasping for breathings and with the possible fear of drowning. So for much of my early adult life I only did breaststroke – because it was safe. Learning to breath out my nose in freestyle and to actually enjoy swimming to the max has been incredible. It took me a LONG time to really understand that swimming does not need to be a horrible survival experience, and that there’s so much grace and power in it – no more breaststroke for me!!
I can really relate to your story here Rebecca. For me, learning to swim was a painful business, full of fear and panic
and perhaps most memorably, that ghastly smell of Chlorine!… Also, one’s towel never seemed quite big enough to absorb all of one’s moisture and I can remember getting on the bus in the depths of winter with wet hair and soggy socks!
The English indoor pool had a grim municipal functionality to it, with very little evidence of the joy you describe. I suppose I was about 10 or 11 years old and anything, even double maths, would have been preferable to being sent to that Aquatic Temple of Doom! Somehow or other, I managed to survive all this and went on to learn to swim, but I have always had a slight phobia of underwater swimming because of the obvious drowning connotations. The only time I ever attempted Sub-Aqua, was in the lovely sunny Aegean sea in August with a one to one instructor, and even then, I was constantly told to slow down my breathing as otherwise I would use all the air up too quickly!! I must say that those lessons with Simone Benhayon sound inspirational, (no pun intended)!
Jonathan, I love your writing style! “even double maths, would have been preferable to being sent to that Aquatic Temple of Doom!” Although my experience wasn’t quite so intense, there was still no joy associated with learning to swim. It was just going up and down in drills practising the different strokes. Having observed Simone teach children, she offers a lot of fun in the pool …. to have had a teacher like her when little would have been amazing.
A great point and opportunity, Andrew, to bring awareness to the fact there are no compartments in life – how we are in one area affects everything else – so no work face/home face yo-yoing. Rebecca’s article celebrates a transformation for her that permeates every aspect of her life, which is inspiring.
A beautiful post Rebecca, you have expressed this so well ‘ the joy of re-learning to swim’. I certainly can relate to the school experience of learning to swim, it felt like torture. I too love swimming, have been through different phases but only recently discovered how to swim. Swimming under water and breathing was not a problem for me, I enjoyed this, breathing and swimming the crawl always felt like hard work. Thanks to Simone Benhayon and her group water sessions, I learned how to breathe in out through my nose swim and with practice found a lovely breath rhythm while swimming the crawl. It felt miraculous when it all came together. It’s amazing how gentle guidance can help. I threw out my cheapie goggles and invested in a pair that protected my eyes. It made a huge difference to the quality of the swim. How I swim now mirrors my life: I once felt life was hard work, it now feels like a miracle, simply because I have found a loving daily rhythm that supports me.
This is a gorgeous and celebratory blog, Rebecca. I loved reading how your relationship with swimming had changed. I have also experienced swim sessions with Simone Benhayon and I can honestly say she has “blown me out of the water” with her unique teaching style and outlook on this activity. Each swim lesson is an incredible gift in personal awareness.
That is a great description Rachel, it really is a celebration this blog of the joy Rebecca has found in swimming. It can be challenging to go from survival mode in water to enjoying those bubbles and the simplicity of the movement. The more the focus is on those little joys in learning, the less room there is for the fear that water causes to so many. This fear of water I see in so many people seems to run so deep and it is always a celebration when this is overcome.
‘Blown me out of the water’ – I love it Rachel.
I totally agree – Simone’s lessons are awesome – ‘blown me out of the water’ is a great description of them!!
Beautiful article Rebecca and one I can very much relate to. I have always been so afraid of putting my head under the water, and like you was terrified of being pushed or dunked. How amazing that by using one simple breathing technique it has enabled you to befriend the water and teach yourself to swim. Simone Benhayon is a wonderful swimming instructor who takes immense care in her teaching, being present in the water with you, teaching you how to breath through your nose and take time to build a new relationship with water, breathing, movement and finally swimming. Thank you for sharing your journey and also to show how by mastering breathing and movement in one medium we can bring that enjoyment into other aspects of our daily lives too.
Hi Rebecca, thanks for sharing your experiences with learning to swim. Its so interesting how a simple thing like changing the way you breath can have such an enormous effect on your experience both in the water and out in life. That you can now ’embrace life more fully and without fear’ is something to celebrate.
That’s true Debra. And thank you Rebecca for sharing.
In my teenage years I was called lovingly ‘little iron duck’ by our swimming teacher at school. He was understanding about my inability to swim but could not really help me out of that. Somehow in my adult years I learned by myself to keep me over water, but through just two or three water session with Simone Benhayon I got joy and confidence back without any pressure that I can learn swimming. And yes that helped me also to understand how I ‘swim’ through life.
Thank you Rebecca. I can completely relate to your blog about swimming. I learnt to swim in the sea, and never really learnt to swim but rather just learnt how not to drown or be swept away by the currents. So water became a symbol for how to stay alive in adverse conditions. Simone Benhayon has taught me that swimming can be fun, playful and a very real tool for living in the world with the presence of myself.
The opposite happened for me, Shami. Like Rebecca, my early swimming experiences being taught in the pool were difficult and frightening. It was an outside pool, freezing cold, the water only changed every six weeks, so most of the time covered in green slime and leaves, and being made to go under water. I actually learned to swim in the sea, which felt buoyant and warmer (it was summer), and calm at that time. But it was not until I also experienced Simone Benhayonn’s teaching and the wonderfully warm and gentle pool at the Sound Foundation, that I began to feel the joy of just being in the water. Thank you, Rebecca, for expressing what I am sure many of us feel who have experienced this.
Amazing to hear the support and inspiration that Simones classes offer. Bringing the lessons and reflections that occur in the pool out into the world to learn and grow from. A ground breaking way of deepening our awareness of ourselves in the world and our connection to our body.
Like yourself Shami, I learned to swim more for survival than enjoyment. The vagaries of the British climate always seemed to pour cold water (literally) upon the notion of swimming as fun. However, I’m glad I did, as I am now a boat- owner which is hardly compatible with having a fear of water. I approach swimming rather in the same manner as the Hippopotamus, a convenient way to cool off during an August heatwave!
Thank you for the gorgeous sharing of re-connecting with yourself and swimming. I can completely relate with your early experiences with swimming and also the amazingness of losing the fear of swimming through the support of Simone Benhayon.
Originally learning to swim like that, relying on a pole, being prodded with the only incentive being to not drown – what an awful first experience of swimming! It seems non sensical and no wonder it put you off swimming. When you start talking about playing with the bubbles and learning to just experience floating around under the water that reminded me of how I learnt to swim. For me it was all about playing, and for a time I did not even bother learning to swim above the water realising I could glide around, and simply push up from the bottom, or grab the side for a breath of air when I needed it.
What your blog has reminded me of is how simple and playful the everyday is, and if we relax and just be ourselves then gradually our confidence builds and what we are doing develops. Of course it helps having a wonderful teacher, and Simone has also done plenty to help improve my swimming, and co-incidentally how I am in life.
Beautiful Simon, I love how you describe the playful way we naturally are, with no lessons needed. How odd it is we see things so divided in life, and never consider that the way we are with one thing applies to the all. It’s beautiful to read how you and many others here have benefitted from Simone Benhayon’s teaching. It feels like it is no coincidence that life changes too, when we change the way we are in the pool.
I agree Joseph. I love the quality Simone brings in here with the way we learn when left to our own devices with no expectations or goals and how as you say, “we rarely consider that the way we are in one activity could be applied to all our activities”. Simone Benhayon has helped me enormously with developing my confidence in water and I have completely changed the way I swim. Her focus on the breath and breathing through one’s nose has made all the difference. What appears to be baby steps at first have become a foundation throughout my day, focusing on the quality of my breath and movement can be applied both in and out of the pool with superb results.
Yes it seems so odd to learn to swim with a pole…what happened to the human element of touch and support? It seems that Simone Benhayon has brought common sense back into the UK swimming mentality and that so many have benefited from this approach. I have also been fortunate to have had some swim lessons with Simone when she has visited Australia and they have been very inspiring and supportive for my everyday life.
Yes, Simone’s way of teaching is much needed in the UK. Her whole way of teaching is based on helping people to learn to love swimming. Totally different from the cold and heartless methods that were available when I was a child that were primarily about swimming for survival. Her methods are so supportive and have helped so many people to feel confident in the water.
I agree Rebecca Turner and Marika. Simone Benhayon’s approach to swimming is sorely needed all over the world. Her decision to be in the water with her pupils brings much needed support and care to the lesson and all the way through, the focus is not on perfect technique but on allowing the person to relax their bodies and befriend the water. Her approach revolutionised my fear of swimming and her many awards prove that 100s of other people feel the same way – she is a remarkable swimming teacher and coach.
This is a lovely story Rebecca, I heard numerous nightmare stories about the dreaded stick way of learning. The way I learnt was way more enjoyable but still about survival. As kids we learnt to swim by jumping into a river at the back of our farm and it was sort of a case of swim or drown. My arms would be going round at about ninety miles an hour but getting nowhere fast. Learning to swim again with Simone has been an amazing experience for me as well.
I know the feeling. After years of swimming in the ‘normal’ way, I also relearnt swimming via Simone. First of all to learn the crawl, which was never my favourite. Why? Because of the breathing and the coordination. After some very practical tips I too started to apply them in the pool. I loved the feeling of not having to finish to get to the end of the pool. Just feel what is right for me at that moment. In this way, I dropped the automatism to get in the pool and ‘do’ 20 up and downs the pool. The breathing was the next part. I love the bubbles with the out breath. I am still practicing to breathe in, I had a tendency to grasp for air. Another helpful tip was: just make bigger and slower e.g.conscious gentle movements, with your arms. All of a sudden I had more time to breathe. It felt like a reflection on my life: to give myself time to live! By now, I am loving it, sliding through the water, consciously present with all of me in the water.
Thank you Caroline, Rebecca’s blog and all the comments including yours is like a learning manual for a gentle, loving and fun way to swim. I love the tip about making gentle movements which creates more time to breathe… I will take that tip with me to the pool when I give breathing through my nose a go.
Great blog Rebecca that feels to me to be about much more than just swimming. You have described here how swimming has been transformed for you from a struggle for survival to feeling absolute joy and being at ease in the water all through changing how you breathe. I realised as I was reading that this example could easily be applied to life in general. How often do we feel like we are struggling to keep our heads above water in daily life? And what if there was a way we could simply choose to live differently that would make life joyful and easy and playful and even fun? And what if this simply started with choosing the way we breathe?
I loved reading about how Rebecca has transformed not only how she is in water and with swimming but her life. The joy and playfulness of this transformation just oozed out of her words and I could feel how I could recognise that I could have this too.
I agree Andrew, in Rebecca’s writing there is a lot more being shared than just the joy of swimming. There is the joy of life when we make things simple and life is not about pushing and being prodded as Rebecca was in the pool, but in allowing ourselves the opportunity to make life fun and easy. I teach swimming and I find the best outcomes are when there is no expectation on the swimmer whether adult or child, just a healthy respect for the individual’s learning process and a lot of encouragement.
Stephen it is so true what you share but I know myself it is almost automatic to have expectations of how or what progress ‘should’ be being made. It is a real choice that needs to be made to focus on what is important the breath and being present and enjoying where you are at, not where you want to get to or where you have been.
Every thing we do mirrors how we’re living. I recently had an experience in the pool, I wasn’t fully present with myself, lost orientation and swam into other people. The quality of the swim perfectly matched an imbalance in myself that morning.
Andrew your comment has made me reflect on how we use the analogy of keeping our heads above water in daily life. Great observation. I have found by taking control of how I chose to breathe (outside of the water) also has a profound effect on how I feel. That steady more centred feeling helps me to drop the struggle I felt life was and actually start to enjoy it.
I love this reminder Debra – when we choose to breathe our own breath the less struggle we create with life (in and out of the water!).
It was a joy to read this blog this morning Rebecca, as I am sure many others will find it a joy too. I loved the comparsion or link you made with breathing in the water to; ‘breathing my way through life’… and how by having more awareness of your breath and all your movements, this has helped you to stay with yourself, embracing life and letting go of your old fear. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve always loved swimming and the feel of being in the water, but I have never really gone for front crawl, breast stroke and back stroke is much more comfortable, mainly because of the breathing and not getting water up my nose or in my eyes. Even though I wasn’t poked with a stick in swimming classes, which sounds a little comical but truly must have been awful, I had a float stuffed down my swim suit instead. If I look at swimming as a reflection of my life, then the main theme would be comfort, which is a little uncomfortable to admit. It seems there is a lot of value in re-learning to swim as an adult… in fact there is the potential to re-learn how to be in life.
Thank you Rebecca. I enjoyed your playful bubbles and I too have noticed that as I gain confidence in one aspect of my life in the way I do something that this builds confidence in the way I approach other challenges.
I agree Mary. Building confidence in one area of our life directly supports the development in all other areas of our lives and this includes us feeling the strength of this confidence and how it holds us in such a way that we can address the hurts and challenges that in the past we sometimes did not want to face. I am also realising more and more that this re-building of ourselves also flows on to inspire and support re-building of others too and directly supports their development equally. This whole process is really quite beautiful and something to appreciate.
Rebecca thank you, a beautiful reminder about what is possible when not only being consciously present when we do something but that the quality of presence we choose in each moment is a key factor. It is an amazing transformation that you describe that has clearly impacted other areas of life considerably too.
Agree Jenny not only is this blog a testimony to her now amazing ability to stay present when swimming but to have this translated (overflow) into other areas in her life as well Life can’t be segmented and this a beautiful example why we would never want it to be.
What an awesome sharing Rebecca! Water can be so frightening if we are not supported and I can’t believe the way we were so called ‘taught to swim’! Cruel really. Your rebirth into swimming with ease and joy was a delight to read and I could feel the playful child there too as she befriended the bubbles, instead of fought to survive the gulps of air. Thank you.
What an inspiring story Rebecca and one I can really relate to. I too felt the lovelessness of swimming instructors and although I didn’t experience the stick, I was pushed off the side as I was in a diving position by a sports teacher and I felt that I was drowning. I haven’t been able to put my head under water since and I can still collapse into tears if anyone splashes me. I have attended Danielle Pirera’s water exercise classes and now I enjoy the gentle exercises she shows us with the pool noodle and feel a lovely connection with the water. I look forward to being able to glide under the water one day.
Isn’t it gorgeous Irene to discover the joy in exercising in water. Super playful and delightful.
I agree, such fun exercising in the water. I am finding for myself that doing exercises in the water or doing laps in the water are very different experiences. Whilst I didn’t get prodded with poles, there was still that swim to survive mentality, which upon reflection, still lives within me.
That was my first ever experience of being in a swimming pool Irene, I was 7 or 8 years old. The swimming instructor held my feet at the side of the pool and as I was (sort of) in a diving position pushed me in the water. That did not encourage me to go back!
What I love so much about your blog Rebecca Turner, is that because you changed the way you are with yourself while swimming in the water you also transformed your fear of life into enjoying life in all its smallest details. How amazing is that!
Thank you Rebecca for sharing your journey with swimming. As I was reading it, especially the parts pre breathing through your nose, I felt my whole body stiffen and I was holding my breath… remembering all the times I swam in complete fear. But when I read how you were so gentle with yourself and took your time with yourself (something that was absent before) while learning to breathe through your nose while swimming… my whole body relaxed and I wanted to go out and give myself that same opportunity to re-imprint with gentleness and no pressure. It so clearly shows we can change and re-imprint anything in our lives.
Well said Aimee, how awesome to feel the difference when we choose to stay connected to our bodies, listening to what it tells us, rather than going into the drive from the head – to do more – to be more. Nobody wins with this constant push. Allowing the natural flow and ease is all the body needs in movement.
This has inspired me to give swimming another chance – I had written it off as too ‘uncomfortable and too much effort’ but I love being in the water so I will have another attempt at breathing through my nose after reading this Thankyou –
Fabulous Debra. It’s great you feel inspired.
you won’t regret it swimming is so incredibly supportive and revealing!
I too feel inspired by Rebeccas article Debra. I have never been much of a swimmer and was forced to go under the water as a child by a fiersome PE teacher which scared me half to death! But after reading this I feel that it’s time I gave swimming another chance. How Rebecca describes gliding through the water so effortlessly feels absolutely gorgeous, so I will also have another attempt at breathing through my nose in the water.
Yes, Aimee, it is really beautiful to learn how to breathe properly while swimming. Everything can flow from breathing harmoniously and when it works it feels really nice.
I really enjoy swimming as well. Recently I experienced something very similar to you Rebecca. I was feeling every stroke in the water and feeling the absolute joy in the exercise.
After the swimming session I felt a lot of the tension in my body released and felt a spring in my step.
The session had completely no impact on my body, instead completely supported the fluidity the body. And your right this translates to every aspect of daily living.
It is so lovely to feel the joy in your article Rebecca, and how the quality of your breath in the water flows equally into your life. I really enjoyed ready and feeling this.
Thank you Rebecca, I could feel my connection with myself deepening as I read through your article…and I wasn’t even in a pool!
There’s such a great lesson here on the marvellous benefits we can enjoy in our lives simply by being present with our bodies, breath and movement.
Same Rod! I connected to my breath and my body, my shoulders dropped and I felt my body much more. The power of sharing your expression heh!
Me too Rod. I too felt a deepening connection with myself as I read Rebecca’s article. I am learning how to exercise in a supportive and nurturing way and now feel inspired to further develop that connection as well as transform my interaction with water and my body through swimming in this way.
I find it’s important to exercise and nurture the body in a loving way, it then is very supportive.
Yes, Rod I felt myself become more aware of my breathing as I read the article. I enjoyed focusing on this as Rebecca’s story unfolded.
Thank you rodharvey for describing what was also happening for me as I read Rebecca’s wonderful blog. I actually wanted to get straight into a pool and start to feel what she was experiencing, but as she wrote: “The same principles apply when breathing my way through life.” – so it doesn’t matter whether I am in the pool or out in life, the principles are definitely the same.
Great point Rod! I feel the power in Rebecca’s blog is the fact that it reminds us of the importance of connecting to our bodies, regardless of what activity we are doing, and that breathing through our nose supports us in being aware of this connection. I have found the Gentle Breathe Meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon at various Universal Medicine presentations a wonderful tool to support this process.
I have always loved water and being strong and fit from swimming laps, training for many hours a week during the summer swimming season and loving the monotony of going up and down the lane. I always breathed with an opened mouth, taking in huge gulps of air and then keeping my head down to get the most power from the strokes. What I enjoyed the most was getting into a rhythm with my strokes and breathing patterns, whether breathing every four strokes on the same side or every third stroke and swapping sides to breathe on. I just did what felt most comfortable at the time. I have since learned about Simone Benhayon’s technique of breathing through the nose and have given it a go in the pool. The contrast between breathing through my mouth versus my nose is profound. I always felt quite connected to my body as I swam, feeling my fingertips touching the sides of my legs and feeling the water move past my upper arms as I pulled through the water. But the connection with my body as I breathed through my nose went to a whole new level. There was no drive anymore, no rush to get to the other end of the pool. No desire to get my exercise over and done with. My technique – the rhythm between my arms and legs kicking needed to be much more steady and connected. I swam much slower but without a doubt my entire body was getting a deeper workout, as each muscle was felt and considered. I wouldn’t win any races, but what I was getting instead was much, much more.
Well said Suzanne! I’ve had a very similar experience, where by breathing through my nose I felt the connection to my body become a lot deeper, and I experienced joy in swimming and a feeling of gliding through the water with ease and no gasping for air! And you have inspired me to re-commit to my swimming routine as it was very loving and builds confidence and strength.
I love the being in water and feeling that gliding. I always knew that water had a quality you could bring to it that made ones being in it refreshing throughout ones body. But I was always disappointed when I swam that I lost that quality because I breathed through my mouth.
With being taught breathing through my nose I can now bring my quality and feel it in the water, always great to see.
I was lucky – I taught myself to swim when I was ten (about the time I saw my first cow in my life as an inner-city boy). First it was dog paddle then just floating, diving and not very good swimming. No trauma but also not a good swimmer.
Learning to breathe through the nose made a big difference – I finally could learn how to swim without breathing in water and gliding through the water that way is very enjoyable.
I love this Suzanne. Whilst I don’t swim, Rebecca’s article and your comment is very, very inspiring. What I also get is the rhythm. There is something beautiful about breathing gently through our nose even out of the pool. Whenever I have been deeply committed to staying with my breath there is an openness and connection internally to my body and I just glide as I walk feeling very focused and strong.
What you say here is great, Shevon. I don’t swim but am now feeling that my equivalent to swimming is walking. Breathing gently through my nose and choosing to be aware of how I hold my body and place my feet on the ground feels lovely, and I agree, it feels like gliding. Walking in this ways feels empowering and fills me with a sense of joy, and if I remain open to someone walking towards me, I am sure they feel this too.
At one time Suzanne I aimed to swim faster. Now I choose the slow lane, no longer in a hurry to complete laps. As you say when focused on gentle breathing and stroke rhythm there is no trying to get there, I’m just enjoying the feeling of being in water.
Yes Kehinde, I too used to rush to get to the other end of the pool. I used to go with the purpose of exercising and completing as many laps as possible. Now I take my time and actually enjoy the sensation of being in the water. My experience is now much more pleasurable and I still get my exercise but without the stress.
Thanks Kehinde, this is pure joy to read about your experiences. It inspires me. I love to have joy and fun with swimming and to feel comfortable in the water.
When I was a child I used to love going to the beach. I was always the first one in the sea and the last one out. I loved to bob up and down in the waves and it felt lovely and supportive, and swimming through them felt like flying, taking the weight out of my body so I could just let go and float looking up at the sky.
I’m inspired too Monika. To make changes that now make you feel so comfortable in the water is wonderful to read and makes me want to get back and start enjoying the beach once again.
Love what you have written here Suzanne about breathing through your nose while swimming: ‘I swam much slower but without a doubt my entire body was getting a deeper workout, as each muscle was felt and considered. I wouldn’t win any races, but what I was getting instead was much, much more.’ Now that is really something!
Its great to feel that you can give your body a deeper workout by not pushing for faster and harder, but considering each muscle and how it feels as we move. Great article.
Honouring our bodies in every movement is true movement, one that our bodies say yes to, without the pushing or driving ‘through the pain’ or wanting to achieve a goal or reach a target.
I can very much relate Suzanne, swimming became for a while something I identified with – being able to get in the pool and swim faster or as fast as the other people there, pushing my body because it was ‘exercise’. But now although I can still get some speed up and sometimes catch myself pushing, I have begun for the first time to actually consider a rhythm to my breathing, rather than breathing only when I feel like I’m about to drown, actually breathing every 3/4 strokes. It changes the whole way I swim and like you said, its so much more beneficial.
Amazing to hear about Simone Benhayon’s teaching techniques transforming swimming for people who are already advanced swimmers – thank you, Suzanne.
Gosh, how beautiful Suzanne and so inspiring!
You share a very descriptive and quite inspiring experience of swimming Suzanne. I am sure many people would love to achieve a deeper workout without the pain of striving to finish or pushing through the pain. Perhaps there is a lot to be said for this way of exercise and nose breathing, where the focus is on the quality of the movement and a heightened awareness of how the body feels and moves every step or stroke of the way.
I have also learnt the technique of breathing through my nose from Simone Benhayon. I have always been a good swimmer, but now I am a more relaxed swimmer and have so much fun in the water. Breathing through my nose is natural. It makes sense really because that is how we normally breathe. When I swam breathing through my mouth I always felt a little panicked and that I was gasping for air and rushing to get my head back out of the water. Now I glide and take my time. My whole experience of swimming has changed.