Backfloat

At Sailfish Swim Academy, teachers use “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to teach infants how to control their full body buoyancy and back float. The parent or guardian plays an important role in ensuring that the holding positions are correct throughout the activity.

The first hold involves the infant’s head lying down on the parent or guardian’s shoulders, ensuring that the movement is slow and smooth. The second hold involves slowly gliding down with the parent or guardian’s face touching the infant’s forehead to the double arms or reverse safety Harbor hold position, holding still until the song finishes. The third hold involves slowly releasing the arm below the back to a single hand position and slowly releasing while ensuring the baby’s eyes are looking behind towards the parent or guardian’s eyes.

The release involves slowly gliding your hands behind while repeatedly releasing the infant. When the baby has full confidence, fully release the baby, ensuring that they never fall into the water. Parents count from 3, 5, 7, 10 to ensure that the baby can control their full body buoyancy to back float, breathe, and survive.

Through the Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star technique, infants develop their fine and visual motor swimming skills. The first round involves submerging the ears in the water gradually, starting from the shoulders with ears outside of the water. The second round involves slowly gliding the infant down to the two arms back float hold or reverse safety Harbor hold. The third round involves transitioning from the two arms back float to the single arm back and release until 10 counts.

Teachers also use “London Bridge” to teach infants how to control their full body buoyancy to back float, breathe, and survive. The parent or guardian plays an important role in ensuring the infant’s comfort throughout the whole song by slowly releasing the infant’s head in the tunnel with a swipe back method. For new levels, all practices can be done in the tunnel.

The parent or guardian should also ensure that the diving reflex is triggered before submerging and that the infant looks up first before rotating up to the back float position.

Through the London Bridge technique, infants develop their fine and visual motor swimming skills. In the basic level, the infant learns how to rotate and submerge continuously, while back float wave training is also introduced. The back float training begins with slowly releasing the infant in the tunnel and going in circles while conditioning the baby to slowly lie down while looking up in the tunnel. All upgraded levels for back float shall be practiced with counts in the tunnel.

In the second level, the infant learns how to rotate after exiting the tunnel without submersion, submerge while under the shower for 3 counts, and rotate back up before entering the tunnel again.

By using a fun and engaging song and technique, infants are motivated to learn and develop their swimming skills. Sailfish Swim Academy teachers use a gentle and patient approach to teaching infants how to control their full body buoyancy and back float, which helps them to become more comfortable and confident in the water.