27 Mar Adults – It’s never too late to learn!
Until recently Neil Bailey Swimming has only really taught children to swim – however frequent requests led to us launching an Adult Swimming Programme. Whilst we are still looking for the perfect venue to house these lessons on a regular basis we decided to get started in the two venues we know so well.
We had requests from; those who couldn’t swim, those that loved swimming and wanted to get better, some who had goals to swim in open water and those who wanted to take their children to the pool without feeling anxious or embarrassed about their swimming ability. In response to these requests, we ran two pilot programmes one for non-swimmers or nervous swimmers and the other for those simply looking for technical help.
After marketing the programmes, we had an influx of replies and both pilots were sold out within a week – with several people asking for details of the next course!
The first programme ran during the February half term at our High March Pool. The lessons consisted of a 1-2-1 teaching style with a maximum of six swimmers in the pool. We had a mixture of abilities each wanting to improve on specific areas of their stroke. There was a mixture of abilities but everyone improved significantly – both in their confidence level and their stroke technique.
The second programme ran every Wednesday for 4 weeks. This pilot invited nervous swimmers who needed more support in a smaller pool to help improve their confidence. We ran the same 1-2-1 format but every swimmer either had a fear of water, or could not swim. Within the first 15mins of the 1-hour lesson we went from having nervous adults – (some of which wouldn’t put their faces in the water) to being able to swim a length of frontcrawl. The rate of improvement was phenomenal and surpassed our expectations!
The swimmers went away feeling proud at what they had achieved and looking forward to their next session. The teachers also gained a lot from this pilot too, as some hadn’t taught adults before and found it hugely rewarding to see the progress that their swimmers had made in such a short amount of time.
Following the success of these two pilot programmes we are running a third during the Easter holidays. If you would be interested in adult swimming lessons send an email to Emma at adults@neilbaileyswimming.co.uk