Retford Clinic Saturday and Sunday 23 & 24th September:

• Gudrun demonstrates excellent sighting technique during the Open Water session

Saturday's Open Water Session at Daneshill Lake:

The Clinic which was originally due to be held in Sheffield had to be shifted at late notice, 20 miles to the east of Sheffield to the small town of Retford. This decision was made primarily due to the lack of suitable open water venues in the immediate Sheffield area. Luckily (and as the photo of Daneshill Lake to the left demonstrates), we definitely "lucked out" with this move and were kindly and well supported by the Retford Canoe Club who provided excellent water safety for the day.

• Daneshill Lake, Sutton-cum-Lound, Retford.

The group for the Saturday session numbered just 5 swimmers, plus the 2 coaches and 4 water safety crew from the Retford Canoe Club. The Lake itself proved to be an excellent venue for open water specific coaching due to the warmth of the water and the depth never being more than about 1.7m.

• Swimmers preparing to hit the water!

Following a series of drills focused on improving the ability to swim straight, sight the buoys, turn around the buoys and address specifics in the stroke related to varying Open Water conditions, the swimmers then received a "heads-up" on some of the more "conventional" pool drills that would enable them to develop their underwater catch and pull through for Sunday's pool analysis session.

Developing the catch and pull through is an integral part of the Open Water swim stroke - swimmers learn to develop this with instruction and demonstration before trying a series of drills to develop this for themselves.

• Paul demonstrates the Catch and Pull

• The session concludes with a "who can get their kit off the quickest" competition!!

Sunday's Pool Clinic at the Retford Leisure Centre:

The choice to switch from Sheffield's Ponds Forge arena to the much smaller Retford Leisure Centre was, once again, a decision which the Swim Smooth Team were justly pleased with given the excellent facilities and care and attention from the centre staff. Whilst we were sorry to inconvenience two of the swimmers who had to withdraw at a late stage because of this decision, from the response from the 9 whom did attend on the day, we were encouraged that this was to the benefit of everyone on the course.

The swimmers were guided through a series of drills and techniques over the course of the day which progressed from a generic look at how to improve general efficiency in the water, to more specific individual work based upon what the "Before" and "After" video analysis sessions revealed. Read the reviews below.

Swimmer's Reviews:

Just wanted to say thanks again for putting on the clinic this weekend. It's the first time swimming has made sense to me so it was invaluable. Personally i think if i lived in Perth i wouldnt be rushing over for a weekend in Sheffield so it's appreciated. Thanks again.

Viv Slack via email.

Just wanted to drop you a line to say thanks once again for a fantastic day with yourself and Stuart on Sunday. My job involves teaching also, so I know what it takes to stay upbeat and focussed for a whole day - your enthusiasm for coaching is quite obvious! It'll be a few days before I'm back in the pool again, but you've given me some more drills and concepts to work on during the off season to improve my stroke. Please keep me posted if you go ahead with the half-day refresher sessions planned for spring next year.

Max Million via email.

Thought I’d drop a quick note to thank you and Stuart for Sundays clinic, really enjoyed the day and felt I got a lot out of it. I definitely slept very soundly on Sunday night. I had my first swim session last night post the session and saw some immediate tangible results; I do a short time trial every so often, just 10 lengths and I’ve been consistently doing this in about 5 minutes, last night I did it in a little under 4.5 minutes – felt much easier and this was late and night so im sure this would be even quicker if I did it fresh. Hopefully with some drill work I’ll be seeing this drop under 4 minutes in the coming months.

Darryl Barber via email.