La Santa Technique Week, February 2024.

By Emma  (Attended February 2024)

 

I love being in the water, but I’m not a swimmer.

As a child, I spent loads of time in the local pool, got my swimming badges, did a bit of water safety and learned how to snorkel. Holidays aren’t really holidays unless there is the opportunity to get into or on the water- preferably warm, clear water with lots of sea life to look at. But I’m not a swimmer.

Time spent in the pool has been minimal for over 30 years until a back injury a couple of years ago put paid to any other exercise. And I reconnected with how good it feels to move through the water, how present you feel whilst in the water and how the post swim endorphins put a smile on your face for the rest of the day. Yep, I definitely wanted more of this but didn’t really know what was available to me. Until I was on holiday last year, snorkelling of course….. I saw a group of people in matching swim caps jumping off the back of a boat and heading off around the bay. That looked cool. Maybe I could do that?

A bit of research opened up a world of opportunity and every swim holiday looked amazing. Oh, yes please! But hang on a sec, you swim how far each day…? And all the photos showed happy swimmers doing freestyle. Gulp. I’m quite comfortable doing 50 lengths breaststroke in a 25m pool, but freestyle feels really clunky and after a few lengths, absolutely exhausting. If I wanted to enjoy a swim holiday, I needed to get better. A lot better.

That’s when I saw the technique week at La Santa. It wasn’t about swimming fast (great, I’m more of a tortoise than a hare) and the minimum requirement was 100m freestyle (I can do that, just not very well and maybe need a bit of a lie down afterwards!). It was February half-term holiday, so the other half could come along as a non swimmer and do all the other activities on offer. Perfect! And who wouldn’t want a week of sunshine in the middle of a miserable British winter?

I studiously ignored the scary bit about being coached by an Olympic swimmer…..what’s the worst that could happen? Well ok, a few hellish boot camp scenarios did float around my head. But in for a penny, in for a pound and off we went.

 

Honestly, there was no need to worry at all. It turns out that swimmers and SwimQuest coaches are just lovely people, even the Olympians! Professional, friendly, super chilled and absolutely normal despite achieving superhuman things. And the one thing I hadn’t really cottoned onto was that this week was all about me and the rest of the group – no matter what our level of experience and ability. Helping us to swim better, prettier, more efficiently or whatever our individual goals were.

 

And so, after the meet up and safety briefing, off to the pool for our first swim. The pool was beautiful and absolutely huge. Nerves were helped by a fellow swimmer who showed me how to put on a swim cap (never worn one before). Then Dan softly gave us our first instruction of “just give me 100m easy to begin with”. Begin with…. You what??? Just one length seemed a mile away. But I did it and the return length, even though the pool seemed to double in distance on the way back. Hurray, first achievement! Looking around at the smiles on everyone’s faces they seemed to be feeling the same too. The rest of the session passed by in a blur and we were done for the day. Phew! But I loved it. Come back tomorrow? Absolutely.

 

 

This set the tone for the rest of the week. Each day, Dan and Clare introduced a new aspect of freestyle technique. Some were blindingly obvious once explained – “where your eyes go, your body follows. Try to keep a 45 degree angle and it helps everything”, to the downright alien. I’m not convinced I’ll ever master the dark art of sculling, sorry guys! But if it wasn’t for you, that was fine. If you needed a break, that was fine.  If you couldn’t complete an exercise and just did breast stroke instead, that was fine. If you were tired and wanted to skip a session, that was fine too. No pressure.  And that’s when it became fun. So much fun, a boat load of fun! I’m absolutely sure that my facial expressions throughout the week were a total mix of confusion and grinning idiot. Must have been a picture to see, but I didn’t care. I was having a great time.

 

 

 

 

Outside of the pool and lagoon swims, La Santa’s facilities really have to be experienced to be believed. World class and so much on offer. The other half is already planning on going back, just to do all the other things that they couldn’t cram into just 1 week! The accommodation was spot on for what we needed and there were great choice of places to eat inside and outside the resort. Step outside the resort and you walk straight into the “wild west” of Lanzarote. Raw, powerful and absolutely stunning. Beautiful sunrises over the volcanoes were a perfect start to the day and sunsets over the ocean celebrated our daily achievements.