Do I need to know how to swim to start diving?

Short answer: you do not need to be a competitive swimmer. You do not need to know any stroke, and you do not have to swim a length of the pool against the clock. It is enough that you feel reasonably at ease in the water and can stay calm the moment your feet leave the bottom. The rest I will show you.

Where does the misunderstanding come from?

We confuse two different skills. Swimming is keeping yourself at the surface under your own power. Diving is moving through the water with the help of equipment that does most of the work for you — the BCD holds you in the water, the fins do the propulsion, the regulator delivers the air. It is far closer to calmly floating than to thrashing your arms.

To dive you need to be calm in the water, not to win a medal for swimming.

What you actually need

• To be comfortable when the water rises above your shoulders and your feet no longer touch the bottom — something we build up gradually.
• To breathe calmly — which is exactly what I teach from the very first minute.
• To be open to the fact that at the start I am right beside you, so you never face the water on your own.

And what if I feel weak in the water?

That is a common starting point, and there is nothing wrong with it. We simply spend more time in the shallows, where your feet reach the bottom, and we build confidence in small steps. Nobody throws you into the deep end — neither literally nor figuratively. You set the pace.

If this is the only thing holding you back, leave me your number. I will calmly talk it all through, and together we will work out the best place for you, specifically, to start.