The first five minutes: a beginner's guide to getting in

New swimmers worry about the wrong five minutes. They imagine the problem is staying in; it isn't. Get the first five minutes right and cold water is on your side. Here's exactly how we walk a first-timer in.

Before your toes get wet

Change into your swimsuit last, so you're not standing around cooling down before you start. Do the briefing warm, in your robe. Two long, slow exhales before you walk down the beach — you're rehearsing the thing that matters most, which is breathing out.

The walk in (yes, walk)

Nobody dives at our sessions. Walk in to mid-thigh and stop. The gasp you feel building as the water hits your legs is the cold shock response starting up — give it nothing. Long exhale. Walk to waist depth. Stop again.

This is the point where your breathing wants to run away from you: short, fast, high in the chest. The single most useful skill in cold water swimming is noticing that and answering it with a slow exhale, twice as long as the breath in. You cannot panic while breathing out slowly. It is physiologically hard to do both at once.

Shoulders under, hands out

When — and only when — your breathing is back under your control, bend your knees and get your shoulders under. Keep your hands out of the water for the first minute if you like; cold hands are half the discomfort. Head stays up. Face-in swimming can wait for another week.

Then just... be there. Thirty seconds later something remarkable happens: the water stops screaming at you. The vasoconstriction has done its job, the shock has passed, and what's left is fizzing, glittering, entirely manageable cold. This is the moment everyone comes back for.

The first swim

Head-up breaststroke, parallel to the shore, next to your guide. A few minutes is plenty — on your first winter swim, it's more than plenty. We will tell you when it's time to come out, and the answer is "before you want to", because the swimmer who exits grinning and slightly disappointed has judged it exactly right.

Get dressed like it's a race

Out, robe on, wet swimsuit off, warm layers from the top down, hat, hot drink. Fast. The shivers ten minutes later are normal (that's the after-drop; read our physiology guide) — shiver into a flask of something hot with the rest of us and enjoy the fact that everything, for the rest of the day, feels easier than it did before the swim.

That's it. Five careful minutes, then a disproportionate reward. We'll be in the water next to you the whole time.