If you're a swimming instructor and you present bubble-blowing to an adult beginner and she hesitates to put her face in, you know bubble-blowing is now off the agenda. Hopefully off the agenda for the next 10 hours of lessons, actually.

If you present "back float" to an adult and he doesn't want to put his ears under, or let his weight off his feet, back float is off the agenda.

Perhaps we got into the habit of expecting beginners to do uncomfortable things because we're so used to forcing kids to do things they don't want to do in beginning swimming. And eventually, they do learn to swim. So why not treat adults the same way?

Because they're adults. It's simply not necessary. Their parents are not going to complain if the student doesn't advance to a certain level this week. The students are not in a competition with the neighbor. This adult really wants to learn. You're expected to work with her or him and teach well. Teach adults differently than kids!

And maybe we shouldn't be treating kids that way, either. Would it be reasonable to think this type of treatment has to come out sideways somewhere?

Let's make it fun and easy for ALL beginners to learn to swim. It's so simple!