Q&A with Steven Boyle, Professional Swimming Coach

What would you say is the most rewarding part of teaching swimming?

Helping a student overcome their fear of the water has got to be it,  there have been soo many uses for it after they overcame their fear of the water and learned to swim.

Examples would be - some have used their newfound skill to keep fit and healthy. Some use it to swim in the ocean at some faraway holiday destination that they had planned in the near future, some have used it to be able to jump off a boat, and one in particular springs to mind that used it to pass their navy entrance exam swim test. His name was Dylan - I always remember how grateful he said he was, the pleasure was all mine though!

What would you say are the biggest challenges that you have faced?

At the moment it’s pool access! Prior to covid, this was also a significantly challenging aspect. In fact, it was only recently (November 2020) in between the last 2 lockdowns that I secured my own lane within a pool beside London Bridge station, prior to this I worked for another swim school for a number of years and taught kids of families who had a pool within their home. 

Could you tell me about one of your most rememberable achievements with regard to swimming?

Probably swimming the English Channel as part of a 4 man relay on the 20th august 2018 in 12hrs 45 mins. We started at around 4 am and it was pitch black, jumping off that boat to swim ashore and give the hands up signal in order to start and then landing on the rocks in France. All 4 of us laughing and cheering on the boat trip back to Dover. Simply magical. 

What does a typical day look like for you?

At the moment it’s up at around 6/7 am doing mobility and strength work given to me by a physio and working on social media, then reading and working on the website because of lockdown, although when I was really in the thick of it I was conducting between 40-55 hrs of private 1-2-1 clients a week. This was fairly consistent for the first 4/5 years. Quite a heavy workload I admit but when you really love what your doing it just happens. when things open back up I will be working 9-430pm Monday to Friday at the pool in London Bridge and on Saturdays I might be found popping in and out of people’s homes delivering children’s lessons all across London. 

Could you tell me what is unique to your teaching/training style?

This is hard to answer as it keeps evolving, the knowledge of swimming and the science keeps improving and thus the teaching style keeps changing if only ever soo slightly though now that I’ve been doing it for quite a while. For example, in those first few years, I never would have spoken of how a hand pitched outwards with a thumb first entry into the water can lead to excessive internal rotation of the shoulder which can eventually lead to pain in the shoulder as an overuse injury and what in fact should be done is a flat hand fingertips first entry. Or how simply keeping the head low (face down) in the water helps in keeping the legs high in the water consequently reducing drag. I did not have this knowledge in the first few years, I had to go no seek it out.

However if I had to give a straight answer to your question, that would be  “I allow students to develop in their own time , focusing on the basics done well, all the time”.

If you want to know more about the services Steven offers, please visit his website by clicking here.

At Otium Concierge, we get asked for just about everything.