By now, hopefully, you have had the chance to bring your child to Intro to Competitive Swim classes at least once and maybe even twice. We certainly hope they are having a great time and love coming back each week! We ALWAYS welcome feedback if there is anything you think would be helpful for us to know about your child, or even ways we can make the experience simpler or more pleasant for you as the parent!
Last week, we touched on the importance of continuing to teach water safety in our Intro to Competitive Swim Levels. This week, we want to dive deeper into FINS main focus: water safety, and more specifically what that looks like in these levels. You now know, as we do, that drowning is the leading cause of accidental death in children ages 1-4, and the second leading cause in children ages 5-14. FINS is on a mission to change those statistics and by committing your child in swim lessons, so are you! Students enrolled in this program will master advanced techniques to aid in water safety. This program includes the following levels: Dolphin FINS, Shark FINS and Fast FINS.
First and foremost we must state that: just because your child is a skilled swimmer does not mean they are drown-proof. Drowning does not discriminate. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, including adults. Our number one safety rule applies to ALL swim levels and ALL ages. Never Swim Alone. Children should never be in a pool or body of water without adult supervision. Teens and adults should always make sure and swim with a buddy.
In our Dolphin FINS and Shark FINS classes we focus on teaching students to increase the time they are able to tread water. Upon exiting Dolphin FINS, students will have the endurance to tread water for at least 1 minute. By the time they complete Shark FINS, students will also have advanced techniques to strengthen their abilities to tread water. Intro to Competitive swimming will also focus on ensuring students swim in a straight line while swimming backstroke, which helps in competitions and can prevent injury as a result of bumping into another swimmer.
Be on the lookout for our email next week where we discuss advanced swim techniques your child will be learning, as well as increasing swim distances.
