During my project, I have participated in activities that have helped me develop new skills and improve my techniques in swimming and lifesaving. Some skills I have learned to teach kids how to swim are getting them to feel comfortable and safe in the water by slowly teaching them how to submerge underwater and learning how not to be afraid of holding their breath, making sure they learn at their pace and not making them feel pressured. For lifesaving skills, I have learned many rescue techniques I can use to save unconscious or injured people and remove them from the water and transport them to the edge of the pool or shore. Some techniques I have improved in swimming are my arm strokes when I swim freestyle and my lung resistance. In lifesaving, I improved my hand placement when doing CPR on people, and learned how to communicate with others around me, which was very useful when practicing rescuing exercises with others. Learning new skills has made me step out of my comfort zone many times during this project. I started teaching swimming classes without having my certification which made me question myself many times as I felt like in order to effectively teach swimming classes I needed to have my certification. I had to learn how to get used to working with others and trusting them to learn new lifesaving techniques, I also had to learn how to be flexible with the people I work with, I went from working as a swimming instructor’s assistant to working with lifesavers, both jobs are completely different and there aren’t many skills I can apply to the other. Although these challenges were big to me, they helped me feel less afraid about making changes in my life, they taught me how to be more open to new experiences and opportunities in my life. Throughout this project, I have shown commitment by showing up to my lifesaving classes, I have also shown interest in learning new techniques to expand my knowledge. This project requires a lot of training for both swimming and lifesaving, more than expected, so lacking commitment is not an option for me. I have shown perseverance by adjusting to the changes I have faced so far and by looking at the bright side of every situation I get myself into.
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