Hi Laura! I am a Certified Pilates Instructor with 15 plus years of pilates practice and teaching in my body.  I always loved to go to the community pool as a kid and spend hours goofing off there but I never really felt I knew how to swim (despite having had some lessons as a kid).  Recently, a good friend and neighbor who is a Masters Synchro swimmer said she would be happy to teach me to swim.  So far I have had 2 lessons with her.  On the second lesson she was very impressed with how I seemed to be getting it.  We've started with breaststroke and I do find that I am able to relax and use my breathe more than I thought I would be able to in the water.  I also find that her teaching cues about body placement and how to move through the water pretty quickly make sense to me thanks to my years of pilates.  I'm looking forward to soon going to the pool on my own and practicing laps and actually being able to call myself a swimmer!