Let your personality flow through you while you’re teaching. Let go of your apprehensions and fears and fall back on your training. You know the progressions to front glides, you know the key things we’re looking for (head down, body flat, relaxed). Bring some imagination into your lessons and turn on that creative juice. Remember to use exciting evocative imagery to get your point across, but use your own words!  Find your “voice” and while you can use our scripts, say them with creative inflection or dramatic delivery.

 

Be kind, courteous, polite, but also be commanding, in control, and sometimes, a little “scary.” We need to always remember that we are in a potentially dangerous environment. There is a possibility that one of your participants will fall in the water and begin drowning. Safe lessons are our priority, and to achieve that we need to be listened to. Have fun, play games, be silly and engaging, but always turn that command voice on when you need to, and bring it out early so you don’t have to use it often.

 

The polite waiter looking for a large tip would accommodate the whims of their participants or clients. In swim lessons, we need to push our swimmers past the comfortable areas of complacency and mediocrity. Instead we need to challenge our participants by drawing them into challenging situations and while we give support, we sometimes need to be intimidating to get results. Don’t be afraid to change your tone of voice to illicit a response. Be commanding, be in charge, but also be approachable.

 

We provide scripts because they are quick, easy, and repeatable things to get a desired response. We’ve pared down that language to make it short and actionable.  We encourage you to give commands. The best teachers are concise, brief, and clear. Command, action, feedback, repeat. You’ll notice all of our swim skill sheets are designed to be quick, illustrative (pictures) concise, and provide actionable corrections.

 

When you are talking to your participants be funny, exciting, engaging, fun, but when describing or giving commands: Be brief, be clear.