February 13, 2017

Meet Emily Cohen of The Water Whisperer in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills

Local Stories

Emily’s first students and inspiration (her kids)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Cohen.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Emily. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
If you asked me ten years ago where I would be today career-wise I never would have answered that I would become The Water Whisperer. Like most unexpected and pleasant surprises in life, I got into the swim business by chance.

Born in Los Angeles, I was educated at Harvard-Westlake high school. Back then it was an all-girls school called Westlake. It was there that I learned the value of hard work, organization, and time management. The academic skills I learned there were invaluable, but I have always considered myself to be an artist first and foremost. I decided to hone my drawing skills and develop my creativity by moving east for college, attending The Rhode Island School of Design where I earned a Bachelors of Fine Art in Illustration.

After college I had the Big Oh No Question: How would I make a living as an artist? I had volunteered as an art teacher at a homeless shelter for women in Providence and discovered I had a knack for teaching not only children but also adults. When I arrived back in L.A. I worried how I would find work as we were in a recession.

One day I opened up the want ads in the La Times and saw an ad to be a teacher’s assistant at a local private school. I interviewed and was hired on the spot. That was the start of what would be an eighteen-year career as a school teacher. I spent the first three years working as an assistant, realizing I was a creative type who could infuse art into the academic curriculum. “I can be a master head teacher,” I thought to myself.

So I went to grad school at UCLA and earned a Masters of Education, Supplementary Art Credential, Certificate of Language Acquisition Development. Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and California Clear Credential. Spending another fifteen years in the classroom at various private schools in L.A., I was a third and fourth grade head teacher and worked as an art teacher in many grades. Further, I helped tutor children as they wrote various college entrance essays. I also taught art at The Skirball Center and Otis College of Art and Design.

Along the way, I met my husband, bought a home, and had two kids. I had learned to swim as a baby because my sister almost drowned at age three. My parents made sure I took lessons year-round so I could swim proficiently. My husband and I decided to teach our baby to swim. By the time both he and my daughter turned two, they could swim forty feet, the length of our pool, without assistance, using their heads to take easy and effortless breaths. My son swam ten feet down in the deep end to pick up toys.

Naturally as a proud mom I started sharing my kid’s swimming abilities to my close friends, who didn’t believe that someone who just turned two could do so much in the water. So I told them to come over and see for themselves. At the same time, my job teaching at Otis had ended, so I had to make money that summer and fast. At the encouragement of a friend, I designed a little flier and put it up at Whole Foods. I had fifteen swim clients and that was in 2005. One of my first clients, Marion Dole, told me I had a gift. She said her son had been unable to learn to swim in four other local swim schools and that I should use my creativity to open a swim school. Mentoring me, Marion urged me to design a postcard, get a date book (remember those?), and get the word out.

Flash to 2016 and we now have three solid locations, about fifty employees when we are in season, and five different curricula all registered in The Library of Congress that have evolved over time. My husband left his job in 2010 to help me run the business. We teach tens of thousands of lessons a year, specializing in the ten-day intensives. We are very proud to have appeared on CBS news twice and on other shows as a featured swim school as well as in articles both in print and online. In addition, we have won awards including CBS’ Top of the List for Best LA Swim School. More importantly, we are honored to teach so many children and adults how to swim. Swimming is a life-skill and a gift.

For me, being a swim teacher is extremely meaningful because I get to work one-on-one with people of all ages. Taking a person from scared to happily swimming with confidence makes me feel fulfilled in a joyous way. I am lucky and grateful to do what I do for a living and hope to continue to run the Water Whisperer for years to come.

Has it been a smooth road?
There have definitely been many learning opportunities. First and foremost I am an educator. I learned the hard way that I am terrible at doing administrative-type of stuff like scheduling. In fact at the start of the business I made so many technical scheduling mistakes that it was a wonder people came back. They only returned because of the quality of the lessons.

When I had a three year old and a one year old, I was teaching six-seven hours in the water every day, going around to nursery schools introducing myself and offering to donate to silent auctions on my lunch breaks, writing curricula, scheduling five hundred and fifty clients, processing paperwork and checks, doing payroll, etc. I was exhausted. My husband said I had better hire other people because I was neglecting my family and clearly I couldn’t do it all by myself. I was afraid to let go of control, but in the end having employees saved me. I worried the business wouldn’t support staff, but it fed itself over time.

The other tough part of this job is making clients happy. I am a super passionate person who cares very much about pleasing my customers. Luckily, most of our clients are thrilled with our teachers, methodology, and results.

But as is true in any business, you can’t please everyone. There are times when we do our very best and no matter what some people just aren’t happy. I would take that personally, ruminate on it, and even send flowers to try and make things better. When we genuinely make a mistake, (we are human) we try and learn from it as well as help the customer by acknowledging it and doing right by them. As I have aged I have been better about letting job worries pass.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with The Water Whisperer – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the The Water Whisperer Swim School, where babies as young as 5/6 months and up, children, and adults learn to swim in a creative, nurturing, and gentle environment!

I specialize in teaching individuals to swim by using entertaining developmental methods that break down the basic elements of swimming in a simplistic and child-friendly manner. Not only do swimmers develop water safety skills and strokes, but they are also encouraged to create their own swimming style. The Water Whisperer has an approximately 95% success rate in getting people ages three and up swimming within ten lessons, but we start with babies as young as six months old.

Besides being great with children, I am CPR-certified and have an academic and creative background. I have always been an artist and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design. After working as a freelance illustrator and assistant elementary school teacher for a few years, I decided to go to graduate school, receiving a Masters Degree in Education, Multiple Subject Teaching Credential, Certificate of Language Development and a Supplementary Art Credential from UCLA. In addition, I have eighteen years of both academic and art-based classroom teaching experience. I founded the business after teaching both of my children to be independent swimmers by the time they turned two. The curricula in my swim school evolved over many years to become what it is today. I devised certain physical techniques, verbal catch-phrases and fun, memorable songs to help students learn visually, auditorily, and tactically. As my business has grown, I have become a proud member of The United States Swim School Association, where I participate in continuing swimming education courses to keep up with current safety and swim-teaching techniques. The curricula is truly devised from a true, creative educator.

As mentioned earlier, we are proud to have appeared on CBS News twice as a featured LA swim school as well as in several other television shows. We have earned Top of List for Best Swim School in LA by CBS, been showcased in numerous print articles including features in Los Angeles Magazine and most recently The Guardian, as well as in online publications such as Mommypoppins and The Sherman Oaks Patch. In addition, we won Best Swim Class in Red Tricycle in 2011, and much, much more.

New swimmers begin the process by learning a special routine that involves foam noodles, fins, puppets, toys, and songs. Fins are gradually reduced when students demonstrate the readiness to swim independently. Skills are built in layers within a structured, step-by-step carefully designed curricula that helps children thrive and feel safe in the water. Throwing children in immediately and creating scary experiences are not part of The Water Whisperer philosophy. (See Wise Words). All teachers stay physically close to children in the water, never leaving their side. Every child has a different personality and we do whatever it takes to get them swimming. While I love program is designed to help children get the continuity needed to retain swimming skills. Once a week swimming lessons for new swimmers are not part of The Water Whisperer philosophy. However, children should take bi- weekly formal maintenance lessons year-round after the initial ten-day program to reinforce and further develop water safety skills and confidence. If young students/new swimmers do not practice year round, they may regress. It is up to parents to ensure their child’s swimming education continues. In addition to maintenance lessons, I also encourage parents to swim with their children year-round outside of The Water Whisperer. Practice makes perfect.

My goal is to not only get children to love the water, but to also have students swimming in a short time while they learn water-safety skills. The Water Whisperer has an excellent success rate in achieving these goals all within a heated, covered, saline pool.

We are extremely thrilled to have the honor of teaching people the life-saving gift of swimming.

* All teachers are trained using the Water Whisperer techniques created by educator Emily Cohen, M.Ed.

Pricing: