With temperatures on the rise and summer on its way, swim classes at the YMCA of Selma-Dallas County are getting swimmers prepared to hit the pool. 

Nathaniel Blevins, one of the YMCA’s swim instructors, said it is important for children to learn correct swimming technique at a young age.

“Once the kids get older if they are scared of the water, it is going to be hard,” Blevins said. “When you have kids [this young], they really have no fear of the water, so the younger they are when they get around 4 or 5-years-old, that’s the best time.”

Blevins teaches a beginning, intermediate and advanced swimming class Monday through Thursday at the YMCA.

The YMCA’s beginning classes start with teaching how to float in the water, bobbing and blowing bubbles with their nose.

Blevins said learning to get comfortable breathing correctly is the key first step to learning how to swim.

“In regular sports, they tell you in through the nose and out through the mouth but with swimming it is different,” Blevins said. “You go out through the nose and in through the mouth and a lot of kids have trouble doing that. That’s why you see a lot of them holding their nose when they jump into the pool.”

As the children learn the correct technique, they move into the intermediate classes where their skills are refined.

“My intermediate class knows how to do the stroke but we are working on technique,” Blevins said. “We spend more time in the deep end of the pool, treading and back swimming. “

Nicole Robertson’s son, 6-year-old Tosh Small, is one of the students in Blevins’ intermediate class. Robertson never learned how to swim and is scared of water, so she is making sure her children learn to be comfortable in the water.

“I think it is very important to learn how to swim because any situation can happen,” Robertson said. “You never know how crucial it is to know how to swim and not have that fear of water.”

Robertson said she can already see the improvement in her child’s swimming after the short time taking classes this spring.