Discover your life aquatic

We have a Youtube site at http://www.youtube.com/SeaHikerVideo. If you have questions about our video clips, feel free to post comments directly on Youtube or if you would like us to post a video on a certain topic or question, please drop us an email.

We are based in Vancouver, BC and offer courses in the Lower Mainland and many other locations. If you would like us to come to your community, please contact us.

Click here for a list of our locations.

A private lesson starts at $85 + GST. The price includes pool admission, lane rental and our instruction fee. All lessons are backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. For more rates, semi-private lessons, please visit Book A Lesson.

We used to offer Total Immersion workshops, however, now we offer weekend clinics that follow a different outline and focus. This allows us to tailor our instruction to different audiences and even offer custom or advanced clinic options. We also put a lot of emphasis on excellent follow up and so offering single weekend workshops is no longer a priority for us, as we feel is not nearly as effective as a multi-session course.

For out of town weekend instruction, we have several options we feel are a good compromise between convenience and concrete benefits to your swimming.

For more information on courses offered on the weekend, please look at our courses page or contact us directly.

    Sea Hiker offered Total Immersion coaching for the first two and a half years. Since then we've evolved from that excellent foundation to offer instruction we feel addresses many areas that the Total Immersion system does not cover. It also offers us more flexibility to offer you tailored instruction, whether in a private lesson, weekly course or weekend clinic.

If you have pervious experience with Total Immersion, you are welcome to speak with us about how we can help you make the most of TI instructional materials, or use what you've learned previously and progress further in your swimming.

    This program is an amazing program designed to help swimmers learn freestyle by having the time to really explore the options for developing an efficient stroke. It is suitable for beginners and swimmers at every level. For more information, visit our course page.

    If we use a system, its only feature would be that we look to help people with their individual needs. We've found that one size does not fit all.

Our focus rests on what skills enable people to succeed across a range of activities and sports. Body awareness and the ability to guide one's own practice into what works best for each individual person are the foundations of our approach. 

Freediving is so often sensationalized by the media and unfortunately some freedivers feel the need to perpetuate misconceptions. We both have competitive freediving experience along with more than 25 years of snorkeling, skin diving, recreational freediving and seahiking experience. Holding your breath underwater is an activity just like any other. Take precautions and look to stay in your comfort zone and you can minimize risks.

The biggest benefit freediving has brought to our perspective on coaching is seeing how to help most people who are intimidated by deep water, large expanses of water and especially going underwater. It is an amazing process to see someone transform fear or anxiety and also powerful assumptions about freediving or any underwater activity into confidence, enjoyment and pure wonder.

Whether you engage in seahiking or freediving, the beauty of being underwater is something that everyone could enjoy.

Tyler swam competitively when he was young. Peter did not, but has since competed in triathlon and open water races.

Both of us have competitive freediving experience (elite level).

For more information on our background and how we feel it enhances our approach to instruction, check out our detailed biographies.

We will send you review notes and practice guides to look at following each lesson or course session, but the best way to remember things and actually learn them is to practice.

Even better, practice and make a list of questions for us next time. Pose questions to yourself and try to answer them. For example, what happens to my front arm when I try to breathe in freestyle? Does it stay put, move, sink, slip, wobble? Design experiments to find the answers for yourself. This kind of practice will accelerate your learning!

Yes. All you need is an interest to learn and try something new. If you have that, everything else will follow.  We all started from scratch in the beginning, so that is just normal.   

We specialize in helping people feel comfort and confidence in the water, no matter what activity you want to pursue. In fact, we feel we understand the beginner's experience better than most coaches and know what approaches make it easy and fun to learn.  

We recommend that you practice often enough to create new experiences and sensations that will help you make breakthroughs. We have lots of resources on this website to help you practice including our swim practices for various courses, articles, video clips, FAQ, and drills and demos.

Practicing several times a week in the pool (even for short durations), doing dryland drills at home, working on core strength and flexibility, visualizing, and thinking up new ways to approach your practice all help.

Have a look at some of our articles, lesson plans, practices and video clips. But probably the best thing you can do is make a list of the skills or experiences that you see as obstacles to achieving your immediate goals in swimming and also what success would look like to you in the short and long term.

Towel, goggles, swim cap (for extra warmth), and swimming suit (speedo, jammers for less drag). For anything that involves a swim practice, please bring a water bottle or sport drink for hydration.

For any open water courses, please bring a wetsuit, extra goggles, extra towel, warm clothes, sunscreen, water bottle, snacks, and any other gear that you already have. You may also want to bring neoprene socks and gloves for some cold water swimming. In winter, a full hood is required. 

Yes, we offer a semi-private lesson rate. Sharing a lesson with someone who is close to you in skill level and with whom you plan to practice frequently is a great way to make progress that you would not ordinarily achieve otherwise. Seeing someone you know well learning the same skill you are trying to learn will give you more insight on how to approach things more successfully.

For more details, see book a lesson.

We will look to discover your needs and use the best approaches and tools to help you achieve confidence, breakthroughs and a real understanding of how to move through the water well. For all the details, please visit our Book A Lesson page.

    For private lessons and courses, we ask for a minimum of 24 hours notice or the balance due. Our courses and lessons are in demand, so if you can't make it at the last minute (unless it is a real emergency), we would be unable to offer it to another person.

   There are always exceptions to the rule, so please let us know if something comes up as soon as possible and we will see what we can do.

Yes, we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all of our courses and lessons. We know that we can help you and that you'll find the experience different from anything you've experienced before.

So far we have never had a request for refund. Since our instruction approach is designed to work with people with a whole range of needs and interests, we make sure we can help you before we begin working with you.

Yes, we would love to! Please send us an email with the details of your interest, whether you have a group of people who want instruction, what weekends are best, and the general skill level and goals of everyone who is interested. We prefer to offer multi-weekend programs that allow us to give you good follow-up and coaching to ensure that your practice stays on track.  We have offered courses as far away as Toronto.

In 2009, we held the Open Water Program at Jericho Beach. Locations have not been confirmed for the 2010 season, but we expect to offer that program again starting in May, weather permitting.

Visit our courses page for more information on the Open Water program.

Yes. While most of our private lessons are offered between May and September when the water is warmer, we are always game for cold water lessons, provided you have the gear needed to be safe and comfortable. Generally, cold water lessons will not be technique intensive, rather more practice or open water experience oriented.

Our insurance does indeed cover private locations. However, if you live in a condo or share a pool, you should generally seek the permission of whoever manages that facility before booking with us. And also bear in mind that other people will look to share the pool and busy times may make certain exercises and drills difficult to do.

Yes. Your lesson tuition covers the rental of a lane exclusively for your coach and yourself. We feel this is essential for focused attention on swimming. We also prefer these pools because they offer ozone filtration which is much less harsh on the skin than regular filtration systems.

For our purposes, we usually mean number of strokes per 25m length.  Stroke Count (SC) synonyms also include SPL (strokes per length) and DPS (distance per stroke - although this refers to a specific practice that examines what distance you can cover in a given number of strokes).

We also use the term gear to refer to a regularly achieveable stroke count that correlates with a speed for a given distance (with the intention of swimming faster and faster as you change gears while still staying in control). 

For example:

Baseline: SC = 15 (this is your average stroke count)

Gear 1: SC = 16

Gear 2: SC = 17

Gear 3: SC = 18...etc...

As a general guideline, once you have lots of experience counting strokes and gauging your speed at each stroke count, you will look to develop gears appropriate for your swimming event.

You can count strokes over any distance and use it to help you gauge efficiency.

For example:

• SC for 25m short course pool
• SC for 50m long course pool
• SC for known open water course (swim to a buoy)

Note: Achieving the lowest SC possible is usually not something you should try to do for its own sake. However, it can be a revealing exercise.