South West Swim Sessions for HENLEY SWIM Swimmers
See how we can help you ace your Henley Swim Event this yearChoose the session type below and use code TeamHenley10 to save 10% on your session fee.
Below you can see details of our Sessions in our Swindon based Endless Pool, or our open water sessions in the lakes of the Cotswolds.
Use the links to book sessions directly in our online booking system.
First, a bit about us.
South West Swim is the longest established Open Water coaching company in the Cotswolds with a long built reputation for delivering quality swim coaching, be it in the open water or pool. We have been trusted by thousands of swimmers to help them with their stroke since our launch in 2014. South West Swim is a full time coaching business putting swimmers safety and development at the helm of all we do.
At South West Swim our Open Water sessions are delivered by the very best fully qualified and experienced Swim England coaches and teachers. All our open water coaches also hold specialist Open Water qualifications from Swim England and / or the STA, and Open Water lifeguarding from RLSS. South West Swim Coaches are not simply guides to show you how to get into open water for the first time, we are here to guide your journey from that first step lakeside through to progressing and correcting your open water skills and swim stroke, drawing on many years of real life experience in coaching, racing and eventing. We have coached swimmers from Learning to swim (adult & Child) all the way through to regional, national and world level achievers and champions.
All sessions are led by Head Coach Jason Tait, Swim England Coach & Teacher, Swim England Open Water Coach, STA Open Water Coach and Tutor. Jason also sits on the STA Open Water Working group that helped develop the award winning STA Open Water Coaching qualification, a course which has gone on to become the leading open water education course that other coaches sit to become an open water coach / open water guide.
Jason is also a Swim Smooth Certified Coach and is an expert in Front Crawl stroke analysis, fault identification and correction.
South West Swim’s Coaching manner, experience, session structure and after session take away material provide our swimmers with the very best swim coaching experience available, which we believe is unrivalled in the Cotswolds.
Read what others have to say about us at https://www.wellnessliving.com/crossfit/swindon/southwestswim/review
You are in great hands with a South West Swim session, be it 1-to-1 or one of our amazing groups or workshops. If you have any questions please get in contact with us at swim@southwestswim.co.uk
Endless Pool Video Analysis & Technique Sessions in our Swindon HQ
Endless Pool Video Analysis - Swim Smooth Certified
South West Swim’s premier session for swimmers, open water swimmers and triathletes of all levels. This class leading session will help develop your swim stroke to its full potential as we will talk (and show) you through your stroke and the methods, concepts and drills to help you build a better swim.
This session is hosted by Jason Tait, Head coach of South West Swim and a Swim Smooth Certified coach specialising in stroke correction, open water swimming & triathlon swimming.
We will start your session with a quick warm up in the endless pool to establish a pace and get you feeling how the pool works, before filming your stroke in full. We film from various angles to give you the full picture of your current swim, there is nowhere for your stroke to hide.
Then comes the fun part where we work through your stroke in the big screen, recording everything as we go and talking through the good areas of your stroke and areas where we can develop further. We work on the premise of building a stroke from your foundation upwards, where that foundation is can vary depending on your experience and skills, everybody is different. We also believe nobody swims the same, so the session is totally tailored to your swimming style and other factors.
After the on screen analysis it’s a return to the pool to work through concepts, visualisations and/or drills to help you start to feel what those changes will mean to your swimming.
After the session we will send you away with a new found passion and a boost for your swim training, your recorded video analysis and original video files and a full session review with links to drill demonstrations, exercises, concepts and session plans, all specifically targeted at the areas of swim for you to develop.
The session is 90 minutes long (occasionally we may run over a touch) and costs £119.99.
We have swimmers travel for our Video Sessions from all over the UK. Be the next to experience the power of South West Swim Analysis.
To get a taste of your experience with us watch our promo video here
Endless Pool 1-to-1 Sessions
We are confident to stand up and say our 1-to-1 sessions offer the best coaching and value for your swim development available.
This session is hosted by Jason Tait, Head coach of South West Swim. Jason is a fully qualified Swim England Level 2 Coach & Swimming Teacher and a Swim Smooth Certified coach specialising in stroke correction, open water swimming & triathlon swimming. Our 1-to-1’s are an hour in length and are spent developing your stroke in the Endless pool.
We will start your session with a quick warm up in the endless pool to establish a pace and get you feeling how the pool works, before filming your stroke to provide a snapshot of your swimming. This visual input of your stroke is where the difference lies, as we believe it is vitally important for a swimmer to be able to see what they are doing in order to appreciate how to make changes.
We will then use this video to show you where we are going to be working with you, and how we can help start (or continue) your development.
After the session you will recieve a full session review with links to drill demonstrations, exercises, concepts and session plans, all specifically targeted at the areas of swim for you to develop. This session does not include your video footage, but is available to you if you purchase one of our USB cards. Please note that this is not a video analysis session. if you are looking for our video analysis sessions please book the approprate service.
The session is 60 minutes long (half hour sessions are also available). Sessions can be booked as one off sessions (£62.99) or as a twin pack (£119.99), you will be presented with a choice of session pack options upon booking. Session packs are ideal for swimmers who wish to have constant progression and individual support of the swimmer in their own coached pool squad sessions, their club sessions or simply their self coached sessions.
Video footage and analysis is not included as part of this session
Open Water Sessions in the freshwater lakes of the Cotswolds
Open Water 1-to-1 Sessions
By far our most popular session every year, and we are confident that we offer the very best 1-to-1 experience in terms of coaching, content and take away materials.
Sessions are taken By Jason Tait, A Swim Smooth Certified Coach, STA Open Water coach and qualified coaches tutor, Swim England Open Water Coach, Swim England Pool Coach and teacher and CTA Aquaphobia Specialist Coach.
This is a tailored and individual session where we can work on any aspect of your swimming, open water skills, confidence, pacing and even an private individual Introduction to open water session.
Jason will guide your swim either in the water with you, from a SUP board or from lakeside (or a mixture of all). We use various techniques to give you the best session possible, from our class leading swim smooth certified coaching, to amazing AI Stroke Analysis and coach to swimmer headsets (so we can guide you whilst you’re swimming). Technology used at coaches discretion for your needs, session type and where we coach you from.
Whatever your swimming needs Jason can help you in a one off session, or guide you through your journey through the whole season and beyond.
Available as single session purchases or a twin pack of sessions (which are also valid in our Endless Pool for all round development)
Find out more about our 1-to-1 Sessions at Lake86 and book your session here
(Get 10% off with your TeamHenley10 discount code)
Introduction to Open Water Swimming - Swim England Level 1 Workshop
Your first step into the world of open water & triathlon swimming, working to achieve your Swim England Level 1 Open Water Certificate (and shiny badge, we all like a shiny badge…….right)
This Level 1 workshop will swim your way to your Swim England Level 1 certificate in Open Water Swimming and provide you with the skills and confidence to take to the water by yourself, tackle your first Open Water or Triathlon event, or just educate and improve the swim of the non competitive swimmer looking for that new and exciting challenge.
This workshop is around 1.5 hours in duration, actual water time will vary depending on the water temperature at the time of the session.
This session will cover
- Safety / Session brief, including venue specific safety
- Putting on your wetsuit – making the dark art of getting rubber on your body as simple as 1-2-3-4
- Safe Entry / Exit of the water
- Acclimatisation and breathing control
- Self Rescue & Emergency actions
- Basic Sighting Action for front crawl swimmers
- Group Swimming Familiarisation / Drafting
- Common start & finish techniques
- 200m Test Swim (part of the Level 1 Certificate sign off process)
- The Syllabus of the Swim England Level 1 Certificate in Open Water Swimming. This is ONLY passed if the swimmer completes all of the content in the course, including online questions (link sent nearer the course date)
The Cost of this fully coached and supported session and all materials is £35 (Get 10% off this price with your TeamHenley10 discount code)
Lake 86 Click here for dates and more details on this session type and to book your session
Introduction To Open Water Race Skills - Level 2 Swim England Workshop
tyBuild confidence and learn the skills needed to confidently embrace a swimming or triathlon event or race environment. This session will work towards the achieving your Swim England Level 2 Open Water Certificate (and another shiny badge!)
This Level 2 workshop will swim your way to your Swim England Level 2 certificate in Open Water Swimming and provide you with the skills and confidence to take on your first open water or triathlon swim.
This session is a fast paced introduction to race skills, delivered with productive fun by building each skill on top of the next skill. The aim is to progress swimmers through the vital skills to get you through an event or race with confidence. To book this session you must be able to swim 400m, confident non stop front crawl.
New swimmers are advised to take our Level 1 Introduction To Open Water Swimming session before this one as it would help to understand the basics of the skills we will be working through at Level 2.
This workshop is around 1.5 hours in duration, actual water time will vary depending on the water temperature at the time of the session.
This session will cover
- Safety / Session brief, including venue specific safety
- Sighting technique and patterns
- Advanced Drafting Techniques and overtaking
- Group Swimming / close contact swimming
- Various Buoy turns and when to use them
- Mass Starts (Plus Diving / entry from a jetty)
- 400m Test Swim in race conditions
- Finishes to T1
- We will be working to the syllabus of the Swim England Level 2 Certificate in Open Water Swimming. This is ONLY passed if the swimmer completes all of the content in the course, including online questions (link sent nearer the course date)
2023 Dates (we will add more sessions as needed through the season)
The Cost of this fully coached and supported session and all materials is £35 (Get 10% off this price with your TeamHenley10 discount code)
Lake 86 – Click here for dates and more details on this session type and to book your session.
How Do I know If Open Water coaching is Right For Me?
With the most comprehensicve range of open water services around and a huge variety of time slots available (and we can try and arrange bespoke times if needed) we are sure to be able to assist your open water journey.
Here are some frequently asked questions we have from swimmers who are looking to join us and start or develop in open water.
Are you new to open water and never been in that environment before?
We can help. Look at our ‘Safety Essentials’ and ‘Introduction to Open Water Swimming’ session types. If you wanted a more private and bespoke session, or are very nervous about entering the open water then book into a 1-to-1 session with Jason.
Jason can guide you through your session and knows what it’s like to have those nerves and fears, believe it or not many years ago Jason was in the same position. Jason is a fully qualified Aquaphobic coach so can back up his own historic experiences with the latest coaching methods for those with a fear or nervousness of the water.
Have you swum in open water before but want to progress your open water skills to do an event?
Yup, we can help there too. Look at our ‘Introduction to open water swimming’ session type. You may then ant to progress your swimming with one of our ‘Open Water Squad’ sessions or a 1-to-1 session.
We can even start developing your swimming before your open water session as we have our own pool for 1-to-1 based sessions and swim squads for group sessions.
Are you training for an event, or just want to swim in a group with focus and structure
We have this covered too. Check out our ‘open water squad’ and ‘mini open water skills’ sessions. Our squad sessions are sorted into speed/experience groups and will offer a weekly structured training session mixing both open water skills, swim technique and endurance.
Our mini skills sessions will focus on an open water skill and really get you focusing and learning in the form of a mini workshop.
Do you want to improve your open water skills in the lake
Look at that, we have that covered too! This is one of our specialities and we can help you learn, refine and perfect all of your open water skills. We will show you how to adapt them to different environments and bodies of water too.
We can work you through how different open water skills will affect your swim stroke dynamic and technique, advising on how to overcome or work with these areas too.
We will use the latest tech to compliment your session which could include our Swim Stroke Analysis AI or our coach to swimmer headset, dependant on how we coach your session.
Take a look at our 1-to-1 sessions with open water expert Jason Tait, you may also be interested in our ‘mini skills workshops’
So you want to improve your swim stroke, can you do that in a lake?
Oh yes, we can help there. Head coach Jason Tait is Swim Smooth Certified after all /,and thats what he does day in day out. Take a look at our 1-to-1 sessions where we can look at your stroke and develop your swimming to the next level. No two swimmers swim exactly the same, and no two swimmers should be expected to so will use our knowledge and skills to work in the best way possible for YOU!
As with open water skills we can also walk you through adapting your stroke for the open water or when performing a certain open water skill, such as sighting or buoy turns.
We will use the latest tech to compliment your session which could include our Swim Stroke Analysis AI or our coach to swimmer headset, dependant on how we coach your session.
If you want a really in-depth review of your stroke then consider hitting our Endless pool for a Full Swim Smooth Certified Video Analysis, the gold standard in video sessions.
You. have a junior swimmer who needs lake sign off, or wants to train in open water
Yes, Yes and Yes, we love coaching junior swimmers and have worked with many over the years. We start coaching Junior swimmers at 12 years old AND if they have at least a county time.
We offer both 1-to-1 sessions, Junior introduction to open water sessions and weekly junior squad sessions. !-to-1 sessions and Intro session are / can be lake specific and come with lake sign off if the swimmer passes. We work towards the Swim England Open Water Certificates of Level 1, 2 and 3.
See our “Junior Swimmers’ PAge for more information