Swimming school creates stars
Little swimming stars showed how they could impressively kick and splash in a 15m swimming pool during Swimming Stars’ Faerie Glen branch’s first novice gala of the year at Kiddies Academy Mooikloof.
Swimming Stars is Ryk Neethling’s swimming school that has four branches in respectively Pretoria, Midrand and Cape Town and around the country. Neethling visited the gala to see how these young swimmers developed their swimming skills.
The swimmers enthusiastically jumped out of the swimming pool to shake their swim-hero’s hand after each race. Neethling was all smiles as they came up to him with their small wet bodies and handed each one a medallion.
Neethling said it was important for each child to learn how to swim from a young age as it was an important life skill. “I was five years old when I almost drowned along with another boy. Luckily we were saved by older boys. The next day my mother said I had to learn how to swim,” Neethling said.
Neethling also saw swimming as a fun activity to keep children fit and healthy in a world where obesity tended to become a problem among young children. “To me it is more about a healthy lifestyle that children should adopt from a young age.”
The swimming school hosts galas twice a year to evaluate the progress in the children’s performance. Neethling was impressed, especially when two of the older boys showed off their skills in the butterfly-stroke.
At the end of the gala, mothers and fathers joined in the fun by also competing in their own relay. It was a fun day for family and friends and afterwards they had a photo opportunity with the handsome swimmer, Ryk Neethling himself.
