The new Lenny Krayzelburg Swim Academy at the JCC of Louisville is a year-round basic-skills program that focuses on water safety before teaching a student of any age to swim.
The program kicked off at the JCC on July 31 with 4-time Olympic Gold-medalist Lenny Krayzelburg. Dozens of people came to the pools to try out the new academy.
Using the SwimRight© Method developed by Krayzelburg, instructors use the swim-float-swim technique as a foundation and focus on providing children with knowledge, confidence and safety in and around the water. From these basic skills, the program takes students from the beginning through the four strokes – freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.
The program offers parent/tot classes, private lessons, group classes and stroke development and promises a high success rate for children as young as 2 months old and even adults who never learned to swim.
The kick-off celebration was more than just swimming. Krayzelburg posed for pictures with members and visitors and signed autographs for everyone. The JCC opened the outdoor pools to the public. Krayzelburg read a book about overcoming a fear of the water, provided by The PJ Library, to a group of young children and the Kefiada teens from Israel had a craft project that let participants create a keepsake to take home.
Krayzelburg won 4 gold medals in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics and at one time held five world records. He was born in the Ukraine and immigrated with his family to Los Angeles in 1989. The backstroke specialist started swimming seriously at the LA JCC and the Maccabi Youth Games. He received a full scholarship from USC before winning several events at the US National meet in 1996. Between the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, Krayzelburg took time off to have surgery on an injured shoulder and participated in the World Maccabi Games in Israel.
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