ABOUT SWIM IN BALANCE
About Swim in Balance
Background
Swim in Balance was founded in February 2015 by two Dutch professional musicians, both of whom are also Alexander Technique teachers: Hylke Rozema (horn player) and Esther Visser (violinist).
During their training to Alexander technique As a teacher, they became interested in the swimming method of Steven Shaw (UK) who was himself a professional swimmer and Alexander Technique teacher. They were the first from the Netherlands to follow his Shaw Method teacher training course and they have introduced the method in the Netherlands. Hylke later chose a different career and Esther has been leading the company since 2017.
Esther has assisted Steven Shaw for many years in training new Shaw Method teachers in England and Portugal. Swim in Balance has been given the exclusivity for the Netherlands to offer this method. Esther now trains teachers for Swim in Balance herself and has gathered an enthusiastic and skilled team of teachers around her.
Clear need
In 2015, Swim in Balance started offering Shaw Method classes for just one evening a week, in Amsterdam. The interest was overwhelming from the start: The courses were fully booked long in advance. There appeared to be an enormous need for people to be able to swim in a more efficient and long-lasting way. The number of people that shoulder and neck complaints and wants to do something about it by swimming turned out to be very large.
During the same period, it became open water swimming also increasingly popular, partly due to Maarten van der Weijden's record attempt to swim the Eleven Cities Tour. The method that Swim in Balance uses turned out to be very much in line with this. The number of evening classes was soon expanded and Swim in Balance now has course locations in three cities: Amsterdam, Utrecht and Haarlem. Lessons are now held on almost every day of the week. The ambition is to have locations in ten different cities throughout the Netherlands within five years.
In 2017, Esther heard from a Croatian Alexander Technique teacher friend that there was a hotel by the sea at the very southern tip of Istria, with a largely unused 25-meter indoor swimming pool. This pool was just the right depth and temperature needed for the Swim in Balance method. Esther went to have a look and it turned out to be perfect indeed. Since the summer of 2017, Swim in Balance has therefore also offered three one-week swimming holidays, during which the Dutch participants in Croatia receive lessons every day for a week: a nice formula. During the past swimming holiday in September 2021, 26 participants took part.
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