So I had 2 lessons this week...my first two since joining this community. I received excellent advice here and was told to work follow the shallow water mastery plan. The very first video emphasizes breathing outside of the pool. I must say it has helped tremendously! Focusing on breathwork before entering the pool really put me in the right headspace. Breathing allowed me to realize where my focus was...I've been too busy overthinking how to swim and thus, would momentarily lose focus and start sinking. The first lesson was the start of starting over. I told the instructor I needed a reset. At first, they told me to try to glide then use the kickboard, I couldn't do either. In previous lessons, those were easy, but something changed. When I tried to kick, the instructor said it looked like I was doing the right motions, but my feet were like Barbie feet. They didn't seem to move the water and I was just in place kicking, not moving from the spot. (I laughed, of course, because I could totally see myself kicking along and found the humor of the situation. It was also representative of my swimming journey.) I realized that I needed to start the breathwork again and for the rest of the lesson, that's all I did. As circumstances would have it, hours before my second lesson, I found myself with canceled meetings and was only a two minute drive from the pool. I went over and found out that for the hours leading up to my lesson, it was open swim. Turns out I had the pool and a very watchful lifeguard all to myself. I did breathwork out of the pool until my body decided I was ready to get into the pool, almost an hour. Once in, I sat on the ledge, with water up to my shoulders and did more breathwork as the pool was a bit too cold for my liking. Let me say, the breathwork was really great because when it was done, I felt lighter and did a little push off of the wall and streamlined a good 4 body lengths and then automatically started kicking. Before I knew it, it was time for my lesson and I felt so much better and my instructor even mentioned noticing a difference between the lessons.