South West Swims Weekly Tip: Using the winter months to improve your technique is a great and vital practice in order to improve. However, don’t forget to keep practising your key open water skills and make these part of one of your sessions. Swimming in open water has an additional set of skills over and above your normal swimming technique and you can use the pool to practice skills such as sighting, helping to get the technique smoother and more efficient. Remember that sighting can disrupt your breathing pattern and body position, especially if it is done inefficiently. Practice in the pool now so you can hone and improve the technique and get the edge over your competitors in the early season.