Youth Swimming Lessons
Montana Swim Academy offers youth swimming lessons to children ages 3 and older. Our youth swimming program follows a two pronged approach. The first three levels focus on water survival and the last three focus on stroke development. We believe in making children safe first, before moving on to learning strokes. Each level provides children with the guidance they need to improve their swimming. Our staff carefully monitors each child to help them best learn how to swim and improve their abilities in the water.
Water Survival
Turtle
The first level of our youth swimming lessons, Turtle works on water acclimation skills. Similar to our Starfish goals, Turtle lessons work on helping students take their first steps into the water. The primary purpose of these lessons is to work on the confidence of the child and assist them in getting more comfortable in the water without assistance.
Otter
The second level of youth lessons, Otter teaches some initial independent techniques for basic water survival. These continue to develop skills that increase confidence of the student. Our staff wants safety for swimmers first and foremost, so these lessons help to establish safer swimming before moving on to more involved lessons.
Seal
Seal lessons go another step above Otter and provide some of the first swimming distance lessons to students. Since students know how to safely float, Seal then works on movement in the water. We help students develop the ability to swim on their front or back. They also learn how to transition between these two swimming forms while in the water.
Stroke Development
Sea Lion
Once basic swimming skills have developed, stroke patterns become the focus with our Sea Lion level. Sea Lion teaches both freestyle and backstroke. These two stroke patterns provide each student with a fundamental understanding of proper swim technique which includes efficient sidebreathing.
Dolphin
Dolphin takes the lessons of Sea Lion another step forward. Students develop a
working and legal breaststroke. This means a correct kick and an effective pull.
Our team emphasizes proper technique to ensure each student performs their
best when swimming.
Shark
Widely considered the hardest stroke to master, students at this level learn the butterfly stroke. By learning the butterfly stroke, students will master a powerful, undulating full-body swimming technique that combines simultaneous arm pulls with a dolphin kick, building exceptional strength,
coordination, and cardiovascular endurance.
Orca
Orca sits at the top of our developmental program goals. After each stroke has
reached a satisfactory level, we then add in starts and turns for each stroke. We
then finish with an IM aka Individual Medley. This prepares the student for
practice and training at a competitive level, should they choose.