Unlock Safer Swimming

Click to find out how to Unlock 1km at Northern Arena

Do you want your family to enjoy New Zealand’s open water playgrounds and all the other sports that go with it? Water sports should be fun, not a battle to keep your head above water.

Ensure your family is safer in the water by building the strength, technique and confidence to swim at least 1km competently in a pool.

Most Kiwis don’t realise the dangers and differences and what it takes to swim in moving water compared to swimming in a pool. Most of the drownings that occur in New Zealand involve people who are within 50m of a shoreline. How do you think you or your family would cope if you got into difficulty in open water?

1. We at Northern Arena believe that swimming 1km competently in the pool is approximately comparable to swimming 200m in moving water. However, we see lots of families for various reasons choosing to stop swimming, in our opinion, too soon. We firmly feel that swimming 1km is not a challenge, it’s necessary if you want your family to be safer in moving water.

Being able to achieve 1km in the pool means that your kids will have a stronger platform and proficiency to be able to enjoy any other water sport they choose to do.

We know our school age hour squad swimmers can swim 1km in the pool without stopping because we’ve put them to the test. They have the skills (for example: tumble turns, which get them used to being upside down with confidence) combined with the strength and ability to keep swimming when they might need to.

2. We strongly recommend attending a junior surf club so that your little ones can practise open water swimming in a controlled environment and grow up learning about and respecting the water.

3. We advocate that nobody is ever 100% safe in the water. Even 3 time Olympian, Dean Kent isn’t 100% safe. Anything can happen! Please stop and think about the conditions, your ability and your surroundings before you enter the water.

Choose to learn to swim at Northern Arena’s award winning swim school by arming them with the skills that give them the best possible chance to survive. Unlock a 1km in a pool and make the water a playground for your children.