Coaxing Kids to Take Plunge

Squatting at the pool edge, 6-year-old Christina nervously scrunches her water-wrinkled toes. They are the only things moving this August morning. She is frozen in place, on the verge of a big swim class moment. It involves not swimming but a leap of faith.

In her skirted swimsuit and twiggy legs, she looks like Tinkerbell with a waist-length ponytail. The seven other children in her class are much older than she, big 8- and 9-year-olds, even one 14-year-old. But now with all of them staring, the question looms: to jump or not to jump.

Such are the dramas of uncharted waters. Every year, the summer rite of swim lessons plays out at public and private pools throughout Southern California. Here at the Los Angeles County regional pool in Cerritos, 1,000 people will have learned to swim by summer’s end. Lessons are free, and this is one of the few outdoor public pools around where anyone from anywhere can take lessons.

“We’ll get parents lined up several hours before sign-ups begin to make sure their kids get enrolled,” said pool manager Mark Habell, bird-dogging the Olympic-size pool from his office. “I’ve worked at 12 pools in the county, and this is crazy.”

Out on the deck, instructor Amanda Caracci’s 11 a.m. beginner class is underway. Her students are a range of ages and skills, from fearless thrashers lacking technique to the hesitant but naturally gifted. The suntanned instructor will manage them all.

“I guarantee you, by the end of the two weeks, they will all be 100% better,” Caracci said with a confident grin on this, day four of the 10-day course. “Christina just lacks stamina to go as far as the others because she’s so much younger. But most of them will be be able to swim almost all the way across the [shallow end of] the pool.”

At the start, her charges are warming up like swimsuited soldiers. Standing in a row, they do arm circles forward, back, smaller, now bigger. Then they throw their arms up dramatically, and bend in half at the waist.

“Touch your toes!” Caracci cheers over her waterproof megaphone, sunlight bouncing off her sunglasses. “Straight legs, everybody. Straight legs. Let’s go!”

Now they all jump in the pool as their names are called. But things come to a standstill with the reluctant Christina. And the negotiation begins. Caracci inches in closer to the side of the pool, to coax the sputtering kindergartner in.

“Come on, come on Christina! You can do it! Jump, jump, jump!”

Christina bends her knees slightly but freezes. “You can do it, sweetie!” Caracci cheers. Christina lowers another notch, pausing mid-squat. And so it goes for five long minutes until she is eventually hugging her knees in a fetal position, toes curled down over the pool lip. Eventually she does not jump so much as tumble forward into the arms of her instructor. Everyone cheers.

“High-five me!” Caracci says.

The other seven have been fidgeting but now snap to attention. Each drill is a building block toward putting all the swim mechanics together.

Gripping the tiled pool edge, they start kicking furiously. Sam, 14, has such a powerful kick that he soaks the deck.

“Get me wet! Get me wet!” Caracci shouts.

To listen to her is to realize that almost everything she says to the children ends with an exclamation point. Even the timid girl will bloom in the warmth of her attention. Behind goggles, with only heads emerging from the 3 feet of water, the kids can start looking alike, but she learns their names the first day. “Fabian, show us! Kevin, all right! Sam, Lucinda, Athena. . . .”

Next comes getting the children used to being underwater and holding their breath. Their chests lift as they inhale deeply, eyes widening theatrically before they puff out their cheeks. As if on pogo sticks, they plunge below the surface and spring out with a spray of water.

The blond teacher, 21 and a USC student, now balances her megaphone on her wet head. Sam calls it her “dunce cap.” Caracci tunes it out.

“Do the bombs, blow all your bubbles under water,” she instructs.

About 15 minutes into class, a boy named Connor walks up, his mother in tow, late for class because he can’t find his goggles. There is much ado about Connor’s goggles. What did kids do back in the dark ages when only a swim cap was required and only competitive swimmers wore goggles?

“They are clear,” Connor advises his classmates who are asked to be on the lookout for them. He won’t get in the water today. Not without the goggles.

“I can see under the water!” a girl in a pink swimsuit sputters, her head bobbing up for a breath. She is, of course, wearing goggles.

Next up is a swim to the opposite side of the pool.

“Superman over, submarine back,” Caracci yells, then moves out of the way. Hands stretched over their heads, the children purposefully start kicking wildly across the pool. The kicks need some work. Legs that should be extending straight back are wiggling horizontally. A fleeting wince passes Caracci’s face before she recovers with a smile.

Submarine is not an official name but kids know what it means: head under water, feet scissoring silently.

“I’d love to see some big arms and big kicking,” the teacher says, “and some sideways breathing would be good. Now swim out to me!”

Perched on the stairs a few feet from Caracci’s bunch are five children who await their turn being held by their teacher as they try to endure a few seconds of floating face-up in the water. The kids count with her, “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5!”

It’s now kick board time in Caracci’s class, when her pupils learn how to use arms and legs together.

“When you breathe out all the bubbles, turn your head to the side. I would like very much to see some straight legs,” she says hopefully. Fabian crosses the pool, not once lifting his head.

At the other side of the pool, the kids arrive and the blue and yellow kick boards go swaaaaaack! swaaack! on the deck. Big noise, noise good; it seems to be the unspoken rule of swim class.

But not everyone is fond of the racket.

“Hey, hey, hey, bud. Stop doing that! Now. Not tomorrow. Now,” a mother yells out, shaking her head. “Sorry. what was I saying? Oh, so both my kids are in swim lessons here. That one banging the board, and the kid with the zinc oxide at the end of that class over there.” she says. “No, I’m not telling you my name,” she says, giggling at the board-smacking ruckus. “My husband still thinks they’re floating angels of the pool.”

As the hour wears on, the instructor’s good cheer never wavers. Now comes the Australian crawl.

“It’s kind of like scooping up water,” chirps a student named Paul.

“It’s like scooping ice cream,” Caracci says. “Bigger scoop, bigger the ice cream, right?”

The group erupts into chants. “Ice cream! Ice cream!”

Now comes the point when the crawl stroke is combined with the side breathing. The teacher demonstrates. “OK, is everybody going to breathe on the side?” Caracci asks. “Yes!” the group answers.

“I’m gonna be watching you,” she teases.

And the kids push away from the side. One pupil pulls his head to the side to breathe. Twice. Nobody else does.

“Well,” Caracci concludes, “you guys did much better that time. OK, you’re done for today!”