Keep cool and keep swimming
Lessons offered at Porterville Community Pool
Rows, and rows of young children can be seen splashing around donning their summer bathing suits under the early morning sun at the Porterville Community Pool in Murry Park getting ready to learn a new technique to stay afloat.
Lifeguards wake up bright and early to go over emergency drills and swimming techniques to teach their young but eager-to-learn students. Parents wait on the sidelines watching as their children learn a new move. Others call out with encouragement for those younger children who seem to be too scared to get in the water.
Quincy Randhawa, a lifeguard who teaches swimming lessons at the community pool, says sometimes the little ones have days where they don’t want to go in because the water is too cold for them, but mostly enjoy being in the water on hot summer days.
“Some of them are afraid of the water, some of them don’t like cold water, but I think that’s kind of the whole point of the classes to get them comfortable with the water and realize the water’s not so bad, or how to move in the water,” said Randhawa.
The community pool offers four classes — two in the morning and two in the late afternoon — each lasting 30 minutes. The first one starts at 10:20 a.m. and the second starts at 11 a.m. The afternoon classes start at 5 p.m. and then again at 5:40 p.m. The classes last for two weeks and range in cost from $32 to $36 with a discount for siblings. The final two summer sessions — registration first-come, firstserved — are from July 10-July 21 and July 24-Aug. 4.
Some of the courses are mostly beginners courses where the youngest learn to tread water, and become comfortable with being in the water. They also offer guppies classes made up mostly of pre-schoolers and kindergartners, which are pretty much the same as the beginner course.
“They learn to float, they learn glides, we hold our breath, and then we learn freestyle or the crawl stroke,” said Randhawa.
Maximus Torres, 8, is in the guppies beginner class and has been enjoying his time in the water learning.
“I like it when we float, and when we glide,” said Torres.
Another class that is very appealing to some is the “mommy and me class” that starts off with very young babies.
Randhawa says they have had young babies as old as 6 to 12 months.
“You can start them when they are babies, the mom will get in the water with them, and they practice with them in the water and stuff like that,” said Randhawa.
Amber Erwin, who was a former swimmer on the Monache High School swim team, wanted her young son, Jack, to learn some new strokes. He is only 4 years old, but already knows how to swim really well.
“He can dive, he can swim across, I have been teaching him since he was practically a newborn, but I mostly wanted him to learn his strokes, and learn to float on his back,” said Erwin.
Apart from the beginners classes aimed at young children, they also have advanced beginners classes, that focus more on distance, and perfecting different types of strokes. They also have a competitive stroke class, where they learn all the different swimming strokes that you would learn in high school. Older high school students usually join the competitive classes.
To make sure nothing goes wrong, the community pool has an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) in place. A lifeguard is on duty while the best of the lifeguards are busy teaching classes.
“We do drills every single morning and every single afternoon right before lessons just to make sure that we not only know what to do, but that we practice them,” said Ranhawa. “We do have two or three sometimes four, eyes on them at all times.”
The community pool is open to the public from 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. then closes down for swimming classes again in the evenings, but opens once more starting at 6:30 p.m. and then closes at 8 p.m.
Porterville’s Community Pool is located at 97 N. Park St, Porterville. For more information, call 782-7543.