All over St. Louis, families are uncovering the backyard pools, packing coolers for summer float trips, and heading to beaches all over the country. One local swim instructor is urging parents to put their children in his class before going anywhere near the water this summer.
“I wouldn’t let any of my children near the water before taking this class,” Chuck Teasley, an Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) instructor in the St. Louis area, says. “I’m militant about it.”
Chuck Teasley is not your average swim instructor; his goal isn’t a perfect breaststroke, he says his job is to create “aquatic problem solvers.” The ISR program teaches children as young as six months to save themselves if they happen to fall into water too deep for them to stand in.
Teasley leads classes at the Center of Clayton five days a week, year-round. He estimates that in his 22 seasons, he has taught 5,600 kids how to work their ways through dangerous situations in water.
In ISR classes, infants are taught to roll over onto their backs and float in the water, hands behind their heads, until help arrives. Older children learn a combination of floating and a basic flutter kick, which enables them to propel themselves to safety.
Teasley says that, in a perfect world, children would never be left unattended for even an instant, making the lessons unnecessary, but he acknowledges, “Parents have to sleep, go to the bathroom...you can’t watch your children all the time.”
Teasley encourages families to put up fences around their pools and install alarms and padlocks on doors leading to the pool to keep children away.
Even with all the precautions in the world, though, Teasley says children often still manage to reach the water unsupervised. That’s where his lessons come in.
“Things are defeated,” Teasley says. “Knowledge and skills aren’t.”
Teasley’s website is a memorial to grateful parents, sharing stories of their toddlers wandering into the pool alone, only to be found 10 minutes later floating calmly on their backs––just like Chuck taught them.
ISR lessons are five days a week for ten minutes, with sessions lasting anywhere from five to 12 weeks depending on the child. Each week of lessons is $100; however, Teasley says he has never turned away a student because the family couldn’t pay.
For more information on Chuck Teasley and ISR lessons in the St. Louis area, visit survivalswimminglessons.com.
