A swimmer needs to know more than "how to go from here to there." The ability to rest in deep water is what saves lives. Every person needs to be peaceful in deep water going nowhere. Fear is healed by feeling safe, taking small comfortable steps, and being in control all the time. It is kept in place by pushing oneself and rushing.
The following teachings in the book make every last person successful:
- Comfort comes first. If you're comfortable, everything else in aquatics is possible. Don't try to relax!
- Get your safety from yourself, not the bottom or the side.
- It's okay if your feet touch the bottom when you float in shallow water.
- Learn to be comfortable being still in deep water.
- Learning to swim requires comfort in deep water first. It need not include strokes. "Strokes are merely choreography" for efficiency.
-Miracle Swimming Instructor
Do you wish you could swim? Play in any body of water freely? Every single point and conversation, exercise and thought experiment you need to be successful is explained. Say goodbye to shame: there's no silly reason that anyone is afraid.
"...The book is amazing. I am so grateful I found it because it speaks to the heart of me. I am taking swim lessons at the local rec center and while they are terrific for what they are, they are exactly as you describe. Without your book and video, I would not have the courage and confidence to speak up and tell the instructors what I need. To their credit, they listen! They help me and I think I am helping them by being the student I've become thanks to your enlightening me."--Gratefully, PW
Strokes are irrelevant to overcoming fear and are omitted.
Kirkus Review: "Our Verdict: Get it"An insightful, warmly reassuring how-to for novice swimmers.
Anyone can feel confident swimming in deep water, according to this soulful beginner's swimming course.
...introduces rudimentary skills in a pressure-free, self-paced manner that allows learners to edge into the shallow end, acclimate while clinging to walls, and build slowly up to the big step of submerging their faces. More advanced lessons cover front floats and back floats, arm motions and hand orientations, and frolics like underwater somersaults and handstands.
...cogent-detailed, lucid, and eminently practical for helping newbies overcome fundamental but often overlooked barriers. Swimming programs often ignore students' struggles with basic aquatic competency, and Dash's book ably fills that gap in a fun and appealing way.
BookLife Prize - 2022 by Publishers Weekly
"In this well-executed text, with a step-by-step approach to not only overcoming a fear of water but also learning to swim in spite of it, Melon's perspective... make(s) it easy to understand her lessons. For anyone who thought it wasn't possible to learn to swim from a book, this book will prove that theory wrong.
Miracle Swimming School for Adults founder Dash's work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NBC's Today Show, CNN's Headline News, CNN.com Opinion, Psychology Today, Real Simple, Elle, San Francisco Chronicle, Tampa Bay Times, Sarasota Herald Tribune, etc.
Dash, Melon: - Melon Dash began has taught afraid-in-water adults full time nonstop for forty-one years and is a nationally ranked masters swimmer. She founded Miracle Swimming School for Adults in 1983 in Berkeley, California and launched an instructor training program in 2004. Her innovations have influenced water safety worldwide. Her books, podcast, video and patent--the patented Aquatic Learning Station--were developed to help adult learn-to-swim students and instructors realize the goal of learning to swim in the shortest possible time by solving the biggest problem: fear. She has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com OpEd, USA Today, NBC's Today Show, CNN's Headline News, Psychology Today, Real Simple, Tampa Bay Times, and dozens more. She resides in Sarasota, Florida and swims many days a week. Her goal is to change the way beginning swimming is taught, especially to adults. She sees the day when drowning is a rarity.,
