Today, I had another lesson with Tabitha.  After Sunday’s lifeguarding class, my main concern was being able to do the head splint with a submerged victim skill properly.

My biggest problem with this skill is that I float.  In many applications, it’s good to float.  When I need to tread water, I can do so with very little effort.  I don’t have any trouble staying afloat for long periods of time.

So, when I try to go down under water for any period of time, I literally have to fight the water to stay down.  Even with some of my best dives, I have a short amount of time for the rescue.  Feet first dives don’t seem to work for me.  I can sort of do them and I can get both feet to the bottom.  But, it seems that successful rescues will involve a head first dive.

Tabitha and I spent most of the lesson working on dives and rescues.  I was able to rescue her several times.  The test will be if I can rescue the instructor.  He sinks.

So far, I am glad that we don’t have a really deep pool.  I’d probably be struggling if we had to rescue victims in nine feet water.

After a few successful rescues, we went back to working on the breaststroke.  My kick has improved and my feet stay in the water more.  But, I still need lots of practice.

Maybe next week we’ll tackle the butterfly.

 Posted by at 7:52 PM