ERIKA TAYLOR

Water is my element

Growing up in South Africa, I spent all my free time in the pool. My love of water has encompassed life saving, surf skiing, canoeing, sailing, water skiing and windsurfing.

My love for triathlons started at University when I had acute achilles tendonitis and could not cycle or do dance aerobics for 6 months. Swimming was my saviour and all I had to do was add the running.

Approach to teaching and philosophy

As each person has their own personality and abilities, I adapt my teaching methods to suit the client’s goals, strengths and weaknesses. This comes in particularly handy when I work with clients (mostly children) who:

struggle to or do not verbally communicate.
have difficulty concentrating and are easily distracted.
struggle with coordination and/or low muscle tone.
become overwhelmed by too many stimuli around them (sensory overload from too much activity and/or noise).

Most important to me are the specific end results set by each client, whether it be basic swimming skills, improving stroke technique or endurance levels.

'Swimming' can be explained through physics and science, which I often rely on to help clients understand how one can learn to move through water.

I do not believe anyone is too young or too old to learn how to swim.

It is an essential life saving skill, one which benefits each participant in multiple ways.

My focus as a swimming teacher and instructor, is to assist and guide my clients to reach their personal goals within the shortest possible time.