Poor Victoria. She really wants to go swimming with her older sister, but because she’s still too young, she has to watch on the sidelines. Swim class is completely different from free play.  While Vanessa is now on her  3rd series of swimming classes that she’s doing at Stanford Swim School.  She’s much improved to the point where she can:

• submerge for around 3+ seconds
• dive to retrieve rings or toys on the pool bottom
• swim forward with a flutter board and kick

It’s amazing how fast they learn and once they overcome the fears of water in their eyes and face, the learning is limitless.  To me, swimming isn’t a hobby - it’s a survival skill.  I don’t have expectations of them becoming Olympiads or even lifeguards, but at least they can be strong enough to save themselves if the opportunity arises.  Of course, helping others along the way is an added bonus, but one step at a time.

Below is a photo I took from Tray’s blog - Vanessa, Natalie and Ethan are all in the same swim class.  They warm-up together and play together at the end, but they have 2 teachers that take the older kids to do more advanced stuff and the younger ones just learn the float, kick, blow bubbles, and dip their faces into the water.