Classes Help Panicked Swimmers' Fear of Water Evaporate

Lance Williams
Courier Staff Reporter

Nancy Finkelmeier holds a nursing degree, an MBA and founded her own business, but getting her near the edge of a swimming pool could really put her on edge.

Traumatized while trying to learn to swim as a child, Finkelmeier avoided water all through her adult life and never told anyone she couldn't swim.

"No one ever knew it, and it made me feel like an incomplete person," said Finkelmeier, who founded Physician's CardioTrace in Mount Auburn in 1984. She recently sold the company to an Atlanta firm.

In 2000, she decided she wanted to learn to swim before a trip to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. She took lessons with a New York company owned by "Melon" (M. Ellen) Dash.

"She was able to break through my wall of fear," she said. "She really changed by life."

Two months later, she was in 100-foot-deep waters.

"The other folks in the boat thought I had been snorkeling all my life," Finkelmeier said.

Though she felt at times she was one of the only people who couldn't swim, she was not alone.

According to a 1998 Gallup survey, 39 percent of U.S. adults are afraid of putting their heads underwater. Some capable swimmers lack confidence in deep water. Forty-six percent of adults said they are afraid of deep water in pools, and 64 percent are afraid of deep water in oceans and lakes.

Most don't realize there are others like them, said Dash, president of Miracle Swimming Institute LLC, which is designed solely to teach the reluctant adult swimmer.

The company teaches classes in several states, including California, Colorado, Virginia and Florida. Dash said she was struck by a common theme when she began teaching classes in 1983.

As a graduate assistant teaching a swimming class in college, she was quickly able to divide the students in two groups.

"About half of them got it," Dash said. "The other half had a look that seemed to say, 'Why are you teaching me what to do with my arms and legs when I'm afraid I might not live?'"

That led Dash to develop the institute, because she said traditional swimming instruction focuses more on mechanics than a person's fears.

She said traditional classes have sent those students in a downward spiral.

"It's like a pain in your heart when you fail again and again and never feel like you're going to succeed," Dash said.

Amy Elam, a swim instructor at the Blue Ash YMCA who works with adults, said most of her students fall into three categories: those who have never been exposed to swimming, those who are claustrophobic and afraid of going underwater and those who had a near-drowning as a child.

She said nearly 90 percent of the students fall into the latter category. For those, remembering the fear of losing control is difficult to overcome.

She said most of her students can stand in shallow water, because they still feel in control.

"But if their face has to get wet, it's a different story," Elam said.

For some students, it can take a year or more before they truly feel comfortable in the water.

"For them, it's about answering the question, 'Who's in control -- you or the water?'", Elam said.

One of Elam's students -- a college professor -- had an intense fear. She even had someone drive her to class the first few times, because she was afraid she would turn around. It took eight classes before she would put her face in the water.

Still, she had a dream of competing in a triathlon. After months of training, she goes to the pool three days and week and is preparing to run in a triathlon, Elam said.

For Elam, it was an eye-opening experience when she started teaching classes 13 years ago. She has been swimming since she was a child.

"It was very unusual for me, because I didn't know there were people that couldn't swim."

She said her adult students range from early 20s to early 80s and include a diverse mix of ethnicities and cultures. Students feel a kinship borne from years of standing in the shallow end.

"It's kind of amazing to see the friendships that develop," Elam said.

Dash remembers a student who sat at the edge of the pool and cried. Memories of other swimming classes and times she sat on boats -- white-knuckled -- to please others came rushing back.

After that, she found peace and began to learn control in the water.

"She just let go of the pain all day long," Dash said. "It was such a contrast to what she had been trying to do all her life. She unloaded boatloads of tears that day."