September 9, 2025 • 27 mins
On today's episode, host Pete Moore sits down with Cori Myka, founder of Calm Within Adult Swim, to dive into the world of adult swimming—and why it’s never too late to learn. Cori shares her personal passion for water, the (often substantial) psychological hurdles adults face when learning to swim, and how her unique Foundations of Change program helps people overcome fear and embrace aquatic confidence.
Pete and Cori explore the relatively untapped demand for adult swim instruction, discuss the mental and physical dynamics of learning new skills later in life, and offer insights for health clubs considering specialized swim programming. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a club owner or manager that has access to a pool, or just someone eager to get more comfortable in the water, this episode delivers thoughtful advice, actionable strategies, and a refreshing perspective on aquatics for all ages.
On the untapped potential of adult swim programs, Myka states, "That's the piece that I think is an underserved, underutilized component in the swim industry. It's really because there's such a focus on children, which is great, but there are more adults out there than kids."
Key themes discussed
- Overcoming adult fear of swimming.
- The psychological aspect of learning to swim.
- Differences between adult and child swim instruction.
- Opportunities for adult swim programming in clubs.
- Creating supportive communities for adult learners.
- Market demand and pricing for adult swim lessons.
A Few Key Takeaways:
1.Half of Adults Can’t Swim—But They Can Learn: According to Cori, about 50% of adults do not know how to swim. While there’s a major focus in the industry on children’s swim lessons, the adult market is underserved and much larger than many people realize. Cori’s mission is to reach these adults and show that it’s never too late to learn.
2. Psychology and Fear Are Major Barriers for Adult Learners: For adults, fear is a significant barrier to learning how to swim—much more so than for kids. Cori’s “Foundations of Change” program is tailored to this, focusing two parts on mindset and one part on physical skills. Progress is based on how adults feel in the water, and it typically takes 20–100 hours for an adult to feel comfortable in deep water.
3. Adult Swim Programming Is Underpriced and Undervalued: There’s a big revenue opportunity for clubs willing to offer adult swim programming, especially when marketed and priced at a premium—often comparable to or higher than kids’ private lessons. These programs can utilize off-peak pool hours, making them a win for both facilities and clients.
4. Online and In-Person Learning Are Both Essential: While some instruction can be done online (breaking down the learning steps and addressing mental blocks), the kinesthetic, in-water experience is irreplaceable. Cori’s approach blends these, guiding adults step-by-step without overwhelming them, and leveraging online cohorts or local instructor training to scale the model.
5. Creating a ‘Water Culture’ Starts with Adults: For families, making swimming a regular part of life is vital to kids’ comfort in the water. Cori emphasizes that the main barrier for kids is often parents’ own fear or inexperience. Adults who learn to swim not only change their own lives—they open doors for their families and help build a culture where water safety and confidence are the norm.
Resources:
- Cori Myka: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cori-myka-62314a18
- Calm Within Adult Swim: https://adultswimlesson.com
- Orca Swim School: https://orcaswimschool.com/meet-our-staff
- Integrity Square: https://www.integritysq.com
- Prospect Wizard: https://www.theprospectwizard.com
- Promotion Vault: http://www.promotionvault.com
- HigherDose: http://www.higherdose.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal
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It's easy to use. Go to the prospectwizard.com
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Wizard. Go get him.
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks nyc. I am
(01:08):
hibernating for the winter in my
apartment here in our shared office. However, when we do get outside, we
love to swim and we are bringing to you Corey from
Calm Within Adult Swim. We're going to talk about the benefits
of swimming not just as a kid, but as an adult. Talk about some of
the online and certifications that she is helping drive
(01:30):
through the sector and welcoming
her from Seattle. Corey, welcome to your first Halo Talks.
Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. Great. So you
know, talk about what, what brought you to this, you know, modality
and you know, athletic prowess of, of, of
swimming and how you, you know, have devoted your life to saying hey, this is
(01:52):
where I want to make my mark. Yeah. So I'm
definitely one of these people who is just drawn to water.
I think a lot of us are. It's a very, you know, it's a life
giving source. Right. So as a small child
there's a story of, of, of me crossing
the highway to go, you know, play in that puddle
(02:14):
over there and my parents freaking out. Right. So it's just always
been this piece of passion for me and
where I've always been in the water. And it's
transformed and changed of course over the years, was in
that kind of traditional pathway of working at community centers,
working with children. But it's really when I started,
(02:36):
started to understand the piece, the psychological piece, especially when
it comes to adults and overcoming fear, that really has kept
me in it for as long as I have.
And that's the piece that I think is a Underserved,
underutilized component in the swim industry.
It's really because there's such a focus on children, which is great,
(02:58):
but there are more adults out there than kids. Yeah. What
percentage of adults don't know how to swim?
Yeah, it's about 50% of adults don't know how to swim.
So, yeah, there was a Gallup poll survey that was done a
while ago now, but it kind
of averages out in that 50 because there's people in pools
(03:21):
and then people in deep water, oceans and lakes. Right. There's
a slightly different component there. Got it.
So you've set up something called Foundations of Change as an actual program.
Can you talk about what that entails, how long it takes and,
you know, if you're an adult and you've never gone in the water,
you know, how long does it take physically and, you know,
(03:44):
psychologically to, you know, become. Become a swimmer and not.
Not, not have those fears anymore? Sure. So
Foundations of Change is just what you say is that piece that we're dealing
with, that the fear component as well. It's normal and natural
that you would be afraid if you're going to go into a place where air
is not always available. So it's normal.
(04:06):
And how do we work with it and not against it?
Because oftentimes we have a fear like that and it goes into
overdrive and prevents us from actually figuring
out and attaining the skills that we want to have.
So that Foundations of Change is really based on two parts
mental to one part physical, that you're taking care
(04:29):
of your mind as you're doing the small physical
steps along the way. And it's really
powered by the way you feel that that's where we
have to get the information from. You know, I feel calm,
I feel freaked out. I feel my body
feels at ease, My body feels tense,
(04:50):
or I feel the water. You know, I feel my actual physical
surroundings, or my head's in the clouds. Right. So it's
really driving into that piece. And we find it takes
people anywhere from like
20 to 100 hours to really feel free in the
deep water. So that really depends on people's,
(05:13):
you know, how deeply seated that fear is, how open they are
to the process and going through
just enough time to play around with this new environment.
It's such a different environment. Do you think people
like, I learned how to ski. That's probably an overstatement.
I skied later in life and, you know,
(05:36):
it's never something I felt extremely comfortable with because I, you know, I learned.
I started like in my 20s or, you know, early 30s.
Do you feel that a lot of people that are adults and
were never taught to ski, you know, to swim as a kid, kind of like
view it as like, yeah, you know, I didn't learn that then. So that's kind
of something that, you know, is off my list of things that I could
(05:59):
learn. The difference.
Yes and no. I mean, that's a, that's a decision that people
make for themselves. It's on or off my list. The big
difference with swimming versus any, really
any land activity is the injury factor. And
that, you know, in the water, this is something that people
(06:20):
can do for their whole lives. Right. It's a,
it's a baby to very, very old
thing that you can do because of that supportive environment in the water. When
you're talking skiing, I mean, I'm a little in your same boat on the skiing.
I can ski, I have ski. But man,
falling down that mountain, right. When you're getting to a certain
(06:43):
age, wiping out those knees and shoulders and things like that,
you know, that's, that's a different ball game that you're talking
about. There's very, there's very few, like beginner swimming
injuries, I would, I would think.
Correct. Yes. Yeah, you're not going to hurt your. Yeah, you're not going to be
(07:04):
getting a torn ACL from your beginning swimming. If you are, then we're
really doing something wrong.
This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's
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(07:25):
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(07:47):
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(08:09):
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Where have you seen the most demand? Is it coming from
like a ymca, jccs, Big
sports complexes, maybe operators. I went
(08:29):
to Emory University down in Atlanta, and as part of
being a freshman, there was a mandatory swim class
that you had to take or they had to pass because one of
the big benefactors of the school back in the day had a.
Had a child who, who drowned. And that was important to them. So
they kind of instituted that, you know, as part of the mandatory curriculum, as
(08:52):
part of their, their gift to the school. You know, where do you see the
most demand or, you know, obviously your marketing, you
know, to get adults into the water. But where are you
seeing the most inertia from this?
Well, people will. There's the most,
I'll say, chatter around, the
(09:15):
fitness aspect when you talk. You know, there's a lot more in terms of
triathlons and folks, you
know, Ironman and that kind of thing. So you see a surge of people
in that area and then, of course,
in children. I really think there are more people,
though. And there is a space. You have to
(09:38):
carefully construct the space for people who are true
beginners. There's a huge desire there.
That's why water vacations are so big.
People want to vacation by the water, vacation to
watery places, even when they can't get in it because
of that attractive. But you can't talk about it in a way, in
(10:00):
that, like, competitive way, because if you're afraid, if you're a true
beginner, like, you're just going to go hide. So there's a
softer touch for folks who,
who really want to find their place in it but feel overwhelmed
from that high competitive fear.
Now, as part of your program, I understand that there's your certifying
(10:23):
instructors. They're going out into the field with your programming. You
also said that there's an online component to this.
So, you know, talk about online component of
swimming. And I know, I know I've seen some Apple commercials that say
your, your iPhone and your iPad are waterproof. I've never tried that myself.
But is it. Is it basically preparation and
(10:46):
technique or are you actually using any kind of like,
you know, screens on the side of a swimming pool and
there's like some instruction going on, you know, through your,
your online videos. Yeah, we're not on the screen next
to people. And here's the biggest reason why is because
(11:06):
this is a kinesthetic experience. And what
we're really helping people do is to connect their body
and their mind, in this case in the
swimming pool, in the water. And so we want people to be connecting in
that presence way so, so they're using the online program
to break down the mental and the physical steps
(11:29):
into small enough pieces that they can achieve that in the
water. And that's where we see people make huge changes because
they've been doing this like leaps and bounds. I need
to go from zero to a hundred. And they don't
realize that, oh my gosh, there's a hundred steps in between.
Because nobody really talks about those hundred steps. They're like, go
(11:51):
from putting your face in the water to swimming, front crawl, too much, too big.
So we're, yeah. So in, in health
clubs and sports complexes during different hours,
you'll see, you know, some, you know, water
aerobics classes maybe for different,
you know, age groups. You'll see a lot of kids programming,
(12:14):
obviously. You'll see, know, skim
swim competitions and, you know, academies. Where
do you find the, the most revenue
opportunity? If we're talking about like from a, from a club using your
programming or bringing on some of your instructors, how does this get
marketed? And what is it, what is it worth? And, and a caveat
(12:35):
to that is, you know, we might pay $30 to go to a health club,
get a membership, but, you know, my friend's paying, you know, $500 a
month for his kid to go to gymnastics. You
know, so obviously there's a price value proposition that either
someone missed on, on the health club side that we're not charging
enough for adults to do certain programs, or hey,
(12:58):
look, I'm gonna price, I'm gonna price you as an adult the same as going
to price, you know, a kid learning how to swim, which is
probably a lot higher than what a lot of clubs, you
know, price their programming at. It's kind of a long winded
question to say, you know, what could you charge for adult swim and
how does that kind of fit into the programming?
(13:20):
Yeah, I mean, we do put our prices right up
against the private learn to swim industry with children
and even more so because
what we're, it's such a, it's a specialty niche. Right. And you
always know the money's in the niches. Right. And so this
(13:41):
specialty piece, and the
great thing with adding a program like this is it
utilizes the quiet times
in the pools. Folks who are really wanting,
who want to learn to swim don't want to be there, you know, during
that three to seven o' clock zone when
(14:03):
it's just like the power you're packing in, and that's the
time you're packing in high volume at
low dollar price point. And so these are
complementary programs that have high value,
high dollar point in your quieter times of the day.
And that's where it really makes a big impact on
(14:27):
a facility and for. For the client, too, that. That's a really
good matchup in that space. Are you seeing that there are certain
parts of the country where you get more inquiries?
We in cities, certainly we get more
inquiries there in larger cities. That's
(14:49):
larger populations and different
demographics there that you have. Yeah. Is
the bigger place as we see. It, you know, from a standpoint
of New York City, there's a couple blocks from where I live,
there's a. A swim school franchise
that just took over some retail space on a
(15:12):
corner that I thought would be, you know, way too expensive for
them to. To actually have that location there.
Are you bullish and excited about
where, you know, swimming and where pools and where, you
know, aquatics are kind of moving more into,
I'd say, more. More central mass market
(15:35):
versus, hey, you did that as a kid. But it's not, you know, as relevant
anymore. Or maybe, you know, from the Summer Olympics or. You seen certain things.
There's. There's a. A friend of ours that does, like, deep sea, like,
torpedo challenge, you know, where
it's basically like a water polo type of event. Maybe a little more
(15:55):
aggressive or violent would probably be the best way to describe it.
Are there certain things you say like, wow, this is really picking up. I'm excited
the space is growing, or there are things that say, like, hey, it's still. It's
still not where I want it to be. Well, I'm definitely excited in that
aquatics and this has been happening for a while,
(16:15):
is thinking outside of the box, the box
of the pool, the box of 25 yards by
eight lanes, or that that swimming and
aquatics really got funneled into this place of.
It's about looking like what's happening in the Olympics. And just like
you said with your friend who's doing the underwater water polo thing,
(16:38):
that there are many spaces, and we're
finding that people don't all want to just
go back and forth. It's like my kid said when I said, you need to
do at least one season of swim team, he's like, oh,
that's so boring. Why would I want to go back and forth?
And so there's been this shift in the industry of this needs to
(16:59):
be fun. This needs to be more than just back and forth and
back and forth. And by the way, this isn't what keeps people safe in
the water. It's not a Perfect front crawl that keeps people safe in the water.
It's something totally different. Different. I think people's
desire and interest around
experiences and traveling to beautiful
(17:21):
places. Right. This is a whole, it really opens. Up
the space, you know, as,
as, as an entrepreneur. And we've got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen
to our, our podcast here to just try and, you know, think of different
ideas, you know, as you go through and say, hey, I want to continue to
grow my business. It seems like there could be some really interesting
(17:43):
partnerships that, that you obviously take a lot of
time and effort to put together. You never know what the, the outcome is.
But if I think about, you know, the growth of, you know, people doing
kayaking or, or canoeing or any kind of, you
know, you know, even like jet skiing where, you know, it'd be much
better when you have a life vest on to, to know how to swim than
(18:05):
potentially fall off and, you know, panic. The other thing would be
the growth in, in surfing is definitely something that
people have been doing not just for, you know, entertainment
purposes and, and you know, saying, hey,
I got up and I rode a couple of waves, but also for, you know,
fitness related. There's, you know, surf, surf classes that go
(18:27):
on, you know, to basically build your core. Have those kind of people
reached out to you? Have you reached out to them? Is that kind of the
next evolution of, like, how do I scale my business without necessarily,
you know, deploying people, you know, at a
ski, at a surf, you know,
area where it's like, hey, you want to learn how to ski? And almost like,
(18:49):
you know, guerrilla marketing? Yeah, absolutely. Because, I
mean, there are best clients are the ones who have
gone out and they've been offered this promise. Even a beginner
could kayak or can ski, surf or do this thing. And they're like,
okay, I did it. And it would be so much better if
I wasn't freaking out while I was doing it and vice
(19:11):
versa. You know, people are coming out to us to learn to swim and
then, yeah, now I want to go and take this out and so, and
where is the great place for me to learn how to do those other things?
And the vacation travel, vacation
tourism, or I should say it's
the recreation tourism. I
(19:33):
mean, like I'm, you know, swimming vacations are really
on the rise and bodyboarding vacations
or learning to surf, you know, people are going and they're learning on their
vacation times. And so, yes, pairing those things together,
those are the same kind of clients who want to do those
things. Yeah. So My mom hasn't, there's a fear
(19:56):
of flying. So she, so I took the train with her very often as a
child. Then she took a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa and she's like,
yeah, I can fly now. Like, we haven't, you haven't done anything since that one,
you know, 30 minute flight. Are there self help groups or do you have, you
know, you know, message boards or you know, people
that do learn to swim through you that are kind of like stay
(20:18):
together as a cohort or almost like you, you know,
adult swimming anonymous type of thing? For sure, for sure. Well, I
mean, we always need those accountability partners. And when
anything is hard or new or you've
spent 30 years or 40 years
making up all the reasons why you can't do this thing,
(20:42):
it takes being in it. You know, we talk a lot about once a
week for 52 weeks. How would your swimming change once a week for
52 weeks? And having that
partner and person to celebrate and have yourself accountable
to is a big piece of that.
(21:03):
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
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(22:08):
just as good as the workout.
And a couple, couple more questions. One is when you're training
a kid who's never been in water to learn
how to swim and you're training an adult,
is it basically the same kind of programming or do you really like, do you
have to do it completely different because of the
(22:31):
mindset that's already in place? You have to do it very
differently because children, their
brains are set up to be really in the present
and not to be thinking about what the future problem is or what
that problem was from the Past, which is excellent for learning all
of these physical things. And they trust that there's somebody
(22:53):
that's looking out for the cliffs for them. The adult
brain is different. The adult brain is looking out for those
before and after things or these maybe things. And so
we have to learn how to incorporate that into
the. Learn to swim. And they're just how to get out of our,
out of our heads, into our bodies and be in our
(23:16):
heads enough to know I am the adult who's
looking out for myself. I am keeping myself safe
and I can figure out how to play and explore. Gotcha.
And then the last question I had is, if I'm a health club operator,
I just built a pool as part of an extension. I listen to this
podcast. They say, I want to give this to my community.
(23:39):
What steps do I take to do that? And do you have
some kind of connector system where you say, hey, I'm in,
you know, East Meadow, New York, Long Island.
I've got a certified instructor in that area
that I can introduce you to. Just tell everyone here how
that works and then how quickly I can get onboarded. Yeah,
(24:01):
so it can work like that if we have
somebody in the area to get them connected. Because people are always looking for
pools to implement the programs in for sure. That
is a big piece of it. And it goes the
other way. Like we can come in and we
have a three month online cohort training
(24:24):
program so we can come in and train your people there so you can
implement the program there and get started there. So great.
And then, and then lastly, if there's any, you know, words of advice or
quotes or, or anything that you, that you live by or that
people say, oh, that's a, that's a quarryism. You
got any quotes for our, our library?
(24:46):
Mine would be the one. My office manager and I say to
ourselves every day, keep it simple and let it be
easy. So going with the flow on it. All
right, great. Well, please use our halo term. It's. It's a
copyright free and we'll try and push more people
into the pool and you can make sure that they become good swimmers.
(25:09):
So thanks for being on and have a great 2025. Thanks.
And we'll. Maybe we won't push them into the pool.
We'll hold hands and jump in together. There you go. Well,
there's not like a good buddy system. I love the buddy system.
Buddies Trip three. I had a quick question for you, Corey.
My dad, to his credit, you know, taught my brother and I how to
(25:31):
swim very, very early was a lifeguard. I love the water, all
the things, Right. Do you have any advice? I mean, he
literally was like, okay, aversion therapy, jump in the pool, right? You
know, swim lessons, all that. Do you have any quick tips
for people who have. May have young kids to sort of
helpfully, you know, get them comfortable being in the water early?
(25:53):
Like any quick takeaways you could offer? The biggest thing that I
offer around there is you need to be in the water. Like
that is it needs to be part of your family culture in the same way
that you take them to the park once a week, or it has to
be part of your family culture. That's actually why we work with
adults, because they don't. They're the blockers of their
(26:15):
kids, you know, and it's that family culture that
is huge in people's deep understanding
of how the water works, that. That makes sense. It was always about
the water every single summer. You know, oceanside, pool, all
that. Right. So this is very, very
passionate subject for me. So thank you for being on. Thanks for having me. All
(26:38):
right, great to see you. Thanks. We'll be in touch when this gets launched.
Okay, great. Awesome. Thanks so much. All right, have a good day. Take care. By
now.
I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal
partnership with the Prospect Wizard. And when I say
wizard, I mean wizard. Obviously you have a website.
This allows you to convert your website traffic visitors
directly into leads. It's not just another chatbot and
it's not AI but it allows a visitor to call, text or leave a
(00:22):
voicemail immediately. Goes to you, your sales team or anyone else in the
club instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact
the lead within 10 minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine
times that of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs
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City Fitness, Philly, College Park. Become one
(00:44):
of the next Halo companies to deploy the Wizard.
It's easy to use. Go to the prospectwizard.com
get a free 30 day trial. Talk to my boy Dave Gallen. He will get
you all set up and let the leads flow based on the
Wizard. Go get him.
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks nyc. I am
(01:08):
hibernating for the winter in my
apartment here in our shared office. However, when we do get outside, we
love to swim and we are bringing to you Corey from
Calm Within Adult Swim. We're going to talk about the benefits
of swimming not just as a kid, but as an adult. Talk about some of
the online and certifications that she is helping drive
(01:30):
through the sector and welcoming
her from Seattle. Corey, welcome to your first Halo Talks.
Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. Great. So you
know, talk about what, what brought you to this, you know, modality
and you know, athletic prowess of, of, of
swimming and how you, you know, have devoted your life to saying hey, this is
(01:52):
where I want to make my mark. Yeah. So I'm
definitely one of these people who is just drawn to water.
I think a lot of us are. It's a very, you know, it's a life
giving source. Right. So as a small child
there's a story of, of, of me crossing
the highway to go, you know, play in that puddle
(02:14):
over there and my parents freaking out. Right. So it's just always
been this piece of passion for me and
where I've always been in the water. And it's
transformed and changed of course over the years, was in
that kind of traditional pathway of working at community centers,
working with children. But it's really when I started,
(02:36):
started to understand the piece, the psychological piece, especially when
it comes to adults and overcoming fear, that really has kept
me in it for as long as I have.
And that's the piece that I think is a Underserved,
underutilized component in the swim industry.
It's really because there's such a focus on children, which is great,
(02:58):
but there are more adults out there than kids. Yeah. What
percentage of adults don't know how to swim?
Yeah, it's about 50% of adults don't know how to swim.
So, yeah, there was a Gallup poll survey that was done a
while ago now, but it kind
of averages out in that 50 because there's people in pools
(03:21):
and then people in deep water, oceans and lakes. Right. There's
a slightly different component there. Got it.
So you've set up something called Foundations of Change as an actual program.
Can you talk about what that entails, how long it takes and,
you know, if you're an adult and you've never gone in the water,
you know, how long does it take physically and, you know,
(03:44):
psychologically to, you know, become. Become a swimmer and not.
Not, not have those fears anymore? Sure. So
Foundations of Change is just what you say is that piece that we're dealing
with, that the fear component as well. It's normal and natural
that you would be afraid if you're going to go into a place where air
is not always available. So it's normal.
(04:06):
And how do we work with it and not against it?
Because oftentimes we have a fear like that and it goes into
overdrive and prevents us from actually figuring
out and attaining the skills that we want to have.
So that Foundations of Change is really based on two parts
mental to one part physical, that you're taking care
(04:29):
of your mind as you're doing the small physical
steps along the way. And it's really
powered by the way you feel that that's where we
have to get the information from. You know, I feel calm,
I feel freaked out. I feel my body
feels at ease, My body feels tense,
(04:50):
or I feel the water. You know, I feel my actual physical
surroundings, or my head's in the clouds. Right. So it's
really driving into that piece. And we find it takes
people anywhere from like
20 to 100 hours to really feel free in the
deep water. So that really depends on people's,
(05:13):
you know, how deeply seated that fear is, how open they are
to the process and going through
just enough time to play around with this new environment.
It's such a different environment. Do you think people
like, I learned how to ski. That's probably an overstatement.
I skied later in life and, you know,
(05:36):
it's never something I felt extremely comfortable with because I, you know, I learned.
I started like in my 20s or, you know, early 30s.
Do you feel that a lot of people that are adults and
were never taught to ski, you know, to swim as a kid, kind of like
view it as like, yeah, you know, I didn't learn that then. So that's kind
of something that, you know, is off my list of things that I could
(05:59):
learn. The difference.
Yes and no. I mean, that's a, that's a decision that people
make for themselves. It's on or off my list. The big
difference with swimming versus any, really
any land activity is the injury factor. And
that, you know, in the water, this is something that people
(06:20):
can do for their whole lives. Right. It's a,
it's a baby to very, very old
thing that you can do because of that supportive environment in the water. When
you're talking skiing, I mean, I'm a little in your same boat on the skiing.
I can ski, I have ski. But man,
falling down that mountain, right. When you're getting to a certain
(06:43):
age, wiping out those knees and shoulders and things like that,
you know, that's, that's a different ball game that you're talking
about. There's very, there's very few, like beginner swimming
injuries, I would, I would think.
Correct. Yes. Yeah, you're not going to hurt your. Yeah, you're not going to be
(07:04):
getting a torn ACL from your beginning swimming. If you are, then we're
really doing something wrong.
This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's
this company called Promotion Vault. And what they do is they give out rewards
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
(07:25):
members without having to do 0 down and 1 month free
or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to
do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people
value and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
So here's the deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards
Vault is going to allow a member to set up their own
(07:47):
profile. They are going to answer questions, you are going to get those
answers. You're going to be able to target those members and you're going to reward
them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside
of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become
loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues and
to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting
(08:09):
back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault, your answer,
trust me, this is real.
Where have you seen the most demand? Is it coming from
like a ymca, jccs, Big
sports complexes, maybe operators. I went
(08:29):
to Emory University down in Atlanta, and as part of
being a freshman, there was a mandatory swim class
that you had to take or they had to pass because one of
the big benefactors of the school back in the day had a.
Had a child who, who drowned. And that was important to them. So
they kind of instituted that, you know, as part of the mandatory curriculum, as
(08:52):
part of their, their gift to the school. You know, where do you see the
most demand or, you know, obviously your marketing, you
know, to get adults into the water. But where are you
seeing the most inertia from this?
Well, people will. There's the most,
I'll say, chatter around, the
(09:15):
fitness aspect when you talk. You know, there's a lot more in terms of
triathlons and folks, you
know, Ironman and that kind of thing. So you see a surge of people
in that area and then, of course,
in children. I really think there are more people,
though. And there is a space. You have to
(09:38):
carefully construct the space for people who are true
beginners. There's a huge desire there.
That's why water vacations are so big.
People want to vacation by the water, vacation to
watery places, even when they can't get in it because
of that attractive. But you can't talk about it in a way, in
(10:00):
that, like, competitive way, because if you're afraid, if you're a true
beginner, like, you're just going to go hide. So there's a
softer touch for folks who,
who really want to find their place in it but feel overwhelmed
from that high competitive fear.
Now, as part of your program, I understand that there's your certifying
(10:23):
instructors. They're going out into the field with your programming. You
also said that there's an online component to this.
So, you know, talk about online component of
swimming. And I know, I know I've seen some Apple commercials that say
your, your iPhone and your iPad are waterproof. I've never tried that myself.
But is it. Is it basically preparation and
(10:46):
technique or are you actually using any kind of like,
you know, screens on the side of a swimming pool and
there's like some instruction going on, you know, through your,
your online videos. Yeah, we're not on the screen next
to people. And here's the biggest reason why is because
(11:06):
this is a kinesthetic experience. And what
we're really helping people do is to connect their body
and their mind, in this case in the
swimming pool, in the water. And so we want people to be connecting in
that presence way so, so they're using the online program
to break down the mental and the physical steps
(11:29):
into small enough pieces that they can achieve that in the
water. And that's where we see people make huge changes because
they've been doing this like leaps and bounds. I need
to go from zero to a hundred. And they don't
realize that, oh my gosh, there's a hundred steps in between.
Because nobody really talks about those hundred steps. They're like, go
(11:51):
from putting your face in the water to swimming, front crawl, too much, too big.
So we're, yeah. So in, in health
clubs and sports complexes during different hours,
you'll see, you know, some, you know, water
aerobics classes maybe for different,
you know, age groups. You'll see a lot of kids programming,
(12:14):
obviously. You'll see, know, skim
swim competitions and, you know, academies. Where
do you find the, the most revenue
opportunity? If we're talking about like from a, from a club using your
programming or bringing on some of your instructors, how does this get
marketed? And what is it, what is it worth? And, and a caveat
(12:35):
to that is, you know, we might pay $30 to go to a health club,
get a membership, but, you know, my friend's paying, you know, $500 a
month for his kid to go to gymnastics. You
know, so obviously there's a price value proposition that either
someone missed on, on the health club side that we're not charging
enough for adults to do certain programs, or hey,
(12:58):
look, I'm gonna price, I'm gonna price you as an adult the same as going
to price, you know, a kid learning how to swim, which is
probably a lot higher than what a lot of clubs, you
know, price their programming at. It's kind of a long winded
question to say, you know, what could you charge for adult swim and
how does that kind of fit into the programming?
(13:20):
Yeah, I mean, we do put our prices right up
against the private learn to swim industry with children
and even more so because
what we're, it's such a, it's a specialty niche. Right. And you
always know the money's in the niches. Right. And so this
(13:41):
specialty piece, and the
great thing with adding a program like this is it
utilizes the quiet times
in the pools. Folks who are really wanting,
who want to learn to swim don't want to be there, you know, during
that three to seven o' clock zone when
(14:03):
it's just like the power you're packing in, and that's the
time you're packing in high volume at
low dollar price point. And so these are
complementary programs that have high value,
high dollar point in your quieter times of the day.
And that's where it really makes a big impact on
(14:27):
a facility and for. For the client, too, that. That's a really
good matchup in that space. Are you seeing that there are certain
parts of the country where you get more inquiries?
We in cities, certainly we get more
inquiries there in larger cities. That's
(14:49):
larger populations and different
demographics there that you have. Yeah. Is
the bigger place as we see. It, you know, from a standpoint
of New York City, there's a couple blocks from where I live,
there's a. A swim school franchise
that just took over some retail space on a
(15:12):
corner that I thought would be, you know, way too expensive for
them to. To actually have that location there.
Are you bullish and excited about
where, you know, swimming and where pools and where, you
know, aquatics are kind of moving more into,
I'd say, more. More central mass market
(15:35):
versus, hey, you did that as a kid. But it's not, you know, as relevant
anymore. Or maybe, you know, from the Summer Olympics or. You seen certain things.
There's. There's a. A friend of ours that does, like, deep sea, like,
torpedo challenge, you know, where
it's basically like a water polo type of event. Maybe a little more
(15:55):
aggressive or violent would probably be the best way to describe it.
Are there certain things you say like, wow, this is really picking up. I'm excited
the space is growing, or there are things that say, like, hey, it's still. It's
still not where I want it to be. Well, I'm definitely excited in that
aquatics and this has been happening for a while,
(16:15):
is thinking outside of the box, the box
of the pool, the box of 25 yards by
eight lanes, or that that swimming and
aquatics really got funneled into this place of.
It's about looking like what's happening in the Olympics. And just like
you said with your friend who's doing the underwater water polo thing,
(16:38):
that there are many spaces, and we're
finding that people don't all want to just
go back and forth. It's like my kid said when I said, you need to
do at least one season of swim team, he's like, oh,
that's so boring. Why would I want to go back and forth?
And so there's been this shift in the industry of this needs to
(16:59):
be fun. This needs to be more than just back and forth and
back and forth. And by the way, this isn't what keeps people safe in
the water. It's not a Perfect front crawl that keeps people safe in the water.
It's something totally different. Different. I think people's
desire and interest around
experiences and traveling to beautiful
(17:21):
places. Right. This is a whole, it really opens. Up
the space, you know, as,
as, as an entrepreneur. And we've got a lot of entrepreneurs that listen
to our, our podcast here to just try and, you know, think of different
ideas, you know, as you go through and say, hey, I want to continue to
grow my business. It seems like there could be some really interesting
(17:43):
partnerships that, that you obviously take a lot of
time and effort to put together. You never know what the, the outcome is.
But if I think about, you know, the growth of, you know, people doing
kayaking or, or canoeing or any kind of, you
know, you know, even like jet skiing where, you know, it'd be much
better when you have a life vest on to, to know how to swim than
(18:05):
potentially fall off and, you know, panic. The other thing would be
the growth in, in surfing is definitely something that
people have been doing not just for, you know, entertainment
purposes and, and you know, saying, hey,
I got up and I rode a couple of waves, but also for, you know,
fitness related. There's, you know, surf, surf classes that go
(18:27):
on, you know, to basically build your core. Have those kind of people
reached out to you? Have you reached out to them? Is that kind of the
next evolution of, like, how do I scale my business without necessarily,
you know, deploying people, you know, at a
ski, at a surf, you know,
area where it's like, hey, you want to learn how to ski? And almost like,
(18:49):
you know, guerrilla marketing? Yeah, absolutely. Because, I
mean, there are best clients are the ones who have
gone out and they've been offered this promise. Even a beginner
could kayak or can ski, surf or do this thing. And they're like,
okay, I did it. And it would be so much better if
I wasn't freaking out while I was doing it and vice
(19:11):
versa. You know, people are coming out to us to learn to swim and
then, yeah, now I want to go and take this out and so, and
where is the great place for me to learn how to do those other things?
And the vacation travel, vacation
tourism, or I should say it's
the recreation tourism. I
(19:33):
mean, like I'm, you know, swimming vacations are really
on the rise and bodyboarding vacations
or learning to surf, you know, people are going and they're learning on their
vacation times. And so, yes, pairing those things together,
those are the same kind of clients who want to do those
things. Yeah. So My mom hasn't, there's a fear
(19:56):
of flying. So she, so I took the train with her very often as a
child. Then she took a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa and she's like,
yeah, I can fly now. Like, we haven't, you haven't done anything since that one,
you know, 30 minute flight. Are there self help groups or do you have, you
know, you know, message boards or you know, people
that do learn to swim through you that are kind of like stay
(20:18):
together as a cohort or almost like you, you know,
adult swimming anonymous type of thing? For sure, for sure. Well, I
mean, we always need those accountability partners. And when
anything is hard or new or you've
spent 30 years or 40 years
making up all the reasons why you can't do this thing,
(20:42):
it takes being in it. You know, we talk a lot about once a
week for 52 weeks. How would your swimming change once a week for
52 weeks? And having that
partner and person to celebrate and have yourself accountable
to is a big piece of that.
(21:03):
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
We are partnered up with a company called higher dose
higherdose.com they are the leader in
workout recovery products, infrared technology,
LED light masks, neck enhancers and
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna
(21:25):
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout
recovery train yet, your time and your stop
is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout
recovery and spas end up saturating your market.
Having your members walk out of the club and going into of their locations
for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to
(21:46):
you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we
are already an authority in workouts, Higher Dose,
check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look
forward to helping you augment your products and services
to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people
happy, healthy and sweating. And the recovery should be
(22:08):
just as good as the workout.
And a couple, couple more questions. One is when you're training
a kid who's never been in water to learn
how to swim and you're training an adult,
is it basically the same kind of programming or do you really like, do you
have to do it completely different because of the
(22:31):
mindset that's already in place? You have to do it very
differently because children, their
brains are set up to be really in the present
and not to be thinking about what the future problem is or what
that problem was from the Past, which is excellent for learning all
of these physical things. And they trust that there's somebody
(22:53):
that's looking out for the cliffs for them. The adult
brain is different. The adult brain is looking out for those
before and after things or these maybe things. And so
we have to learn how to incorporate that into
the. Learn to swim. And they're just how to get out of our,
out of our heads, into our bodies and be in our
(23:16):
heads enough to know I am the adult who's
looking out for myself. I am keeping myself safe
and I can figure out how to play and explore. Gotcha.
And then the last question I had is, if I'm a health club operator,
I just built a pool as part of an extension. I listen to this
podcast. They say, I want to give this to my community.
(23:39):
What steps do I take to do that? And do you have
some kind of connector system where you say, hey, I'm in,
you know, East Meadow, New York, Long Island.
I've got a certified instructor in that area
that I can introduce you to. Just tell everyone here how
that works and then how quickly I can get onboarded. Yeah,
(24:01):
so it can work like that if we have
somebody in the area to get them connected. Because people are always looking for
pools to implement the programs in for sure. That
is a big piece of it. And it goes the
other way. Like we can come in and we
have a three month online cohort training
(24:24):
program so we can come in and train your people there so you can
implement the program there and get started there. So great.
And then, and then lastly, if there's any, you know, words of advice or
quotes or, or anything that you, that you live by or that
people say, oh, that's a, that's a quarryism. You
got any quotes for our, our library?
(24:46):
Mine would be the one. My office manager and I say to
ourselves every day, keep it simple and let it be
easy. So going with the flow on it. All
right, great. Well, please use our halo term. It's. It's a
copyright free and we'll try and push more people
into the pool and you can make sure that they become good swimmers.
(25:09):
So thanks for being on and have a great 2025. Thanks.
And we'll. Maybe we won't push them into the pool.
We'll hold hands and jump in together. There you go. Well,
there's not like a good buddy system. I love the buddy system.
Buddies Trip three. I had a quick question for you, Corey.
My dad, to his credit, you know, taught my brother and I how to
(25:31):
swim very, very early was a lifeguard. I love the water, all
the things, Right. Do you have any advice? I mean, he
literally was like, okay, aversion therapy, jump in the pool, right? You
know, swim lessons, all that. Do you have any quick tips
for people who have. May have young kids to sort of
helpfully, you know, get them comfortable being in the water early?
(25:53):
Like any quick takeaways you could offer? The biggest thing that I
offer around there is you need to be in the water. Like
that is it needs to be part of your family culture in the same way
that you take them to the park once a week, or it has to
be part of your family culture. That's actually why we work with
adults, because they don't. They're the blockers of their
(26:15):
kids, you know, and it's that family culture that
is huge in people's deep understanding
of how the water works, that. That makes sense. It was always about
the water every single summer. You know, oceanside, pool, all
that. Right. So this is very, very
passionate subject for me. So thank you for being on. Thanks for having me. All
(26:38):
right, great to see you. Thanks. We'll be in touch when this gets launched.
Okay, great. Awesome. Thanks so much. All right, have a good day. Take care. By
now.
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