About Swimming Lessons With Irene
My name is Irene and I had to work hard to conquer a lifelong fear of water in order to learn to swim. I had this fear of water all my life owing to childhood incidents. For instance, I was pushed backwards into the water (for a punishment whilst in a children’s home from the age of 6 months), this was similar to ‘water boarding’ and believe me all my formative years I was very terrified of the water but I had no idea why.
The reason being I had pushed that extreme punishment to the back of my mind. This is why I can really understand how and why adults feel so afraid of the water and can’t understand why they feel that way!
In 2001 I decided enough was enough and decided to take ‘the plunge’ and sign up for swimming lessons at the local pool.
During my lessons. over a period of 6 months. I developed a friendship with my ASA swimming teacher and somehow managed to ‘float’ with my head in the water but not able to understand why this was happening,
Apart from that, I had no understanding how the water works with the body.
At this juncture I want you to understand that I went into the local pool 5 times a week but to this day I cannot tell you what I did in the water simply because I had no idea what I was doing!
During my time in the swimming pool I met Gay (SwimWithUs) who also had suffered with a phobia of the water, I did not know this at that time. She had completed her teaching certificate the year before and now was going through a specialised program of swimming that concentrated on balance in the water.
She was so instrumental in my understanding by lending me a video she bought from http://www. totalimmersion.net. I was captivated by what I saw,I watched that video (only ‘posh’ people had dvd’s at that time.
After a detailed explanation and a period of time of us both being in the water and helping each other, I was able to improve my front crawl. We then became friends and discovered we both had a deep-seated fear of water, this made it possible for us to understand each others problems. I also then went on to take the specialised course that Gay had taken and subsequently perfected my technique.
When we decided to teach adults how to swim, I realised there are thousands of people in the UK who are afraid of the water and as a result I really wanted to help others with water phobia and so I went into the direction of teaching swimming lessons.
I know some people who are reading this will understand when I say ‘ I took a calculated risk’ at the age of 62, I moved from a ‘secure’ house with no mortgage obtained the necessary finance, obviously a mortgage and bought my pool from the States (things are different now, meaning that I could buy my pool from the UK) and all the while I thought I just could not let my dream go!
I just knew that I would be able to help people like myself to find that elixir ( the change from dread to sublime)
But how did I go about it?
More about me: Divorced with 3 children, I moved to Swadlincote 10 years ago and love it here. When I lived in Essex I ran my own interior design business. I was successful but decided to change course and draw fine portraits of people and their pets.
At first when I went back to Essex to see my family I taught my 7-year-old grandson to swim, although he is a very good swimmer he is 17 and now at college waiting to attend university in 2011.
I wanted to have swimming lessons before it was too late to do so. Since then I have taken up other things, singing.
I am writing a book, making and my own jewellery also selling gemstone jewellery
Contact Irene for further information.