Teaching the Pop-up Breath:  A Child Centered Swimming Lessons Approach I have been teaching swimming since 1983.   This is hard to admit, but I have been teaching longer than most of my instructors have been alive!  And of course over the past 28 years, my methods and approaches have changed.  One technique I continue to [...]

One great new theme that my young swim lesson students  have really enjoyed is an “Invisible Buddy Day.”  While adults may find it a little bizarre, young children love hanging out with “invisible buddies!”  I can’t tell you how much fun this can make a strokes class for a four or five year old.  In [...]

One of my Swim Lessons University talks in 2010-2011 was titled, “Tricks to Making Learning Fun.”  In this presentation, I shared with my attendees 14 Swim Lesson Tips and Success Strategies that I have found to be fun and practical to adapt in your learn to swim classes. Tip #4 was one I learned from [...]

I was dumbfounded this morning as I watched two former competitive swimmers, now swim instructors, do freestyle demonstrations with their eyes closed!  These were great age group swimmers. In fact, one of them was even a state champion! Ironically, later this afternoon I received a call from the assistant superintendent of the school district, where [...]

What is the most important component of a successful swim school or swim lessons program?   The swim instructors of course!  Without competent swim teachers, the swim lessons are a flop!  In many cases, the swim lessons are even a waste of time.  In some others, they are actually dangerous. There are multiple factors that affect [...]

When you are teaching any given swimming technique, your instructions typically should focus your swim lesson students on a set of cues or buzzwords.  For example, you may say something like:  “Here we go, I want to see you keep your kick small and fast while during your side breathing.  Ready, go!”  Because your instructions [...]

Swim Lessons University just hosted its’ first of two “One-Day Conferences” for the fall of 2010.  Says swim school director Aileen Donnelly of New Jersey, “Thank you, Jim Reiser, for the seminar.  I learned some new ways to teach and I also loved that you reinforced how to teach kids to swim, especially how I [...]

Just finished final preparations for my first talk in at the Swim Lessons University Super Conference in Indianapolis and Las Vegas.   Take a sneak preview of what will be addressed and swim lesson ideas in the talk titled:  Infant-Toddler Swimming:  Practical Benchmarks and Progressions Brand new benchmarks for Infants & Toddlers 3 Types of Infant-Toddler Swimming Lessons How your [...]

Dear Swim Professor, I wanted to let you know I got my DVD’s today.   I wanted to write earlier, but have been extremely busy with lessons. Your swim lesson videos and swim lesson plans are so awesome!   I love the fact that you don’t display kids who already know how to swim to show [...]

There is so much we can learn from the late, legendary UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden.     As a teacher, coach, and parent, I try to apply Coach Wooden’s life lessons every day.    I liked the 7 Point Creed so much I had it printed on my competitive swimmer’s t-shirts some years ago.   Since his [...]