- Hi, I'm JR.
I'm 30 years old and I'm learning how to swim.
I'm Terry, I'm 35 and I'm learning how to swim.
(upbeat music)
I think the folks that I run around with,
I don't think a lot of us are swimming all the time
and doing those types of things, so it wasn't a big thing.
I got away with it.
I have not learned how to swim before because of fear.
I have had two near drowning experiences in my childhood
which has kept me from wanting to learn.
I think a lot of people think swim,
sport,
fun,
refreshing,
and those are all important things,
it's a lifelong sport you can participate in.
We see folks who their life choices are getting impacted
by the fact that they can't swim.
Whether or not they can't take
a vacation near water or on the beach
because it's just an uncomfortable environment
for them to be in.
So it can impact choices
and they decide that they wanna change,
have different choices.
It's always been one of those things I'm like,
I'm going to definitely learn the mechanics of swimming
and just being more confident in the water.
'Cause it's the worst to be in deep water
and you just see it,
you're with your friends and you're just like,
oh, I'm just gonna stay here
or I'm just gonna put my feet in.
You just wanna go in and be confident.
If anything I felt like taking swimming lessons
was a good step for me to be more comfortable in the water.
When someone starts a swim lesson,
and this could be good for adults to know
because adults sometimes struggle
with learning things new, right?
A really critical part of early stage learning
is self-rescue.
Can you save yourself in the water, basic safety things.
We wanna know that you can start by understanding
the water environment,
breathing techniques,
and then we'll pull them in the later stages
and actual stroke development and stroke mechanics.
We were all adults, too, and that helped.
I think taking swimming lessons with other adults
that had never learned how to swim,
we were all in the same boat.
It was very comforting.
Most nervous probably being in a bathing suit
in front of strangers, that's the first thing.
The first day of our swimming lessons
we learned the basics about how to blow bubbles, breathe.
So we were just in the shallow end,
going in and out of the water.
Just learning how to be comfortable in the water.
We used the floaties to just learn how to glide
from one end to the other.
From that point,
we had learned how to kick, go like this.
Not too, like that.
We then added the additional element of our arms
and learning how to do that and going back and forth,
from side to side.
All in the shallow end.
I think Gigi did a really good job
at making us feel comfortable.
At the end of the first lesson,
I think we were already swimming across the pool already.
The hardest part about the swimming lessons
was definitely learning how to come up for air.
I think literally every time I got water in my ears
so that was really annoying.
I think the hardest part really
was putting it all together.
You know, the kicking, the arms, and the breathing.
It was just a lot at one time.
We hope that our instructor can both engage
with people individually,
but also create that nice group environment
where people can also make connections
and develop friendships.
'Cause that can help with learning, also.
By the end of the first lesson,
it was really calm and JR was there
and he was doing such a great job and I was like,
I can't let him show me up.
I have to do my best.
So, it turned out to be good.
When we got to the last lesson we started doing everything
that we did from the very beginning
and it was more natural,
as opposed to taking baby steps and adding the fundamentals
like one at a time.
We were swimming, I guess.
And it was the first time that we went into the deep end
which was scary as blah. (laughs)
But I think as an adult, you're very aware of yourself.
You're very aware of what you're doing
and it's all a mind thing going in the deep water.
'Cause I think Gigi knew at that time
that we had all the mechanics together,
we had all the basics together
and obviously she wasn't gonna let us drown.
But, yeah overthinking was a big part of it, too.
We wanna make sure that the environment is friendly,
people are with people like them.
We try to reduce all of the psychological
and emotional discomforts that people might have.
The way that I see it is I might as well do it
and fully commit to it
because if you're gonna learn how to swim
you might as well go all in
as opposed to doing it half-assed.
I would love to be able to swim laps
and be able to breathe
and get it all together at the same time.
I think it's amazing exercise.
I really enjoyed it, I loved being in the water.
Now that I know that there's a swim cap big enough
to hide all of my hair,
it's a non-concern.
So, I think it's something that I'm gonna keep doing.