Where adults anxious about swimming can dip their toes, then more, in the water
Joe McCauley swims in waters off Santa Monica Beach after getting help with his aquaphobia.
Kenneth Rippetoe, a swim coach at One With the Water, says he takes things slowly when people are learning to swim but are afraid.
“It becomes almost a therapy session,” he says. “You have to acknowledge that the fears exist. We might start by putting your face in the water, realizing you can stand on the bottom. A lot of it is holding their hands — literally — and doing things together. We might blow bubbles, then put their chins in, then lower their mouths and noses in, and then full submersion, sitting on the bottom. You can get them on their backs, hold their heads and let them float. It’s incredible, to go from the grip of death to have them doing it alone, a lot of the time, in an hour.”
If you can relate to Joe McCauley’s fear of the water, here are some places with swim lessons for adult beginners:
• One With the Water. Lessons in Santa Monica, Culver City, Gardena. Also house calls. onewiththewater.org
• YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, multiple locations, ymcala.org
• Swimming Los Angeles. Offers one day, three-hour adult beginner clinics at Palisades Charter High School, 15777 Bowdoin St., Pacific Palisades. swimmingla.com
McCauley plans to compete Aug. 2 in the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim. Last year more than 1,100 swimmers completed the two-mile course. Swimmers enter the water on the south side of the 10th Street Lifeguard Tower, south of the Hermosa Beach Pier. They swim around the pier, parallel to the shore, then around the Manhattan Beach Pier and finish on the beach. surffestival.org