Latest / DunkersPodcast / Why Cold Water Swimming Works | Catch Swim on Waves, Wellness and Confidence

Transcript

Why Cold Water Swimming Works | Catch Swim on Waves, Wellness and Confidence · DunkersPodcast

0:11
Hi, Mark. Hi, Rebecca.
0:12
How are you? I'm good.
0:13
How? Are you doing?
0:15
Excellent. Thank you.
0:16
Very well, very well. We finally get to touch base.
0:19
Woo Hoo yes, excited about this. This is I was having a good
0:24
listen to your podcast over the last couple of days.
0:28
It's so nice what lovely guests you have.
0:31
It must be so much fun to make. Well, it absolutely is because
0:34
they're all we never, I never know what's going to happen.
0:37
It's just it goes very left field and you know, they, they
0:40
sort of exactly the same I'd say to them, as I'm saying to you,
0:43
and that is you take the agenda. Really, I'll just fill in the
0:46
blanks. I'll just.
0:47
Fill. Great.
0:47
I love it. Yeah, I love those like great
0:50
little stories and tangent that that people go on about
0:54
swimming. It's yes, exactly what we need.
0:58
So. Yeah, well, the Dunkers is a
1:00
pretty eclectic, crazy bunch, so we've been doing it for five
1:05
years. So we've got some real
1:06
personalities there at the moment.
1:10
So to give you sort of a heads up, I'll just do a brief
1:13
introduction and then bring you in.
1:15
We are recording this. Hope you don't mind.
1:18
Obviously, I need to hold it audit all audio wise because
1:22
then we can turn it into a podcast.
1:25
But I just wanted to sort of let you know and then you'd be
1:27
aware. OK, perfect.
1:29
Yeah, And also just to check how is my sound, because I do have
1:33
better. Absolutely clear.
1:35
Absolutely. Clear.
1:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
1:38
So we'll take it from the top and just see where it goes,
1:40
shall we? Great, let's do it.
1:43
OK, so welcome back to Dunker's podcast, where cold water meets
1:48
warm, company and community runs as deep as the tide.
1:52
Today, we're going back beyond the dunk.
1:55
We're into the rhythm, the flow, and the freedom of swimming
1:59
itself. Joining me is Rebecca Wetton, Co
2:02
founder of Cat Swim, a digital swim coach platform that's
2:06
changing how we learn to move through water.
2:10
Rebecca's a national and international competitor, a Swim
2:14
England instructor, and someone who believes that swimming
2:17
should feel as joyful and as natural as breathing.
2:21
At Catch, she and her team have built a thriving, supportive
2:25
space where swimmers at every level can learn, train and
2:30
connect, all while discovering the fun that first got us in the
2:34
water. We'll talk technique,
2:37
confidence, community and how dunking and swimming share that
2:41
same current. The simple, empowering joy of
2:45
saying yes, I can. So grab your towel, fill your
2:49
breath and get ready to catch some inspiration.
2:52
A very big dunker's welcome to you, Rebecca.
2:55
Hi. Hi, Mark.
2:57
Thanks for having you. Oh, it's, it's a pleasure.
2:59
It's a pleasure. So I've got to, I've got to ask.
3:03
The quick icebreaker is when was your last cold dunk or swim?
3:08
Oh, I have a good one. I did the Hurley Burly last
3:12
weekend, which is a level water river swim.
3:15
So I went North Wales Barmouth Beach, got in a fairly cold
3:20
river, 14° or so, and then it got colder as we swam inland
3:27
with the tides, so the kind of runs off the mountains there.
3:31
And as I got out, it was probably 10 or 11 degrees, my
3:35
face was frozen over. You know, it's, it's probably
3:39
not much compared to what your listeners are used to.
3:42
But for for me, after a warm summer, I'm I'm a little less
3:46
acclimatized than I would like to be.
3:50
Well, let me make a confession. First of all, we were down at
3:53
the Hurley burly. A couple of the dunkers were
3:55
taking part and in the intro the the, the guy that was superbly
4:01
organized, I must say, superb organized event.
4:04
He said very fleetingly, we've got Rebecca here from Catch.
4:08
And I thought, oh, that's weird. That's the other.
4:10
I'm supposed to be podcasting with Rebecca.
4:13
So I came looking around for you.
4:15
But because you don't all have badges on your chest saying I'm
4:18
Rebecca from Catch, then I couldn't obviously sort of make
4:22
acquaintance. But it was a great event and I
4:27
was very envious not to do it because in me you've got a very
4:30
captive audience. I'm just learning to, to do the
4:33
crawl because I've got my first triathlon event scheduled and
4:38
paid for next year. So I feel as though my arms sort
4:42
of twisted up my back. Really, I've got to do it now.
4:45
And so it, it, it's just so timely.
4:48
This is just so timely. Perfect.
4:50
Well, I'll give you, I'll give you a bunch of tips while we
4:53
talk today, Mark. And what's the triathlon you're
4:55
doing? It's the Abasork triathlon.
4:57
It's the Sprint. They do the Olympic in the
5:00
morning and then they Sprint in the afternoon.
5:02
So the standard sort of fat 75020K and then 5K run.
5:09
And honestly, I'll, I'll level with you.
5:11
It's the swimming that really I've got my anxieties about.
5:15
And and because it's just because I don't know, I'm not
5:19
sure I like my face under the water.
5:22
Although I swim, swim, crawl every day in the ocean, it's
5:26
still, I can't get my head together around in swimming
5:29
pools because I find the cold water really off putting.
5:32
But that's maybe because I'm a dunker.
5:35
I don't know. Yeah, I hear you.
5:37
A lot of a lot of adults go through this.
5:41
It's the facing the water is a is a super common barrier.
5:44
So yeah, we can talk more about that for sure.
5:47
OK, well, if even if we don't get a chance to do it all today,
5:51
then I'll catch you offline because we now know each other.
5:54
I see that you did that. Where did cat swim start?
5:59
Yeah, so Catch started as a community here in Bristol, where
6:05
I live. I arrived in Bristol as someone
6:09
who loves outdoor swimming, but I really love like getting my
6:14
face in and doing a bit of distance.
6:17
And there was some wonderful wild swimming groups who would
6:22
go dunking in beautiful places or sometimes less beautiful
6:27
places, but, you know, really cheerful, really wonderful
6:30
community. But I was also looking for a
6:33
group of swimmers who were up for, you know, doing a bit of
6:35
distance, maybe doing 45 minutes an hour of swimming together.
6:40
And I couldn't really find anywhere that that seemed to
6:43
work for me. So I started assembling friends
6:46
and what they were saying was I like the idea of swimming, but I
6:50
find it pretty hard. Like, I find front crawl
6:52
covering distances like quite difficult.
6:56
And it didn't seem like they had found anyone who was able to
7:01
sort of meet the weather app, which is they could swim.
7:04
They didn't need to learn from scratch, but they really needed
7:07
to work on their technique. And they ultimately wanted to
7:11
get fitter with their swimming. So I thought there's a gap here
7:14
and I'm just going to, you know, being someone who has a coaching
7:17
qualification, who comes from a swimming background, I'm just
7:20
going to hold some cohorts, you know, some sessions.
7:24
And so I started, I started instructing like 3 different
7:28
groups. One were learning front crawl
7:31
pretty much from scratch. The next were had signed up for
7:35
their first triathlon or open water swim.
7:37
So that's your group mark. And then the third group were
7:40
like, they were, they were wanting to dial up their
7:43
swimming in some way. So they'd, they'd done a few
7:45
competitions. They, they, they could swim some
7:48
decent distances from crawl, but they wanted to dial up their
7:51
front crawl technique, maybe swim further or faster or more
7:54
efficiently. So working with these three
7:57
groups, I realised that what people were really valuing was
8:02
having a technique to learn that they could just focus on, like a
8:06
step by step journey with front crawl technique.
8:09
And they also really valued having some structure and
8:13
variety. When they went to the pool or
8:16
went to an open water spot and wanted to train, wanted to
8:19
practice, they didn't want to be doing the same thing over and
8:22
over again because that makes it boring, but also means you
8:26
struggle to progress. So Catch.
8:29
Then Fast forward to what we did two weeks ago, which is we
8:33
launched an app that combines up the supportive community that
8:38
always existed at the heart of Catch, but also a personalized
8:42
set of video lessons that people can learn, the techniques of
8:46
front crawl, and a personalized training plan that meets the
8:50
weather app. And yeah, we've essentially
8:53
built an algorithm based on all the swimmers.
8:55
We worked with hundreds of swimmers over the last year.
8:59
We went from a super manual process of me just getting to
9:02
know people and swimming with them often and looking at their
9:06
swimming and giving them a little baseline test and writing
9:11
Google Docs what they needed to do and linking them to YouTube
9:14
videos. We've now got a system that does
9:18
that automatically. So a piece of technology, an
9:21
algorithm that takes data from a swimmer and it presents them
9:25
with a personalized swimming plan that meets the weather app
9:28
and a video lesson series that unlocks week on week.
9:33
So yeah, that's kind of what we've what we've landed on with
9:36
Catch. So do to obviously you've sort
9:39
of made this transition from excuse the phrase, pen and paper
9:43
through now to almost a sort of an AI solution.
9:47
Do. You do people therefore have to,
9:50
well, they're on there that whichever of those 3 levels
9:52
they're at, do they then get a friend to record them and then
9:56
you capture that information and put it into your algorithm or or
10:00
is it just something that they can immerse themselves within?
10:03
What? What you're telling you telling
10:05
them they get better at it and then they come back to the next
10:08
stages? Or is it neither of those?
10:11
It's a good question. So in the onboarding flow, when
10:15
someone joins the app, we ask them a whole series of questions
10:18
to figure out what their lifestyles like, who they are,
10:22
what motivates them, what their goals are, and to give us a
10:26
sense of their experience and ability with swimming.
10:30
And then we set them a very simple baseline challenge that's
10:34
tailored to the answers of that that form.
10:38
And off the back of that, we can ascertain like so much about who
10:43
they are, what they need. And I think what we've realised
10:48
is that we have a number of different pathways on the app,
10:51
right? So in the back end of the app, a
10:53
triathletes plan, a first time triathlete would look very, very
10:57
different from someone who's wanting to learn swimming, to
11:01
swim smoother for fun. And then a training plan would
11:05
look completely different from someone who signed up for a 10K
11:09
river swim in North Wales. So there's so many different
11:13
pathways on the app and it took so much time and effort to
11:17
build. But as a result, no person has
11:20
the same journey on the app. So it's all completely unique to
11:24
them. And that's, that's another
11:26
reason why sort of creating a piece of technology like this
11:28
enables you to help so many people at once, right?
11:32
It's it's great to be seeing sort of the numbers of people
11:36
who can transform their swimming through, through going through
11:38
this journey. But the other thing that we do
11:42
is we're, we're trying to get to know people.
11:45
So people chat with me through the app.
11:47
So I'm constantly answering questions, chatting with people
11:50
as they go, getting a sense of who they are and what they need,
11:54
what extra support they might need.
11:57
And then also the app learns from them.
12:01
So based on their behaviour, based on how many sessions
12:04
they're ticking off or how hard they've found them or just how
12:07
they're feeling, we take that info and then the app adjusts so
12:13
their journey changes as often as it needs to based on how
12:17
they're doing. OK, so not only are they part of
12:21
a, a sort of a community of lots of people doing this at
12:24
different stages at the same time, but it's really sort of
12:27
personalized as though it's absolutely, well, not as though
12:30
it's absolutely tailored to them.
12:33
That's it exactly. Presumably that will that will
12:36
influence the progression speed the the different things that
12:40
you as an instructor or as a a guiding team are asking them to
12:44
do and and effectively what you expect them to the what barriers
12:49
they you expect them to break and get over and and milestones
12:53
achieved. That's it exactly.
12:56
OK. So, so your community, obviously
12:59
I'm, I'm going to keep coming back to this because I'm a
13:01
community man. That's what dunkers are.
13:03
So the community is really important because presumably we
13:07
swimmers, and I'll sort of include myself for the sake of
13:10
this, this podcast, we swimmers can interact with each other as
13:14
well. Can we through through your app?
13:17
Yeah, that's right. And I've even got examples of
13:20
where I've sort of match made within the community, and I
13:26
don't mean that in advance. There was an upside.
13:31
To this, I as yet no successful relationships have been
13:34
important to catch, but some, some swimming events, you sort
13:41
of need to do it as a team. So we know, like I know who is
13:48
swimming similarly to other people.
13:50
So I can kind of benchmark like where people are at, what their
13:54
goals are. You know, I know, I know a lot
13:57
about people right in the community.
13:59
So if someone comes to me and says, hey, like I, I really want
14:03
to do this event, but I need a partner to do it with.
14:06
It's it's a safety thing. They, they mandate it.
14:09
And one example is, is this this Finland downhill swim in in the
14:15
north of Finland where you swim? I'm just going to.
14:19
Interrupt a downhill swim in. Yeah, yeah, Sorry, I should
14:23
explain that downhill swim is where you've got the tide with
14:28
you. It's it's, it's what that that
14:31
phrase phrase is sort of shortened, yeah, which, which is
14:35
quite sweet, but it's this idea that you're sort of swimming
14:38
down a hill because it's made that much easier by the tide,
14:42
like. The Hurley Burly.
14:43
Exactly, the Hurley Burly is a great example of that.
14:47
So you're whooshed along by the tide.
14:49
So your preparation needs to be like you need to be able to swim
14:53
a certain distance, but you don't need to train quite so
14:57
intensely because you've got this tide helping you along.
15:00
So this forms what we what we sort of give people in their
15:03
training plans and how we prepare them.
15:06
So this spin, the downhill swim, it is like the Glastonbury
15:09
tickets of the swimming world, right?
15:11
It is so popular, you need to book your ticket within 5
15:16
minutes of registration going live or you've missed it for the
15:19
year and you need to wait until next year.
15:21
So prior to this event registration going live, 2 guys
15:27
came to me separately and said, Hey, I really want to do the
15:31
swim, but I've got no one to do it with.
15:33
Can you help me? And I'm like, I look at these
15:36
two guys and they're, they're so similar, like in so many ways.
15:39
I, I know both of them as characters.
15:42
I know they'd be friends. I know that they're at a similar
15:45
stage with their swimming. They're both really committed
15:48
and motivated to swimming these sort of longer distances.
15:52
And I'm like, you guys should just go for a swim together.
15:54
You don't live too far apart, different counties, but not too
15:57
far apart. Meet in the middle, go for a
15:59
swim. If you like each other, let's
16:02
let's team you up and train you together for this Finland swim.
16:06
And they got on like a house on fire.
16:08
So they're now teaming up for this Finland downhill swim.
16:11
And yeah, we we match made that within the community.
16:15
And then come on. Well, that's, that's brilliant.
16:18
And, and I think The thing is there's a, there's a real
16:21
correlation there, as an intimated a few moments ago,
16:24
between the dunkers, because the dunkers, we get in the water and
16:28
we do it every day. As you know, it's, it's very,
16:31
very off putting to some people, not because they don't like
16:35
water, but the whole, the whole of the environment.
16:37
You know, you're getting changed on a beach with people you don't
16:40
know. You're going into water, which
16:42
is usually, I mean, at this time of year.
16:44
Today it was 12°, the outside temperature was 6, and we were
16:49
in for sort of probably 10 minutes or so.
16:51
Not that you have to stay in that long, but it's about being
16:54
able to encourage people exactly the same way as these two guys
16:58
on the finish downhill swim, I guess. 100% it's one of the
17:02
principles of building a habit around swimming and getting into
17:08
the water is make it social. Making it sociable means you're
17:13
far more likely to do it more often.
17:16
You're far more likely to associate it with lots of
17:18
positive emotions. And we all know that like as
17:23
human beings, we crave connection around the activities
17:26
that we love doing. So although as an experience, if
17:31
you are, you know, training with us on catch and you're based in
17:35
an area where as yet we don't have many other people, we
17:39
always urge people just like, go and find your local swim
17:42
community. If you can't find it through
17:43
catch, if you can't find it through our community, there's
17:46
so many incredible groups who are out getting in the water.
17:50
Go and do it and and link your, your, your outdoors activity,
17:56
your sport with joy and connection and community and
18:02
you're on to a winner. Because I was going to say, I
18:05
want you just to, to walk me through just for a moment into
18:08
what you think are the mental benefits of being able to do
18:12
this because you know what, you know, are they the same as
18:15
Duncan? I'd be really interested to
18:17
hear. So what's your sort of take on
18:19
this? Yeah, I'm actually going to
18:21
switch hats and talk about this from the perspective of a non
18:25
profit that I work on here in Bristol and North Somerset,
18:29
which is called Reclaim the Sea and we do swimming sessions for
18:33
people with refugee and asylum seeking backgrounds.
18:36
It's a trauma informed programme.
18:38
So often people come and they haven't ever swam or have not
18:43
swam in a long time, and many of them will be experiencing
18:46
multiple layers of trauma. So with this experience, what
18:52
I've noticed is running swimming sessions with people who are
18:57
going through potentially severe mental illness or social
19:00
isolation or multiple layers of trauma or combination.
19:06
What I noticed to be the benefits are #1 this sense of
19:12
agency, like this sense of overcoming something
19:15
challenging, Oh my gosh, like doing something that you didn't
19:20
think you could do. What that unlocks is I cannot
19:25
measure the impact of that. So an example would be our
19:30
program that we ran last summer. A woman came out of having
19:36
learnt to swim with Reclaim and See and she immediately signed
19:40
up for a computer course and she had never seeked anything like
19:45
that before. And I'm not saying that it was a
19:47
direct cause or, or that you can you can necessarily know what
19:51
the combination of factors were. But I just noticed that people
19:55
who learn to swim there are and do swimming sessions
20:01
back-to-back week on week, cold water outdoors, like all the
20:04
challenges that come with that bath.
20:07
If you stick to that and see progress and see transformation.
20:12
It can do wonders of knock on effects for your wider life and
20:15
your sense of self-confidence and your sense of self worth and
20:19
connected to that. I've learnt from working on
20:23
Reclaim to see that trauma is often held by the body.
20:26
So if you're someone who's experienced trauma, to be able
20:30
to do something like lie on your back and float in the water and
20:34
look at the sky is an extraordinary thing to reconnect
20:38
with your body in a positive way.
20:40
And that can actually help you heal.
20:42
So that's that's proven, that's well researched now.
20:48
And a really important aspect of like blue health is if you're
20:51
looking to heal or you've been through something that is
20:54
traumatic, basically just the experience of floating in the
20:58
water, being weightless and reconnecting with your body in a
21:01
positive way is a really brilliant way to do that.
21:05
So, yeah, and I think we will know about the positive impact
21:09
of movement, right? And we know what that does to
21:12
our mental health. We know what that does for, you
21:16
know, all those good things from endorphins through to, you know,
21:20
all the positive chemicals that happen in your brain,
21:23
particularly with cold water. It's the perfect cocktail of
21:27
your endorphins, your serotonins, your, you know, like
21:30
that lovely cocktail of things in your brain that, that, that
21:34
just sort of takes you out of the, the things that are causing
21:38
you to feel stress or anxiety or pressure.
21:43
So yeah, I I think it's, it's well understood with the outdoor
21:46
swimming community in general that like being in water and
21:50
moving in water and even just floating in water can be
21:54
transformative for your mental state.
21:57
Absolutely. It's because of just just saying
21:59
about the chemical impacts the the dopamine that you get from
22:03
just going into water. And then for us, I guess we can
22:06
really measure of this. We can see so much the the sort
22:09
of serotonin hit about being with different people and
22:12
building that community because we're all craving that.
22:16
I love this expression, the sort of the blue health that
22:21
presumably that's that's something that you're you're you
22:24
sort of hold in your mind all the time.
22:26
It's yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
22:29
I think it's fascinating. I think it's been a really under
22:31
researched thing. I think if you look at the UK
22:34
and how we've, we've, you know, how we have valued swimming, it
22:40
feels like it's really dropped down the agenda for, you know,
22:45
if we look at, if we look politically right, like how is
22:48
money being spent? It's certainly not being spent
22:50
on swimming facilities. Like it's very rare to have
22:55
somewhere like Clevedon. Where near where where I'm based
23:00
Clevedon on on the coast is a tidal pool.
23:04
It's next to the Severn estuary. It's absolutely incredible, 250
23:08
meters long, amazing community. Go and swim there.
23:12
New Year's Day, we had like 300 people in the water wearing
23:15
their bubble hats. It was a beautiful thing.
23:17
It's a 24 hour, you know, freely accessible to anyone.
23:23
You don't have to pay any money to go there.
23:25
And it's it's, it's so safe as well.
23:28
Like it's a way for people to get in the water who would be
23:31
mightily afraid of getting in in the Severn estuary,
23:35
understandably. 1. Of the biggest tidal ranges in
23:38
the world. So yeah, like going and throwing
23:40
on the coast somewhere like Clevedon, somewhere like Weston
23:43
Super Mare, it's a terrifying thing for anyone.
23:47
So to have a tidal pool sitting there that is freely accessible
23:51
is amazing. And it's entirely community
23:53
volunteer run. It does get some funding from
23:56
councils, but like the bare minimum.
23:59
So those kinds of spaces are precious and I, I, I really hope
24:06
that more research and more awareness into blue health is
24:08
going to finally lead the government to actually funding
24:11
like inner city spaces for people to swim and, you know,
24:16
inland water. It very tough to find a wild
24:20
swimming spot inland actually. And it's free.
24:23
That's, that's actually still really, really hard to find.
24:27
And obviously we've got the coast, which is brilliant.
24:30
But yeah, you just noticed this real difference in attitudes,
24:34
awareness and education around swimming safely outdoors.
24:39
Coastal communities typically have a much better
24:42
understanding, awareness and level of education and
24:45
experience of swimming and and sort of understand the risks
24:48
that are involved. It's always improvements need to
24:51
be made, but generally much stronger on the coast.
24:54
But in land you've got this real gap and you've often got fear
24:58
associated with getting in in the water outdoors.
25:01
So I'd love to see that blue Health peace and the research
25:05
around that helped to improve funding and education and just
25:10
opportunities for access for for more people to swim.
25:13
Yeah, because ironically, we live on an island.
25:16
And what is it? It's, it's barely 100.
25:18
Even if you're in the in, is it Banbury?
25:20
That's a middle of the country. If you're somewhere like that,
25:23
it's barely 100 miles to a coast.
25:25
It's, you know, we we've, and that's the sort of the, the
25:27
farthest you'll be. So as you say, it's it's crazy
25:31
that we're not being able to do more with it.
25:33
Where did the blue health come from?
25:35
Who, where, who's who owns that phrase, or who started?
25:38
I wonder, I don't know that it would be interesting to go and
25:41
have a look and see like who sort of really got that going.
25:46
And I actually, yeah, I was, I'm sort of helping out with, I'm
25:52
sort of contributing to the publication of a book called
25:54
about Blue Health at the moment. So it's like it just seems to be
25:58
non-stop growing in like public interest.
26:01
And I think it's it's at that sweet spot where especially
26:05
during the pandemic, I feel that's when blue health became
26:10
much more of an area of focus for people.
26:12
I think people were, you know, they weren't able to use
26:16
swimming pools. So getting into the water in the
26:18
outdoors was a sensible thing to do.
26:21
And it was a neat way of being able to sort of, you know, in
26:25
those periods of of the sort of semi lockdowns where you could
26:28
go outdoors with with people or with a person getting a water
26:33
was just wow, what an amazing experience during that time.
26:36
Otherwise deeply distressing or highly boring to when you were.
26:42
Netflix made a documentary, didn't they, about the Blue
26:46
Zones or the Blue with the four or five or five or six specific
26:51
places. I think Singapore was one around
26:54
the world, which were Blue Zones.
26:57
And I think that really stuck into the into the psyche of a
27:01
lot of people. Yeah, yeah, It's interesting,
27:05
isn't it? How Netflix is sometimes the
27:07
driver of like something becoming a big deal for the
27:12
general public around the world, becoming a bit of sensation.
27:15
I remember when, well, I mean, actually not not Netflix, but a
27:19
documentary that I think really sort of shook things up.
27:22
Was, was, was blue planet was was David Attenborough that that
27:28
sudden flip that you saw of people becoming aware of
27:32
plastic, social plastics and plastic pollution.
27:36
Game changer, absolute game changer.
27:39
So yeah, the impacts of pop culture on, you know, how people
27:43
view the ocean, what they care about.
27:45
And I think, I think that's amazing.
27:47
I'd love to see a blue health, like a real blue health focused
27:51
equivalent of that actually. Do you want to pitch that to
27:53
Netflix? Or should I was going to say
27:55
let's, let's no, let's do it together.
27:57
It's you're always stronger together.
28:00
Yeah, yeah, it's. But we can say, I mean, the
28:03
whole point about it is that yes, as you say, even that
28:06
Attenborough thing, it sort of went from disbelief to complete
28:10
incredibility and to them to absolute anger.
28:13
It's it was a massive motivator. So what's, what's next for
28:17
Catch? What's next for Catch?
28:19
Yeah. So catch is only two weeks old
28:25
in its current form. So yeah, the the app is new.
28:30
So we've got approaching 300 people using it now, which is
28:35
which is great. So we're, we're seeing that, but
28:39
people who know about it are interested and they're like,
28:42
what is this new, new app? I haven't really seen something
28:44
quite like this. So people are checking it out.
28:48
The next things that we want to do are just really, really tell
28:53
lots of people about it. So get out there more and more.
28:57
So the more people who know about it, the better.
29:00
So we're looking at various different partnerships with, you
29:05
know, publications that are focused on outdoor swimming
29:09
through to events, swim holidays.
29:15
Basically. We just want to like, be
29:17
supporting people in the spaces where our swimmers are.
29:22
So we want to, I mean, I'd love to do a road trip around the UK
29:25
next summer and drop into like any swimming community that will
29:29
have me. Yeah.
29:30
Yeah. I was going to say leisure
29:32
centres and because this is where the young kids, well, old,
29:36
young, young people get really stimulated and to have a follow
29:40
on to have the, the ability to sort of walk away from the
29:43
swimming pool on your, your phone and then go into the, the
29:47
app. I mean that that's a, that's a
29:49
seamless transition that just holds them in their attention,
29:53
doesn't it? You're totally right.
29:55
I think we need to be, you know, we need to have a poster up in
29:58
every leisure centre. Ideally we need be running drop
30:02
in sessions where people can just turn up and just try out
30:05
the app and talk to me and get a bit of coaching and just get
30:09
that experience of what it's like to sort of have a digital
30:13
tool that supports you on your swimming journey and
30:15
transformation. And I guess it's those people
30:19
who like they're they're ready to learn and they want to have
30:23
some autonomy in that, some ownership over that.
30:26
So I guess it's finding those people who are, yeah, they're,
30:30
they're motivated. They don't necessarily want
30:34
someone mandating that they have to turn up to this pool at this
30:38
time. Absolutely.
30:41
It's like, you know, people who just want to dip into something.
30:45
It's. That it's that coach in your
30:46
pocket. Thing isn't.
30:48
It it's just that it's your agenda, it's your your, your
30:52
ambition. It's your desire, but you've got
30:55
a coach in your pocket and isn't that reassuring?
30:57
You know that's. Yeah.
31:00
And I, yeah. And I think for us the other
31:02
really important thing is like really getting to know the
31:06
people who are using catch or want to use catch and ask them
31:10
very honest questions about what do you need from us that you
31:14
aren't already getting and what do you really value about this?
31:18
So really developing the product is a never ending thing.
31:22
So you can never stop making it more fun to use or adding in
31:28
additional features or stripping it back and simplifying it.
31:31
Like there's so many things we can do with the product.
31:35
So yeah, that's where my Co founder is brilliant.
31:38
And he just created something yesterday that's going to be
31:42
yeah, that's really, yeah, yeah. My Co founder Will is he's he's
31:47
very technical and just loves building like loves the sort of
31:52
technical tweaking, shipping new features, testing them out.
31:56
So yeah, we've got a new a new feature that that he's just just
32:01
cracked yesterday that's going to make I guess the the summary
32:06
I'll give you for now, because I can't say exactly what it is.
32:10
It just makes the experience of going and doing your swimming
32:13
session so much easier. And anything we can do to like
32:17
reduce those barriers that that, that that face people who want
32:21
to go and swim more is, is brilliant because there's no
32:24
denying it is it is on the more faffy end versus something like
32:28
jogging. So yeah, always finding ways to
32:31
make it a more easy and fun experience for people.
32:35
So a really big part for me is just talking to people.
32:38
Like I spend all day just talking to people who are using
32:42
catch, want to use catch, and just asking them those questions
32:46
just to get to know like what they need to see from us, how we
32:49
can improve. OK, well, questions Now the one
32:52
thing I always you, you might or might not know, but on the
32:54
Dunker's podcast, we always a guest will leave a question off
32:58
off air for the next 1. So I'm not going to tell you
33:02
who's left the question for you, but what's the most frequent
33:06
piece of advice that people ask you for and what's the answer?
33:12
Yeah. Oh, wow, this is a good one.
33:15
Because instantly I jump into what are the challenges that
33:19
people have with front crawl that they're always asking me,
33:23
right? Like, so it's like, what makes
33:25
front crawl feel hard? And I would say the number one
33:30
thing that people ask me about is breathing.
33:34
Like how can I breathe more easily when I'm swimming front
33:38
crawl? And my answer to that is, I
33:44
mean, there's there's a multi layered thing that you can do,
33:47
you can basically go on a bit of a journey with your breeding.
33:49
So what I tend to do is I ask what, what, what is your head
33:54
and body position looking like at the moment?
33:56
How is it feeling? So the first way to improve your
34:00
breathing is not actually to improve your breathing, It's to
34:04
improve your head and your body position when you're swimming
34:06
front crawl. So what that means is that many
34:09
people will have their head up a bit too high.
34:12
And that goes back to the instinct you mentioned right at
34:15
the start of the call, mark, which is people actually don't
34:17
instinctively love putting their face firmly into the water.
34:22
It goes against some instinct. So what I would suggest to
34:26
people is put your face into the water more firmly, like really
34:31
make sure your eyes are down. Make sure your ears are touching
34:35
the surface of the water. And what you'll notice is your
34:39
body positions sort of correct a little bit.
34:41
We're like a seesaw. So if our head is high, our legs
34:44
typically sink and that's a really common challenge for
34:47
people, particularly people who do other sports like running or
34:52
cycling. So having these heavy legs that
34:54
then 'cause all this drag and make everything feel hard.
34:58
And that includes the breathing. So if you fix the head position,
35:02
you lift the legs up a bit higher.
35:04
It's pretty amazing just based on that alone, how much easier
35:08
something like breathing feels because you're less out of
35:11
breath, it's less tiring. So that's that's kind of a quick
35:15
simple fix. Well, on that, I shall make a
35:18
testimonial and come back to you because that is exactly I'm, I'm
35:22
just so common to everybody else who's trying to learn from call
35:26
and yeah, yeah. And it's it's.
35:29
Spread the word. Head and body position.
35:31
That's it. Body position, yeah.
35:33
OK, so if you were to swim or dunk anywhere in the world with
35:39
somebody, who would it be and where?
35:41
Oh my goodness, wow. I've been thinking a lot about
35:46
the Mediterranean lately. I think it's where we go into
35:49
the season of, you know, the, the days are suddenly a lot
35:53
shorter and Bristol here in the city feels suddenly much more
35:57
grey than it was a couple of months ago.
36:00
So for me, the flip change of that is the Mediterranean.
36:07
And I saw something flash up on my social media.
36:11
It's like it's gorgeous. Like it was a house and it was
36:15
like right on the edge of the water in mainland Greece.
36:19
I don't know the exact spot, but it was like you open the door
36:23
and you're basically in the ocean.
36:25
You've almost got to watch out because you might just walk
36:27
through the door and just fall in.
36:29
But that's that's the dream is like if you could be just
36:35
looking at the ocean all day long, if you could just dive
36:39
from your front door into the ocean, that'd be the dream.
36:43
And you know, the person I I choose to do it with is my Co
36:47
founder and also my partner Will.
36:49
Yeah, he's my partner. And like we've, I think I've
36:52
been thinking about the way that we've worked so hard and
36:57
incredibly long days for the last year.
37:00
Like it's very common that that will will be doing a 16 hour
37:04
day, just head down working on the app.
37:07
You know, I'm, I'm probably not far off that.
37:10
And, you know, six or seven days a week working because it's
37:12
like, it's how it is when you're really excited about creating
37:15
something new and you, you just, yeah, it's just the two of you.
37:19
So you, you've got to, so I'd love to like reward him with a
37:23
trip to the Mediterranean. I was going to say I can tell
37:25
you're excited about it. Well, well, can I just say thank
37:28
you very much. I hope that you follow and you
37:31
actually find your dream because you deserve it.
37:34
It's a great thing that capture is doing honestly.
37:37
And I just and it really isn't sort of flippant when I say you,
37:41
you have got a convert since since we met and what, only a
37:46
couple of weeks ago when you responded to.
37:49
Well, yeah, I'll have a chat with you then.
37:51
It's it's sort of it's, you know, like an awakening for me,
37:55
let's say that. So it's been really, really good
37:59
fun. And thank you very much indeed.
38:01
I'd like you to come back if you would, and tell me.
38:03
I would love. To if the app's only two, two
38:06
weeks old, I'd like to sort of crack you and have another chat
38:09
when you've got 2-3 or four months of real sort of depth of
38:14
info and and people's feedback, because that's clearly what's
38:17
really important. I would love to.
38:19
That would be great. I've enjoyed this so much.
38:22
You've got great energy, Mark. We all need people you who are
38:25
just like embracing the joy of swimming and being outdoors.
38:29
It's and community. It's it's great.
38:32
I love what you're doing with this podcast.
38:34
Excellent. And if you ever find yourself in
38:36
Abersoft, you just look us up please.
38:38
It's. I will add that to my 2026 road
38:41
trip to swimming communities around the UK for sure.
38:44
I'd love it. Absolutely.
38:45
Well until then, make the dunkers spirit go with you.
38:49
And thank you again.