How to Practice Swimming Between Lessons - LowCountry Swim School, Charleston SC

How to Practice Swimming Between Lessons

Skills & Technique
August 21, 2026
Between Sessions

How to Practice Swimming Between Lessons

Practice helps enormously when it reinforces what the instructor is building, and sets a swimmer back when it does not.

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Lessons are where skills get taught. Time in the water between lessons is where they get comfortable, and that second part matters more than most families realise. A swimmer who is in the water once a week and never otherwise progresses far more slowly than one who has some low pressure time in between.

The catch is that the wrong kind of practice can genuinely undo work. Enthusiastic parental coaching, in particular, has a way of embedding habits the instructor then has to unpick.

The rule of thumb

Reinforce comfort, not technique

Your job between lessons is to make water feel normal and enjoyable. The instructor's job is technique. Families who keep that division get much faster progress than those who try to teach.

What is genuinely useful to practise

All of these build the foundation without risking bad habits.

Just being in the water

Unstructured, enjoyable pool time. Comfort in water is the single biggest predictor of progress and it cannot be rushed in a lesson.

Blowing bubbles

Face in the water, steady bubbles. Simple, impossible to do wrong, and it directly supports the breathing work in lessons.

Back floating

If your child can already float, practise holding it a little longer. Calm and relaxed matters far more than duration.

Getting the face wet

Washing hair, showers, pouring water over the head at bath time. All of it normalises water on the face for younger swimmers.

Pool entry and exit

Getting in and out safely, finding the wall, knowing where the shallow end is. Practical and genuinely useful.

Short and frequent

Twenty enjoyable minutes several times a week beats a long session that ends with a cold, tired, unhappy child.

What to leave to the instructor

Not because parents cannot help, but because these specific things go wrong easily.

  • Correcting stroke technique. Well meant corrections often conflict with the progression the instructor is following.
  • Pushing a skill your child has not been taught yet, particularly anything in deep water.
  • Introducing arm floats or flotation toys, which work against the body position lessons are building.
  • Testing your child to see whether they can still do something. It turns swimming into an assessment.
  • Diving, jumping into deep water, or anything where the margin for error is small.

Making practice feel like play

The most productive practice usually does not look like practice at all. Games that happen to involve blowing bubbles, retrieving objects in shallow water, or floating on your back while looking at the sky do more for a swimmer than a structured session ever will.

This matters particularly for children who are anxious about water. For them, every relaxed, pressure free experience in a pool is directly building the thing lessons need most, and every session that feels like a test sets it back.

How much practice is realistic

Consistency beats volume. A child who swims twice a week for twenty minutes outside lessons will typically progress faster than one who does a two hour session once a fortnight, because water comfort builds through frequency.

That said, no practice at all is not a failure. Plenty of families have no pool access between lessons and their children still learn to swim perfectly well. If that is your situation, focus on the things you can do at home, such as normalising water on the face at bath time, and let the lessons do the rest.

If you want more water time with structure, adding a second lesson each week is usually more effective than more unstructured practice, because the instructor can build on the previous session while it is still fresh.

Frequently asked questions

Should I practise swimming with my child between lessons?
Yes, but focus on comfort and enjoyment rather than technique. Unstructured time in the water, blowing bubbles, back floating and getting the face wet all support lesson progress. Correcting strokes yourself often conflicts with what the instructor is building.
How often should my child practise between lessons?
Consistency matters more than length. Short, enjoyable sessions a couple of times a week do more than one long session, because comfort in water builds through frequency. If you have no pool access, that is fine and your child will still progress.
Can practising the wrong way set my child back?
It can. The most common issues are flotation toys that teach an upright body position, well meant stroke corrections that conflict with the instructor's progression, and pressure that turns pool time into an assessment. Keeping practice light avoids all three.
Should we use arm floats at the pool between lessons?
We would advise against it. Arm floats hold children upright with the head high, which is the opposite of the horizontal position swimming requires, and children often have to unlearn it. They also give a false sense of safety.
Is a second lesson each week better than practising alone?
Usually, yes. A second lesson lets a certified instructor build on the previous session while it is still fresh, with no risk of embedding habits that later need correcting. Many families find two lessons a week noticeably accelerates progress.

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Let the lessons do the technique

Small classes and certified instructors, with a clear progression. You keep the pool fun, we will build the skills.

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