BLSS marks 60 years of swim education
Six decades ago, Bert Lozada embarked on a journey to fullfil his dream of sharing his skills and talents to everyone who would care. Armed with his vast experience as a competitive swimmer for the country and a burning desire to mentor athletes and non-athletes alike the Lozada brand became synonymous to swimming.
Bert Lozada also popularized the drown-proofing of babies. And oh, how the parents loved to see their babies float with nervous expectation hoping that their decision to let Tito Bert teach their infant to swim was right.
Long before “grassroots development” became a fashionable term to sports executives, the Bert Lozada Swim School (BLSS) has been using this strategy for its core program not only to discover and develop athletes but more importantly as a life-skill for all people in a country that has a very long coastline.
Sixty years and hundreds of thousands of swimmers later, the Bert Lozada Swim School continues to be the leader in swimming education as it brings to the Filipino people the latest teaching techniques and innovation in swimming culled from all over the world in collaboration with other swimming institutions.
BLSS has been at the forefront of training hundreds of swimming teachers and coaches ensuring that they achieve a very high degree of competence and professionalism never before seen in the swim training industry.
Through its CEO Anthony Lozada and COO Angelo Lozada, BLSS has introduced Learn to Swim, My Baby and Me, high performance swimming and triathlon, community service projects, swimming for special needs, swimming for persons with disabilities and physical education and varsity swimming programs for educational institutions.
For the next 60 years BLSS aims to have a facility that provides all of the services for all ability levels when it comes to aquatics. In the long haul, BLSS hopes to bring its training expertise and technology outside the Philippines, first in Southeast Asia, then Asia and eventually beyond.
While “Tito Bert” has been gone for some time now, his vision of achieving a drown-free nation for all regardless of race, status in life, education, abilities or disabilities is slowly but surely becoming a reality.