UK Spring 2006 Clinic Reviews:

Click on the location names on the map below for easy access to each Clinic and the reviews that we received there, or simply scroll down this lengthy page!

Swim Smooth Clinic Reviews 2006

Well, despite an unfortunately poor start to the 2006 UK and Ireland Swim Smooth Tour for March and April 2006 due to the last-minute cancellation of our first planned course in Aberdeen (Scotland) on the 4th March due to heavy snow closing the pool and airport, we kicked off the 2006 Swim Smooth Clinic Tour in Ireland. Read below in reverse chronological order (most recent first) reviews from our UK and Ireland Spring 2006 Tour:

10. Saturday 8th April, Salford, Manchester.

Our very first Swim Smooth full-day clinic was held in Manchester back in October 2005 and was very well recieved and has since set the precedence of what we have tried to achieve with every subsequent course; as such, we were really looking forward to our return to Salford in Manchester for this year's Clinic, and would like to thank Steve Collins (President of Manchester TRI Club) and Dave Quatermain (Head Coach) for their part in the organisation of this event. Despite having to use two seperate venues (Moss Side and Clarendon) in order to facilitate two seperate swim sessions, the swimmers followed Sid the Swim Smooth Bus (aka "Max and Paddy's Van") through the streets of Manchester in convoy very admirably! Due to low numbers for the planned Liverpool Clinic the day after, we had invited those who had regsitered for this course over to Manchester, and so we started the day with 10 people. The day ran smoothly and all swimmers seemed to benefit from the coaching advice of Rob Harvey (assistant coach from Manchester TRI Club), John Sloan (former assistant coach of Manchester TRI Club and demon Ironman athlete) and Paul Newsome. Read some of their reviews here:

9. Saturday 1st April, West Wight Sports Centre, Isle of Wight

After having run a shortened version of the Swim Smooth Clinic for the Wight Triathlon Club in August 2005, we were invited back by Bill and Nina from the club to deliver a full-day Clinic for the club. The Isle of Wight is a lovely place to spend a weekend and as such we had also scheduled in some cycling time for members of the club as well and despite getting soaked on the friday, Sunday's ride was spot on. Following our trend to encouarge club's coaches to approach us for assisting during the day in an effort to enhance the swim program development of the triathlon club, we asked Jack Grundy (the club's 16 year old swim coach and top triathlete himself) to assist myself and Stuart Ashley for the course. This made for an excellent day of swimming and as such please find below some of the feedback we recieved:

8. Sunday 26th March, Batley Sports Centre, "Wild" West Yorkshire

In the words of Matt Lucas and David Walliam's characters "Lou and Andy" from Little Britain, our Batley Clinic had the makings of being "a right kerfuffle". Firstly it was Mother's Day in the UK which could have meant some unhappy wives of the men on the course or indeed unhappy husband's of the two girls on the course, and secondly British Summer Time commenced at midnight on Saturday night meaning the clocks went forward one hour which nearly spelled disaster for yours truly camped out in Sid the Swim Smooth Bus in a field in somewhere in the middle of Wild West Yorkshire! Nevertheless we were again lucky to secure a superb host venue and a great group of swimmers which made the day go sailing by! Thanks to Rachael Mellor for all her help assisting on the day. Rachael had some superb, and often amusing, ways of putting some of the ideas into practice for various people which were very well received. Read some of their comments here:

I've just done my 1st 1500m swim since before going on one of the clinics the other week [Batley on 26.03.06]. I did the 1500 in 28 minutes, thats a 4 minute improvement. I've got to say, i'm pretty pleased with that!

Adrian Stott, Leeds, UK.

Follow-up from Adrian [dated: 11.4.06, two weeks after the Clinic in Batley]:

I haven't managed to beat my 28 mins yet but i've done 28 and a half 3 times. I bought myself a waterproof watch so i can work on accurate splits. I went swimming this morning and whilst i only had time for 40 lengths, i felt so strong in the water, things are improving very well. Hoping to speak to the swim teacher at the pool this week and arrange a lesson or 2 to work on tumble turns so i'll be chasing the 25 minute 1500!

Adrian Stott, Leeds, UK.

Hi Paul, hope you are well. Just to update you on progress since Lucy and I attended your clinic in Batley at the end of March. Lucy has managed to knock 2 seconds off her 100 free time and is now down from 1.07 to 1.05 - a big improvement since she had been stuck on 1.07 for a year. She is due to do a 400 free in a couple of weeks so is hoping to get way under 5 minutes. Also her 100 Fly time has come down fom 1.20 to 1.16. Still not brilliant, but much better. Please let me know when you are next in the area and if you may have any time for a one to one. Thanks again for your help.

Janet Foreman, Holmfirth, UK.

With the aid of two superb assistant coaches who helped coordinate the whole planning of the Chester Swim Smooth Clinic, we got off to a great, if very early, 6.45am start! We had three last-minute withdrawals from the Clinic, so with only 9 people on this course and three coaches we were able to deliver some well-received personal feedback. A huge thanks needs to go to the Chester City Baths, it might be a quaint old pool, but their coaching and operational staff led by Jackie were truly superb and very accomodating. Here's what some of the crew had to say:

I had a 1:2:1 session with Paul on Friday in Chester, as I couldn't make the clinic. I was quite anxious about it all and as usual very self-critical about my swimming, but Paul put me right at ease and was quite encouraging about the 'good' bits of my style while sensitively pointing out the 'bad' bits using the vieo analysis to help.

We sat in his 'no frills' jalopi over a cup of tea afterwards to recap on a few things, which was a bit of a laugh

I went away with exactly what I had hoped for from one session, i.e. pointers on maybe 2/3 key areas I need to work on and the drills to to do it with. I bought the dvd too, to help remind me of some of the drills I'd been shown.

Paul has a really easy manner about him, I'd recommend a 1-2-1 to anyone not able to get to the clinics, if Paul has space in his schedule. I believe he's coming back here later in the year as well, so watch out for that!

Gail Bradford

It's early days [after the Swim Smooth Clinic on Saturday] so I'm not counting any chickens but I attended the early swim session on Monday and although there wasn't much time to do drills, I concentrated hard on a couple of things from Saturday. Firstly scraping the toes together with 'squeezing the 50 pence' and also trying to stop my left catch/pull through crossing the midline unedr my body. After a 400m warm-up, we did a quick set of 1x 200, 2 x 100 and 4x50 before going on to do some medley sets. The build set is usually quite hard for me to keep up but a quick check of my times showed an improvement without feeling any more knackered, ie 3:03 for the 200 then 1:24, 1:22 for the 100s. The 200 time is about normal but I felt more controlled which showed, as my 100 times were about 3 to 4 seconds faster than usual. Just hope it's not a flash in the pan!

Anyway thanks again for a great day, I feel really motivated to move on to a new level and hopefully the sub-6 minute 400 and sub-25 minute 1500 is just a matter of putting what I learnt into practice. I hope I get chance to attend another of your clinics in the not too distant future. Meanwhile I wish you and Michelle every success in the future, you deserve it!

Steve Holloway

After a much needed day off in the city of London, the Swim Smooth Tour moved on to West London for two seperate full-day Clinics at the exclusive Park Club in Acton. Julian Nagi (the club's triathlon coach and personal trainer) managed to "round-up" a total of 24 keen bods for the two Clinics with a good spread of ability. Julian did some fantastic underwater video work and despite the surface video camera deciding to nearly end its life due to the excessive humidity in the indoor pool, we managed to run two very successful courses which were enjoyed by all - we even made 24 new friends which was all the more worthwhile - thanks guys for being such a good crew! Here are some of their comments:

I must have learned something because when I timed myself for 400m a couple of weeks ago I did 8min 40sec, and last night at our triathlon club session I did 7.50 - basically a 50-second improvement that has got to be down to Tuesday, so many thanks for that!

Thought the course was an excellent balance between pool and classroom. The videoing was invaluable, and it was great to practise the drills, including the ones that I'd previously tried but completely failed to do without flippers.

Roland Brown

4. Saturday March 18th St. Georges Pools, Wapping, London:

A cold morning greeted the swimmers on the Central London Swim Smooth Clinic, the third Clinic of this year's UK Tour. We had enlisted the help of Stuart Ashley (one of Paul's former training partners) and Graham Williams (Head Coach of the Deal TRI Club in Kent), to help out with the coaching and presenting. These two coaches provided a great balance and wealth of knowledge and really aided the swimmers during the practical sessions - so thanks guys! Everyone came away from the course feeling both a lot more knowledgeable and confident about their strokes - here are some of their comments:

Graham William's own Swim Smooth Clinic Review:

On Saturday just gone I was invited by Paul to assist at his London clinic. I was a little apprehensive, as I had also agreed to do a small presentation as well as meeting and working with him and his paying customers for the first time. Also assisting was Stuart an Ex World start triathlete and an extremely knowledgeable sports technician.

The pool was a 33m pool in Wapping and was perfect for the venue with helpful pool staff. The room for the theory work was unfortunately a little cramped but still did what was needed. Water Juice and snacks were always at hand although the yummy chocolate bits went very fast. Some minor problems with the PC on playback of underwater swimming took place but was overcome.

First session was a video filming session with cameras on pool deck and under water. Only 3 swimmers at a time swam for 15 mins whilst the others wrote down on a prepared analysis sheet what they saw. This was later used for theory and feedback correction points.

The classroom work was varied including pointers on Open Water, Injury why and how to prevent it, Stroke theory and how to use it both new and old, Land work on core stability and its use and many other points on how to make your swimming more efficient. No one stroke type was singled out as the best but correction of the faults in each swimmer was shown with tips on how to improve and what was happening because of the fault. All the time Stuart and my views and extra information were asked for by Paul so as to give as much feedback to the group as possible.

In the afternoon it was back into the pool after land work on poolside. This time Paul went through some drills aimed at correcting the faults and as a starting point for those that swam by themselves to work on. There was also a chance to use Fins PT paddles and the Metronome stroke tool. Whilst the swimmers trained all three of us helped correct and reinforce major faults in need of changing so that each swimmer went away with the knowledge of what it was and how to correct it.

It is sometimes difficult to know just how much information people have taken in over such a small time but the easiest way is if they change when they go back into the water. Whilst all the swimmers showed varying degrees of instant improvement one swimmer Ted had all three of us gobsmacked when he went back into the wet stuff his stroke had changed for the good so much that it looked like a different person, that’s what makes it all worth while.

So a good course? Worth the money? Well I sent my wife on it almost as an insider and on the way home only good points and praise from her and the other two swimmers I brought along was said. Did I learn anything to improve my own coaching? Yes and hopefully Paul and Stuart may have done off me.
A good day with a really nice bunch of friendly triathletes which I enjoyed meeting and the same to Paul and Stuart nice guys both of them.

These are my own views on what I saw and felt. No money exchange was made.

Graham Williams, Head Coach of the Deal TRI Club in Kent.

I had a one2one session with Paul last week, having attended one of his clinics last October. I really liked the one2one format - I like the undivided attention, I like taking in lots of information, I like giving and receiving instant feedback. It must be great to be an elite athlete and have this sort of attention all the time.

In my case I've been suffering from some shoulder discomfort and Paul did a really good job of deconstructing every stage of my stroke to see where it might be coming from. He videoed me above and below the water, the latter being particularly enlightening. Like Hispeed I came away with a positive list of things to work on and the accompanying drills. I already had the DVD and I refer to it constantly.

Anyway I'm going to stop bigging Paul up now because the more popular he gets, the less chance of me getting another one2one when he's back in the UK!

Jackie Colby

3. Sunday March 12th Arklow Leisure Centre, County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland in association with the Wicklow Triathlon Club:

After finishing the Antrim Clinic it was a mad 4 hour dash down the east coast of Ireland, by-passing Dublin in the process to arrive in the quaint town of Arklow at just after 10pm, ready for our second Irish Swim Smooth Clinic the following morning. With the fantastic organisational help of Jamie Bray, the Arklow Clinic proved to be our most popular course to date with 16 people signing up and attending for a good day of swimming tuition for triathlon. There was an obvious bond and social connection between the members of the Wicklow Triathlon Club and with the aid of Jamie Bray and Peter to help with the coaching, it proved to be a great success and despite the large numbers the course ran very smoothly indeed. The benefit of running a Swim Smooth Clinic through close association with a club such as Wicklow cannot be understated enough. Besides the positive interaction between members during our practical analytical review session where each swimmer is encouraged to observe and comment on aspects of their team-mate's strokes in a positive and constructive manner, the very fact that the club is able to then go away following the Clinic and together put some of the teachings into practice for the longterm is a sure sign that improvements will be guaranteed not just for the next week or so, but for the future too. Thankyou Wicklow! Here are some of their comments:

2. Saturday March 11th Antrim Forum Clinic, County Antrim, Northern Ireland in association with the HI ELBOW and Olympia Triathlon Clubs:

With only five registered entrants for this course, it made for quite an informal and cosy afair. We were lucky enough to have the help of Ulster elite triathlete Tommy Elliott for the day who aided us with some fanastic under water video footage. The group had a good and well-balanced spread of ability and featured for the first time the addition of a second swim session in order to seperate both video and coached pratical sessions. This proved to be a big success and a feature which we will continue to use in all our Swim Smooth Clinics. Here are some of the attendees comments:

"I genuinely was very impressed with the effort and professionalism of the course (I have been on a few courses). You have very obviously put in a lot of effort, but importantly have the experience to lever a benefit out for everyone, that's what some other courses lack. So, thanks Paul."

Tommy Elliott, Irish Elite Triathlete.