Young children learning diving and artistic swimming at the OCBC Aquatic Centre.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE SPORTS HUB
Were you inspired by the performances of Singaporean aquatic athletes Jonathan Chan and Freida Lim at the recent Olympics? If you aspire to follow in their footsteps, Singapore Sports Hub is offering new aquatic programmes catered to children aged 6 and older.
This is the first time Singapore Sports Hub is offering diving and artistic swimming programmes. These two graceful and challenging sports not only endow learners with better flexibility, strength, endurance and agility, but also teach them valuable life lessons in teamwork, coordination and perseverance.
Learn to Dive programme
If your kids would like to discover the sport of diving, sign them up for the Learn to Dive programme, which was designed by Orla Gilmore, the Youth Olympic Singapore Team Coach. Under the professional instruction of certified diving coaches, participants will be introduced to basic diving skills using shallow water, poolside and the one-metre springboard.
Students will learn positioning, how to enter the water safely, dive backwards and forwards, dive from the springboard and various platforms.
Lots of dedication and determination go into mastering the art of diving.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE SPORTS HUB
Artistic Swimming programme
Formerly known as ‘synchronised swimming’, artistic swimming can help young athletes develop flexibility, endurance, self-discipline, confidence and determination. This elegant sport also encourages creativity, as artistic swimmers can tweak and even choreograph their own routines.
Suitable for children aged 8 and up, this programme is led by head coach Crystal Yap, who won Singapore’s first-ever Southeast Asian Games Artistic Swimming gold medal in 2015.
Students will be introduced to the basic skills of this underwater dance, such as the egg beater, sculling, rhythm and counting, along with techniques of staying on the surface. With better strength and stability, they will then be taught leg actions outside of the water, followed by sculling and simple routines that comprise a variety of actions.
Both the Artistic Swimming programme and Learn to Dive programme involve refining flexibility and learning new skills on dry land, as well as in the water.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE SPORTS HUB
For both the Learn to Dive and Artistic Swimming programmes , each level consists of 16 to 20 lessons, and every 90-minute lesson includes warm-ups, well-being checks, conditioning, dryland drills and a debrief. An assessment is conducted at the end of each term, before a student is allowed to progress. Coaches sometimes conduct mini competitions too to evaluate a student’s grasp of skills. A Certificate of Completion will be awarded upon completion of each level, which includes an assessment of competency.
