Why are private swimming lessons better than public pool lessons?
Let’s just look at the cost element to begin with. You pay £4 per lesson and get 7 lessons per half term. That’s 42 swimming lessons per year costing £126. You probably spend the same amount again practicing in between plus the cost of getting to and from the pool every week. So you’ve spent maybe close on £200. Can you swim a length at the end of that year? Not one person at our local swimming pool moved up to the intermediate class in less a years lessons. In the intermediate class the deep end was an terrifying experience with the instructor standing poolside with a long pole for those who got into difficulty which many did.
Is being in a public pool with other people and your instructor on the poolside a good way to learn? What do you think?
Suppose you paid that amount for private lessons, learning to swim in the comfort of a private pool with your instructor in the water with you? What would you achieve? For most people this would get you almost there. For some, these supportive individually tailored private swimming lessons will be all that’s needed, if you are really water phobic, then you will obviously want more support but you will be amazed at what you can achieve in a small private pool with the right instructor.
Contrast the 2 years at your local swimming pool taking lessons in a class against booking your private lessons today and knowing you can go on your next holiday and be confident in the pool or the sea.
But couldn’t I just have a private swimming lesson at my local pool?
A private lesson at your local pool is always an option but having been there ourselves and spoken to many many people who have found this wasn’t the answer for them, we feel confident in saying this is a somewhat pointless exercise. You will simply get exactly the same for your private lesson as you did for a lesson shared with other people and it will cost you about 4 times the price for half the time. Your swimming instructor will still be poolside shouting her instructions to you and usually your so-called ‘private swimming lesson’ will be in a pool full of other people. Just because you have the instructions undivided attention for half an hour, in our opinion doesn’t justify calling it a ‘private lesson’. What you gain from being the only student, you can lose by being fearful of other swimmers splashing and making noise during your ‘private swimming lesson’. Not so private after all?
What proportion of adults fail to learn to swim because they don’t have private lessons?
Irene and Gay speak from personal experience. We continued to go to our local pool for ‘lessons’ for about 3 years after we learned to swim simply because we enjoyed swimming. Most of our skills came from taking swimming courses with TI and studying other methods such as Shaw and Alexander. We also researched a great deal about fear and phobias and spent a lot of our free time in the pool helping each other correct our technique.
We didn’t learn a lot at the local classes and the ‘advanced’ class wasn’t all that advanced! What we did learn was that the vast majority of people fell by the wayside. Some had private swimming lessons, paying £22 an hour to be coached from the poolside in a public pool full of other swimmers. As I mentioned above, not my idea of a private swimming lesson.
So how many succeeded without having private lessons in a private pool? VERY VERY FEW!!! and that includes those that had some individual lessons in the public pool.
Conclusion?
Private swimming lessons in a private pool with your instructor in the pool with you (and only you!) is the way forward. Of course, just because an instructor offers private lessons, doesn’t necessarily mean they have what it takes to teach you, but we like to think we stand out above most others and our testimonials prove that.
So what are you waiting for? Contact us now to chat about your fears and phobias and how we can tailor YOUR private swimming lessons.