Sometimes we learn something poorly but never realise it.

Like spelling errors, they can remain in a person’s written vocabulary  for a long time…until someone explains the error. A good question could be posed: can a person know they are wrong without it being pointed out?

I am sure you have been amused, as I have, when someone sings exceptionally badly on one of these live TV shows. At first I thought Simon Cowell was abrasive but then I considered the feedback of the other judges. As difficult as Cowell is, is honest feedback mean?

Although I find Cowell’s style blunt, his ability to give a quick meaningful reply, despite distractions of a live audience, is more useful than meaningless ‘it was good’.  ‘It was good’ or ‘beautiful’ or ‘lovely’ is so meaningless that it is not of any use. Good means nothing.

A lesson a swim coach should use. ‘Good’ means you missed the race and you’re pretending you didn’t.

Meaningless praise is non-specific . Only feedback that describes what you see, or heard, or imagined it felt like, or any sense perception that jumped in your brain, while observing a swimmer, is useful. Thinking is required.

A person cannot reasonably be expected to change something about themselves if they do not know that they are doing it wrong. This is why a swimmer could swim endlessly with terrible strokes.  A stroke won’t heal itself.

Swimming is a weird thing. You are in an alien environment, without gravity to balance in the normal way. You’re trying to coordinate arms, legs, and body at the same time without gravity to help. Spacewalking at the Space Station is learned in swimming pools. If a person will drown if thrown in water then it must be learned.

Swimming is like being in outer space.

How could you know you were wrong if you didn’t know you were wrong? It’s interesting that when someone sees themselves swimming, they always say ‘I didn’t think I looked like that’.

If a swimming stroke has a technical flaw that impedes their ability to swim as fast, and the stroke is left uncorrected for a long time, it becomes more and more difficult to ‘fix’. The pathway from the brain to the body has been repeated so many times that changing it becomes almost impossible.  Engrained.

Many parents say to me ‘I don’t know anything about swimming but there is something not right’. 

Lucky swimmers grow up around water—playing, exploring, spending hours in it—often develop natural, effective strokes. They learn through feel. But many swimmers don’t have that background. They join clubs without fully developed technique and start copying what they see.

They improvise. “Close enough” becomes good enough. Good enough often isn’t fast.

The swimmers I see are often late starters, they were put into a swim club without having properly established strokes yet.  Many children do not learn dolphin action or butterfly in their lessons.  So if they are put in a situation where everyone swims fly and they don’t, they’ll try hard! They to do it by watching, then they make it up.  They will think; ‘It kind-of looks like this’ and ‘I can kinda do that’. Close enough. Let’s race. Racing before a fly stroke is ready, is a mistake.

Feedback needs to be specific, purposeful, and relatable. A swimmer needs to know what it should feel like, why it matters, and how the physics works. They need different ways of understanding it, until they get it.

Improvement comes through experimenting, adjusting, and finding what works for that individual.

Just like a singer needs the right song for their voice, a swimmer needs the right feel for their stroke.