Quality Swim Instruction Serving the City of Irvine
In the City of Irvine, generations of children and adults have learned how to swim from the experts at Blue Buoy Swim School. For 60-plus years, we’ve offered Orange County’s best combination of beginning and advanced classes, high-quality facilities and stringent teacher certification. And with our focus on a positive, interactive learning environment, you can always count on an engaging experience that places a heavy emphasis on fun and accessibility.
Classes We Offer
Parent & Me Classes – While swimming is an excellent learning activity for children age three or younger, kids in this age group sometimes have difficulty adjusting to the water and the surrounding environment. In turn, parents of young children may feel anxious for their first-time swimmers. These classes are designed to overcome both potential drawbacks by giving you the opportunity to join your child in the pool for each lesson. As an added benefit, the shared experience can stick with you for a lifetime.
Semi-Private and Private Classes – Each of our semi-private classes matches two school-age children with a single instructor. In this close-knit environment, kids gain several advantages, including an improved opportunity to share their swimming skills and the chance to develop lasting friendships and camaraderie. Of course, they also get plenty of personalized instruction from their teacher.
Our private, one-on-one classes provide an even greater level of personalization than our semi-private classes. Your child may prefer this focused environment when working on competition-level skills or preparing to for a Scout badge or other specific swimming qualifications. In addition, private classes often provide unique benefits for children with special abilities, especially new swimmers.
Stroke Prep Classes – This six-student/one-teacher class is specifically designed to help children with previous swimming experience pick up the skills required to perform the four widely used competition strokes. All entrants must have some prior grounding in at least two of these strokes. Stroke Prep forms a logical first step for children planning to move on to our Stroke Technique classes.
Stroke Technique Classes – This is our largest class for children, with one instructor and a maximum of 15 students. Stroke Technique provides the refinement necessary to master the four competition strokes. For this reason, all entrants must already know the basic mechanics of each of these strokes. In addition to gaining advanced competence, participants gain important improvements in their physical conditioning.
Adult Swim Classes – Adults who don’t know how to swim may feel permanently landlocked. However, in reality, age is never a barrier to hitting the pool and picking up basic or even advanced swimming skills. Our beginning adult classes show you all of the mechanics of freestyle swimming. And since you’re sharing your experiences with other beginning adults, you never have to worry about feeling out of your depth.
If you’re an adult who already knows the basics of swimming, you may have several reasons for refreshing your skills or developing higher levels of mastery. For instance, you may want to enter a local triathlon or swimming competition. You may also want to use swimming as a form of fitness training for other activities, or just for your ongoing good health. In addition to our beginning classes, we conduct advanced adult classes that you can use to meet your particular goal. These classes are designed for maximum teaching flexibility instead of a rigid, one-size-fits all curriculum.
Expert Swim Instruction
Blue Buoy maintains Orange County’s highest standards for swim instruction expertise. In line with this ironclad commitment, we place heavy demands on all prospective staff members. The qualifications we require of all applicants include demonstrated swimming mastery, completion of a comprehensive background check, First Aid Certification and CPR certification. We also maintain a minimum instructor age of 19. Crucially, all of our instructors must have a real knack for teaching others how to swim, as well as dedication to our positive reinforcement-based teaching model.
Excellent Facilities
At Blue Buoy, all swimming instruction takes place at our top-notch, on-site facilities. We maintain a small, enclosed pool reserved for younger children and a larger, open pool reserved for older children and adults. We find that the enclosed pool provides an optimum training environment for the development of early learning skills. In contrast, the open pool provides plenty of real estate for the comfortable movement of bigger bodies. Highly consistent temperature control keeps both pools comfortable year-round. We also closely regulate the temperature of the environment surrounding each pool.
Scheduling Flexibility
As a rule, swim instruction provides its greatest benefits when it proceeds gradually on a consistent schedule. However, given the realities of modern life, you may sometimes find it difficult or impossible to maintain this consistency when taking lessons yourself or arranging them for your children. In recognition of this fact, we design our lessons schedules with enough flexibility for you to attend the same type of class at different times of day. We also provide ample opportunity for rescheduling when you can’t make it to lessons at all.
Dedicated to Irvine and Orange County
Irvine, a unique planned city based on a series of architecturally themed “villages,” is a vital Orange County hub for technology, business and education. It serves as home base for a large number of well-known regional, national and international corporations, including Meade Instruments, Obsidian Entertainment, eMachines, In-N-Out Burger, L.A. Fitness, Stussy, Western Digital, Kia Motors, Asics, Blizzard Entertainment and the Mazda Motor Corporation. Colleges and universities with campuses located in the community include Concordia University, Pepperdine University, Cal State Fullerton and the University of California at Irvine. Additional Irvine landmarks include Heritage Park, the Ayn Rand Institute, the Market Place and in-development Orange County Great Park. Dozens of Hollywood productions have filmed in the area down through the years.
Blue Buoy Swim School is located in Tustin, right next door to Irvine. We’re happy to serve as your neighborhood source of exemplary swim instruction in a fun, safe environment. Since 1956, we’ve taught thousands of children and adults, and our roster of program graduates has no shortage of world record holders and Olympians. Whether you or your child want to swim for recreation or competition, we’ll help you meet your goals with attention and care. Call us today to arrange a free trial lesson or choose your preferred swim class.