swim education
I've witnessed and participated in discussions of water safety on a professional level for more than 30 years now, and I can remember a time when watershapers in just about every sector were unhappy about raising the subject in any way. I could understand the negative attitudes: No matter whether it had to do with pools, spas, ponds or any other form of open, accessible water, nobody
My Christmas stocking saw its first visit from Santa a couple weeks early this year. It arrived in the form of a press release from the National Swimming Pool Foundation with a progress report on its Step Into Swim campaign, which started in 2012 with a mission of creating a million new swimmers by 2022. The program, which should be familiar to
As I wrote in a recent blog ("The Way-Back Machine," September 23), I envy you if you live in a community where your public pools are still being used to teach people of all ages (and especially children) to swim. It means that kids in your area are able to discover swimming in capable, confidence-building environments - the sort of supportive circumstances that were found just about everywhere
A couple blogs back, I wrote about the National Swimming Pool Foundation’s Step Into Swim program (see “A Campaign Apart,” 10 October 2012). Since then, I’ve been following the program’s progress, digging into its background and getting more and more convinced of its significance. I’ve been around the industry long enough to know that
It’s been important to me for two reasons: First, I’m convinced (as others in this magazine have argued) that the watershaping industry is doing both itself and its clients a disservice by not promoting the remarkable healthfulness of aquatic activity. I think this is a deficit we desperately need to address — and also that this effort must begin on a solid base of knowledge and fact. Second, as I progress through my forties, I’m finding that running is becoming more and more difficult because
