Survival Swim Lessons

We are happy to hear that you are interested in keeping your child safe around the water. We will teach your child the critical survival swimming skills that will last a lifetime. The ages taught are 6 months and up.

Students attend one-on-one 10-minute lessons, with designated time slots every Monday through Thursday for a 5-week session. We aim to teach your child within the first 4 weeks to allow the 5th week for clothes and parent education. We currently teach in the Belton and Copperas Cove areas throughout the season.

Every lesson is one-on-one instruction. Your child will have our undivided attention. We want each child to experience success and use positive reinforcement to recognize each accomplishment, no matter how small. The parent or caregiver watches every lesson poolside.

When we teach your child the skills needed to survive an aquatic accident, you’ll see that we are firm, fair, and passionate about what we do. We love meeting new people and educating them through the weekly journey of your child’s lessons.

Survival Float and Swim

We will typically start teaching children when they begin crawling, rolling, and sitting unassisted the survival float. This is where the child will rotate from a face-down position to a face-up float position until the child can be saved.

For children who are walking, we teach them survival swim – where the child will swim face down using their arms and legs, then rotate onto their back to the survival float, then flip back over to continue swimming to get to the side or steps.

Advanced Survival swim and Stroke Specific

These lessons are an advancement of skill. We will go over survival swim and make any adjustments to swim posture possible due to growth or interference. After the survival swim refresh is done, we will go into more stroke-specific techniques. The parents will have an opportunity to choose between one of the four strokes for their child to be taught: breast, butterfly, freestyle, and backstroke.

What to expect

Your child may be upset and fuss on the first day or every day. Crying is a child’s only form of communication. We want to make you aware of this because it is hard for us to see our children upset. Remember, these emotions do not mean your child is “fearful,” but it may be hard to watch at first. We will explain as we go.

We have decided to put YOUR CHILD’S SKILL into these New Categories. Please take a look at what your child’s skill will be:

1. Otter
   Survival Float - We will teach your child this essential skill, no matter the age

2. Stingray
   Survival Flip - We will progress your child’s skills by incorporating swimming to the side or step from their survival float

3. Porpoise
   Survival Swim - We will advance your child’s skill that will help increase swimming and floating durations

4. Shark
   Advance Survival Swim - We will continue to advance your child’s progress into a stronger swimmer may also start learning freestyle stroke.

5. Orca
   Prerequisite: Shark
   Stroke Specific - Progress to learn all four strokes: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly