“I thought these swim lessons would teach me to ‘drown calmly.’ ”  This is what Noressa told me at our holiday celebration for teachers and spotters.  Spotters are student graduates that come back and volunteer to help with beginning classes.  Noressa is one of our spotters.

Noressa’s Story

Her story, however, starts back when she was a child and her mother told the very excited little Noressa, “Today I will teach you how to swim.”  Noressa was excited but unaware that her mom would teach her in the manner she had been taught: sink or swim. Her mom grew up around water in the Philippines and you either learned to survive or … well, I’m not sure of the rest of that sentence.  For Noressa and her two sisters, it was to be afraid.

When one of Noressa’s friends, Margaret, became a teacher with Orca Swim School, she began to talk about this new way to learn to swim.  Margaret had taught and participated in swimming throughout her youth and young adulthood. After many years away she wanted this fulfilling part of her life back again and learned a new way to teach adults who are beginning or afraid. After many conversations, Margaret persuaded Noressa to try swimming one more time.

Noressa was resigned to the fact that she would never learn to swim.  She was told that skinny people like her don’t float and therefore can’t swim.  She was very nervous coming to the first night of class. Noressa expected that Margaret, a kind and trustworthy friend, would maybe teach her to drown calmly or correctly, but would not likely teach her how to swim.

“Then Margaret started throwing toys to the bottom and everyone was diving down to get them.  I peeked under because it looked like so much fun.”

Grounding Principle of Doing What is Fun

As a self-proclaimed goal-oriented person, Noressa diligently did the steps of the class.  It was not until the games came out that the light really clicked on. Margaret had continued to make the ground-rule invitation to only do what was fun. Because when students have fun, we find that learning will always happen.  The game is where she set her goals aside and said, “I just want to play.” She did so and suddenly understood the grounding principle of doing what is fun.

Noressa explains, “Once I understood how much fun the water is and how much learning happens when playing, everything else opened up.  When working on the back float or bobbing, I learned to stop or change the subject when I was pushing. Later I was curious again about those subjects and could learn more.”

Realizing Her Goal

The goal then changed from learning to “drown calmly” to learning to swim in the ocean.  She got to realize this goal in Hawaii. She used the system she learned in the beginning class to figure out the fun in the ocean.  “It was so amazing under there with all the fish!”

Noressa’s next fun goals are swimming across Lake Washington with a Children’s Hospital fundraising Park to Park lake swim, and her dream vacation to the Philippines and the small islands where “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio was shot.  

Listen to the conversation with Cori and Noressa about her swim journey… CLICK HERE.

The post Noressa’s Swim Journey appeared first on Orca Swim School.

The post Learning Starts from Your Inner Light – Part 2 appeared first on Orca Swim School.

Determining your “why” is a question that gets its answer from the feeling part of your body. This can make it difficult to put into words that are not actually about the “what and how”. If I were to throw the question back to you – why learn to swim? The answers would likely be technical, such as: so I don’t drown, improve my fitness, or to participate more fully on vacation. At the root of all these answers is the “why.”

For many people, I believe it is more about the feeling they perceive from others who swim. Images of the water and people in the water are used as a powerful visual for many non-swimming activities. The images are to convey a feeling of calm, relaxation, serenity, beauty, spiritual, fun, light, carefree, strength, and natural. There is a deep feeling that people seek in regards to their relationship with the water, and the results circle back to the original answers about fitness, vacation, and saving your life.

So why do I teach and why did I create the Orca Swim School? Since “why” is more in the feeling part of the brain,  I will start by sharing some stories. The first one that comes to mind is a song I learned as a child in church. It is simple, basic and has hand gestures good for teaching kids. With reflection, I can see this song has orchestrated my life. The song is, “This Little Light of Mine”.

This little light of mine (hold a finger up like a candle)
I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

The song goes on to suggest different ways one could attempt to put out the light, but it is always within the power of the holder to keep it shining – even if it’s under a bushel if someone is trying to blow it out and so on.

It is easy to see this light in the faces of children. As we grow we put more “bushels on” by having stories we tell about ourselves. These stories usually start with, “I am…bad at math, fat, ugly, chronically late, a loud mouth and so on”. We also have more wind trying to blow it out from other stories told about us. Growing up and going through teen years and college, I had many bushels covering much of my light. I also had places where the light shone through.

This light is who I speak to when teaching students, staff or collaborators, and what I teach and learn about to making shine. It is powerful to know that everyone has a light at their core. There are times or areas of life where it is easy to shine, and there are times and areas that there are many bushels or winds. It is always up to the light-holder to shine. I happen to teach this in the pool, a place where my light shines easily. Although as I will tell you in the next part of this story, my light was not without its wind or bushels in my journey to learn.

NEXT WEEK: I explore how I moved beyond myself and started working in my “Why”.   Please check back to read the next chapter and let me know what you think!

The post What is our Why – Part 1 appeared first on Orca Swim School.

We recently held a contest to give away our product that has a $900 value.  This is a relatively high dollar value, but we felt free to give it because, we know from our past students, the intrinsic value of what they receive worth much more.  The value of the service is what we really feel good about giving and thus receiving the joy of a transformed life.  This is what we expected to get.

What we didn’t expect to get was the winner being so thrilled by her gift that she wanted to pay for half her class anyway.  Simply getting the gift was enough to increase the joy in her life.  We could have refused her offer to pay half, but this pays it forward feeling was greater than a polite refusal.  This spirit of generosity compounding itself meant we could turn her ½ payment into a scholarship for an I Matter student (a pay-what-you-can program for Native-American and Black/African-American students).

I will predict that our next student who utilizes the I Matter spot will also pay it forward.  When we started the program we wondered if people would misuse it.  We put that concern aside and found over and over we gain so much from having these students.  We received gifts from them in their participation in the group class that adds a perspective, experience, and insight to generously helping our company in ways other than direct payments.
Keep your eyes open to the opportunity to give.  It is wonderful to watch the gift unwrap and expand.  What opportunities have you had lately?

The post The Power of Intention – Giving Back appeared first on Orca Swim School.