June 08, 2004: Hope Floats
By Monique Beeler
STAFF WRITER
WEARING goggles, a nose clip and a purple swim cap over her bouncy red curls, Sheila McCormick leisurely glides on her back through the warm water of an indoor swimming pool at Berkeley High School. Occasionally, she disappears beneath the surface, leaving nothing in sight for several moments but a swirl of bursting air bubbles.
As a girl, she says, she kept her distance from the wet depths, often making up excuses at pool parties such as having a cut foot or other nonexistent maladies. When she did venture into the water, she never splashed about with abandon.
"I'd just go hang out in the shallow water," she says. "I would never have conceived of going in the deep end."
Shortly before her 50th birthday and a family vacation to the British Virgin Islands, McCormick resolved to take the plunge and combat her watery demons through classes offered by the Miracle Swimming Institute in Berkeley.
Institute founder M. Ellen "Melon" Dash has been combating hydrophobia one swimmer at a time for 21 years. To date, she's helped about 2,500 students through sessions offered at sites in Berkeley, Colorado, Florida, Virginia and Washington. She seems assured of job security. One national survey estimates that 64 percent of adults are afraid in deep ocean or lake water, and 46 percent fear deep pool water.
Dash's swim school, which she started in 1983 in Berkeley, is like no other, she says. It concentrates less on the mechanics of swimming and more on the psyche of the swimmer.
Ask a hydrophobe what's on his mind when he manages to take a dip in any-thing deeper than a bathtub, and he'll likely tell you he's focusing on how to get to the shore or edge of the pool as quickly as possible. When the swimmer's body is in the center of the pool, but his thoughts are back on land, he has effectively left his body, Dash explains. It's a coping mechanism that often leads to panic and prevents the swimmer from controlling his limbs and mastering the water.
"A typical swim class teaches how to move your arms, how to blow bubbles, how to do a flutter kick," Dash says, "but they don't teach people how to feel comfortable."
The first hour of one recent Berkeley class led by instructor Fred Peoples is spent on safe, dry land.
When one student asks about the program's success rate, he says that of about 1,000 students he's worked with, only one failed to complete the course.
Peoples then grabs a white board and begins drawing. Through a simple stick figure presentation, he tells the story of a relaxed person sitting at home doing the Sunday crossword puzzle.
When we're in a comfortable, secure state, Peoples says, our thoughts, personal energy and body are together in the same place. He depicts this calm demeanor by drawing a stick figure surrounded by a circle of energy. This is what it looks like when a person is in his body, Peoples says.
When a noise outside startles the character, he gets cold feet.
Peoples draws the same stick figure, but this time the circle of energy doesn't cover his feet and the top of the bubble is floating slightly above the figure's head. The drawing represents what happens when a person begins to leave his body.
Peoples completes a series of similar sketches that end with a character who has become so frightened by imminent danger that the bubble of energy has completely floated above his head, leaving him paralyzed with fear.
The cartoons are meant to illustrate what happens when a swimmer's thoughts and energy abandon his physical form.
"If you're in the middle of the deep end and you'd rather be sitting in the chair, you've left your body," Peoples says. "What we teach is for you to stay here in the first circle, what we call calm."
Striving for calmness means never pretending students' fears aren't there.
In one recent class, men and women ranging in age from their 30s to 60s testify to the palpable reality of their fear.
"All my life, I've been terrified," says Lupe Perez, 67, of Fremont. "I love the water. I love to look at the water, but I can't get anywhere near it."
Up until a few years ago, Perez says, it wasn't unusual for her to hyperventilate in the shower. And when her father tried to teach her to swim, she panicked in the deep water, clawed at his face and nearly drowned him.
Fellow students seated poolside during an introduction to the beginners class nod knowingly as Perez speaks. Later, they share similar experiences of their own.
Some recount near-drownings as children. Others, including McCormick and Peoples, picked up their distrust of water from parents who regarded it as dangerous and forbade their children to go near the deadly stuff.
Regardless of what brings students to the Miracle Swimming Institute, Peoples assures them they've come to the right place to get over their phobia. He should know. He started here as a student.
A retired Oakland cop, Peoples didn't confront his dread of water until after he retired at age 46. After taking a series of institute courses, he volunteered as a spotter for five years before Dash hired him as an instructor. His involvement, he says, isn't about pay.
"When you've wanted something for so long and you get it, you say, 'I can help someone else get to where I am,'" he says.
As long as swimmers remain in the calm state, Peoples encourages them to try out whatever feels fun for them in the water. If it's not fun, don't force it, he tells students.
He puts the theory into action by inviting the five students into the shallow end.
"What I'd like you to do if it feels OK, if it feels comfortable right now, is walk across the pool to the other side," Peoples says.
At varying paces, each person slowly crosses the body of water. When they reach the other side, Peoples asks them how it felt.
"I felt myself slip a little, and I was scared," says Chad Pickett, 33, of South San Francisco.
"I felt the water was very heavy," Perez says.
The students repeat the exercise two more times. Peoples reminds them that if they go very slowly, their bodies will send them signals that they're OK. As they transverse the pool again, Pickett keeps his eyes focused intently on the other side and Perez gazes down toward her feet.
By the final crossing, Pickett says he feels more sure-footed and comfortable and Perez's motion has become more smooth.
Twenty minutes later, Pickett spends extended periods sitting on the pool bottom, bobbing up for air when he needs to reconnect his mind and body, then dunking down again to float weightlessly.
When he emerges, Pickett says, "I've never felt this comfortable in a pool."
His fellow classmates, future swimmers all, break into applause.
Contact the Miracle Swimming Institute at (800) 723-7946 or visit
www.conquerfear.com A half-day mini class will be offered in July and August; a series of beginning classes is scheduled in August in Berkeley.
You can email Monique Beeler at mbeeler@angnewspapers.com or call (925) 416-4860.
