The Mindful Swimmer’s Journey Beyond the Physical - Cori Myka 163

Apparently, learning to swim as an adult isn’t just about technique—it’s about healing your relationship with water and with yourself.

In this episode, mindful swim coach Cori Myka shares her powerful journey from self-taught swimmer to transformational guide. She explains why traditional swim lessons often fail adults and how fear, judgment, and past experiences influence our ability to learn.

Cori is the founder of Calm Within Adult Swim, with over 25 years of
experience in adult swim education. She specializes in helping adults overcome their fear of water through a unique blend of mental and physical training techniques.

Through mindfulness, emotional awareness, and compassionate, step-by-step instruction, Cori helps adults rewrite their “swim story,” build trust in themselves, and find presence in the water. Her approach—80% mental, 20% physical—is about more than swimming; it’s about change, self-compassion, and discovery.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Cori began teaching swimming at age 5, even before she had formal lessons herself
• Why traditional methods overlook the emotional barriers adults face
• How small, manageable steps help build trust and confidence
• The power of mindfulness in staying present and quieting self-judgment
• Why focusing on what feels good leads to success
• How each of us carries a unique “swim story” that shapes our learning
• How Cori now leads warm-water retreats and is launching a new podcast: Mindfulness in Motion

If you’re ready to silence your inner saboteur, embrace kindness, and create meaningful change—one small step at a time—this conversation is for you.

Here is Cori's contact:  adultswimlesson.com

3-day Immersive Adult Swim Course.

https://www.instagram.com/calmwithinadultswim

Chapters

• 7:12 Teaching From Discovery, Not Force
• 17:26 The Missing Emotional Connection
• 27:35 Different Children, Different Approaches
• 37:43 The Foundations of Change Method
• 45:25 Achieving Dreams Through Mindfulness

Transcript

Daniela SM: 0:01

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast, because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate, because everyone has a story. Welcome. My guest is Cori Myka.

Daniela SM: 0:23

Learning to swim as an adult isn't just about kicking and breathing. It is about healing your relationship with water and with yourself. Who knew right? I am chatting with the amazing Cori, a self-taught swimmer turned mindful swim coach, who helped people rewrite their swim story. It is fascinating how so many of our relationships, whether with water, money, language or even math, go beyond the physical skills. There is an emotional layer we often overlook, and Corey is here to show us how mindfulness, compassion and presence can transform not just how we swim, but how we feel about swimming and about ourselves. So get ready for a deep dive into fear, trust and those tiny wins that make big waves both in the pool and in life. Let's enjoy her story. Welcome, kori, to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Delighted to be here. Yes, yes, and I'm very excited. I know you have a wonderful story, so why do you want to share your story? Well, why I want to share my story is.

Cori Myka: 1:32

It's one of such joy and opening right. We love to interact with the world and our bodies and learn. I just so enjoy the natural wonder of being in the water and helping people get there.

Daniela SM: 1:45

Yes, yes, that's true. So when did your story start?

Cori Myka: 1:49

Well, my story starts way back when I was five years old on a houseboat in Lake Powell. It's this very deserty place and the best thing to do is to hop in the water to cool off and going in as a little five-year-old with pure joy and love and having an aunt who said I can't go in, I don't know how to swim. And I said that's okay, auntie, I can teach you how to swim. Yeah, so do you teach her? I didn't teach her. I think I just got the typical laugh off of oh, look at that sweet child. But who knew at that time it was going to be so prophetic and be? What my whole life's work ended up being about is teaching adults, overcoming fear on water.

Daniela SM: 2:31

So what happened?

Cori Myka: 2:32

So you were saying that to your aunt and then yeah, so I had this innate love of the water and I think even at that time I had this self-confidence of a five-year-old. I think I was probably mostly swimming around in a life jacket then, because I actually never ended up finishing a swim lesson myself. My sister always collected all the little patches. They had a little patch for every lesson that you finished and she got them all. She's very, she's, very diligent person and I failed all of them with tummy aches and ear infections and any like physical reason to get out of being in this environment. That I didn't trust, right, I didn't trust the swim class. I didn't trust the teachers. I didn't. They'd say things like, swim out to me, and I'd be like, well, don't step back, you put your face in the water. I'm like, swim out to me. And I'd be like, well, don't step back, you put your face in the water. I'm like I see you stepping back and I'm like I'm having none of this. I was a bold child, let's just say so. I wasn't willing to participate in it, but I didn't let it stop me from learning to swim. I still.

Cori Myka: 3:40

I would at that time, as a kid, would pull out a phone book and look up the local swimming pool and call them and find out what time the open swim was and how much it was. And I'd have my mom drop me off with my 50 cents and go to the pool and I'd find a little tiny corner of the pool that was away from all of the hubbub of the other kids. It was close enough to where a lifeguard was that I thought all right, if something really bad is going to happen, you know the lifeguard will come get me. It was in the deep water and I just played a game I called lost in outer space and I just like would move like this and move like that.

Cori Myka: 4:20

You know, that was at the age and time where you'd hear about astronauts would learn how to walk on the moon by being in the water. So that was the kind of context that I put it in. And so I really figured out in the space that was safe for me in a timeline and a way to how my body and the water work together, and that just really kind of continued on. I just really developed that and figured it out and one day I said, mom, I want to join the swim team and she said do you know how to swim. I'm like, sure, of course I do, which I always thought was sort of funny when I look back and I think you know, mom, why'd you drop me off at the pool all those times If you didn't?

Daniela SM: 5:04

think I could swim. Right, I was thinking about that, but it's fascinating that you actually are self-taught and then you found your own corner to do it yourself. That's just very unique. It is yes, and I also what you mentioned about not trusting. I don't like it when you're running and they say, oh, it's just around the corner and then it's not. I feel like all the methods are not for everyone. You know like I don't like when people lie. I'd rather you tell me it's going to take me an hour than it's going to be right there, nearly there. That doesn't motivate me, because I will be dropping it quickly when I notice that you lied to me, baby, because I will be dropping it quickly when I notice that you lied to me.

Cori Myka: 5:52

Yes, yeah, yeah, that trust is so important. I mean and it's it's trust in other people. I mean as a, as a child, you have to have your trust in the adults around you and the environment around you.

Cori Myka: 5:58

Um, and that is why children learn so quickly, because our frontal lobe isn't developed yet Right, and so we're just in this play mode and so we can figure so much out. But as the brain develops and we start to understand loss of trust, breaches of trust, these sorts of things, and so we do have to figure out where is what's a trustful environment. And it really starts by understanding how do I trust myself and trust myself to keep myself safe mentally, physically, emotionally, right, and all those kinds of levels.

Daniela SM: 6:37

I know, but as a five-year-old or as a child, whatever age, you don't really have those tools to know what is it I like more than others right.

Cori Myka: 6:44

Yeah, well, you have the tools to say no, right. I think that's where I didn't have the verbal tools to say mom, I don't trust the swim teacher and this is why, and can we do something about it. But I did have the tools of getting sick. I think that's where that came from, those stomach aches and those ear infections. My body just like knew this wasn't the right environment for me, so it was going to do whatever it took to get me out of it.

Daniela SM: 7:12

But what is the difference between you making up stuff like, oh you're getting sick and not trying to push it. You know to do it, fighting, being uncomfortable or fighting the unfamiliarity. You know when do you know that you need to push the kid or you need to say okay, let's learn about who you are. I think it's difficult.

Cori Myka: 7:31

It is difficult, yeah, and I mean I have lots of compassion for all the parents out there. I'm a parent myself. It is really difficult to know, but I think it is. There's a lot of, let's just say, parenting methods out there now that really are about tuning into the child, helping the child step by step and where they're at, and it's not about saying no, you don't get to do the thing, you don't have to do the thing entirely. But how can we break this into a smaller step so it can be tolerable for you? You can still discover in it which is what we do now, you know, as adults. That's what I teach my adult students you got. Break it down into a step that's manageable for you physically and emotionally and spiritually and all those sorts of ways, versus the old way of just like pushing through and pushing through and pushing through.

Daniela SM: 8:21

Wow yeah, remember my mom putting me into lessons, swimming lessons, because we had another family neighbors that they all were swimmers so I had to do it too. You know, I was like the least good at it. We're in South America, which was warm all the time, but I hated it. It was at six o'clock that it was getting dark, that it was kind of cold, Like I hated everything about it, and then it was difficult for me to breathe. So I was always slow and so I don't know, it was just I was compared with them that were really good swimmers. So on top of that I was like, oh, I never liked it, never liked it. And we had a swimming pool in our school and there was always a reason, probably a reason that I couldn't, I didn't want to go swimming, but you know a silly reason like, oh, I have the period today so I can go swimming, but you know, every week it was really weird to have that reason.

Cori Myka: 9:13

Yeah, yeah, we come up with things to help us take the small steps to allow ourselves to have a little more comfort or just even acknowledge what the things are. Yeah, that big one, though. You mentioned a big one which is that compare and despair. I mean, that's a huge, huge place of shame and embarrassment and leaving out and where we don't give ourselves enough room to play with and discover something for ourselves.

Daniela SM: 9:50

Yeah, yeah, funny and not so funny, so okay, so we stay in. You wanted to go in the swim club and your mom was wondering if you knew how to swim. So what happened?

Cori Myka: 10:00

Yes, so I, of course, I just told her yes and I tried out because I understood my body in the water so well. I was able to just observe the formal strokes, right, that you classically think of, let's say, in the Olympics. So I was able to, at that point, fake it till I made it right. I was able to do it well enough and I had enough just belief in myself around it. Did I have a perfect side breathing? I don't know. I don't remember the tryout, but it was good enough, right, it was good enough. I had enough belief and trust in myself that then I joined the swim team and that's where I really learned formal strokes. Then, right, and I put in lots of distance and yards and all those kinds of things and just enjoyed that experience. And then I went on.

Cori Myka: 10:50

Of course, since I just love the pool, I ended up working at the pool when I started volunteering when I was like 14, volunteering at the pool, then lifeguarding at the pool, and it's funny, because you weren't allowed to teach the swimming lessons for kids who were like three to I don't know, three to 10 or something like this, the basic levels that they had in the Red Cross at the time you had to be 17 to be able to teach those classes because you had to take a special class. But you could teach the under threes, you could teach the parent toddler classes, which I find hilarious that, okay, if you're under 17, you're allowed to teach parents what to do with their infants and you are also allowed to teach the adults, because both of those two sets of groups apparently you didn't need any training to teach. Those is kind of how it was thought and that's where I really, that's where I taught my first adult when I was under 17. And it was this, I'll put it in quotes now old lady, she could have been 60. She could have been in her fifties. I don't know how old she was, she could have been 80. Anybody over 35 was probably an old lady to me.

Cori Myka: 12:08

But she had never learned to swim and she wanted to come out and she made such an impression on me. I mean, first of all, it's sort of that idea, but really her story where she said I never learned to swim. My brothers always got to swim. Because I was a girl, I was told I wasn't allowed to do athletic things and swimming was one of them, so I was never allowed to swim because I was a girl and that just like blew my mind.

Cori Myka: 12:35

And she didn't come out to learn to swim till after her spouse died and after her parents died. She needed all these people who had this story imposed on her that because she was a woman, that she couldn't swim and so she was taking it upon herself to learn. Then that really stuck with me of that disconnection, of that, why I'm not sure that I actually was successful in teaching her to swim. I didn't have all the tools at that time, but I certainly had a lot of loving compassion for her and enjoyed listening to her and learning from her so much. It was such a wonderful experience.

Cori Myka: 13:11

But maybe she learned how to float or she learned something I think the big thing that I didn't have access to at the time, and I'm sure she had some of her own internal access to this. We didn't have the tools for the emotional part, so she certainly learned some of the physical internal access to this. We didn't have the tools for the emotional part, so she certainly learned some of the physical skills. And she was the first of many students that I worked with that I could get them to do the physical skills. But then I'd ask them things like well, how was it? And they'd say I have no idea. Or I just don't feel like a swimmer.

Cori Myka: 13:43

You know, I could get somebody to jump off a diving board and they could get to the side of the pool. How was it? Well, it was okay, but I just wish I could swim and I thought what is missing here? So it was these layers of students that made me come to understand that learning learning anything, but in particular learning to swim requires an emotional connection to it as much as it does the physical connection to it. And so over time then that's where I started to add that piece to my practice of how do I help people deal with the emotional side of it, so that they can feel like a swimmer. So they do have trust in themselves. They do have an innate understanding of what it means to be and feel and act safe in the water.

Daniela SM: 14:34

Interesting. You know it's like money, right, you learn about finances, but you also have an emotional connection. And so when you're mentioning that too and it's true I don't think that we're taught that things have two parts in a way, how important it is the emotional connection. For example, I think my mom right. For her it is impossible to learn English, she has this blockage. She can write it, but to speak it, and I think that she has some kind of emotional issues with that, and so I think everything is together with two pieces like that and we are not really taught or talked about it.

Cori Myka: 15:07

Right, yeah, we're so rewarded and it's so easy to notice the physical steps Like either you're speaking English or you're not. You have savings in the bank or you don't. Right, like, we look at these very definite metrics and we teach to and we look to those metrics but we don't necessarily spend time looking at what's the underlying foundation that you need to access those metrics, to stay with those metrics over time. Yeah, I love the money one. I very clearly remember a time of deciding how much money our family needed to make that our basic needs would be covered, and then, from there on out, I was never allowed to complain about money again. We had enough money. It was just a matter of prioritizing and time and stuff like that. So I took there was no like complaining about it, and it's made a huge impact on our ability to relate to money well.

Daniela SM: 16:07

So you did it for yourself, but you taught the whole family.

Cori Myka: 16:10

I did it for myself and did I teach the whole family? I mean I think I did by example and I've told that particular story to our children. Yeah, and I definitely teach them from an abundance mindset. We have enough and you give away and you save and you wait and you prioritize and it's enough. But you don't need to complain about it, it doesn't help.

Daniela SM: 16:33

Yes, that's important. It's interesting and wonderful that you did that with the swimming. How do you do that with your kids?

Cori Myka: 16:44

How do I do the swimming with the kids? I mean, my husband and I we started the school together so we're both very equally water people, so water is just really a part of the culture of our family and our life, Although I must say, our first child when he was born, and got him into the water right away and did infant submersion and infant swimming and the whole thing, and it was all beautiful and glorious and so sweet. Then child number two comes along and we go to do the same thing. It didn't work so smoothly or so easily because child number two is different. I had to have a conscious time of wanting to push my second child and even having the thought, like you're the swim teacher's child, you have to know how to swim. And I thought, okay, that is your own ego, lady, and this isn't going to help this kid. This kid is just as much of a swimmer as the first kid. They just have their own different path and my job is to help provide the space and the environment and the safety for this particular human. They will figure it out. So it was really about imploring a deep belief in that child and their process and continuing to meet them there.

Cori Myka: 17:59

So, despite the maybe protests some of the protests you know upset because my younger one it was much more, as you even described, environmental stuff. A lot of the pools we go to around here are indoors, so the noise and the smells and the there's a lot of other pieces and emotional regulation was more difficult for her. So she would inhale the water when she put her face cause she was just so excited. So we just had to give her more time and space. I didn't say this means we're not going to do swimming stuff. I just said we're just going to give it a little more time and space. And right now she's in Maritime University. She has her whole career based around the water. So I think it was a success.

Daniela SM: 18:46

So interesting that you have your own way of learning. And then, when you was your kid, you know and you assume well, the parents are swimmers, you have to be swimmers. Good that you went back and say, okay, let me think about this, this is not how I thought. You know, we have two boys and we love traveling. The first one, finishing high school, got a gap year and go traveling yeah, I'm going to travel. And then the second one, okay, you got a year, you're traveling.

Daniela SM: 19:13

And he's like no, he's a lifeguard, so they make good money. And so he saved his money for traveling and he's like but I don't know, why would I travel? What if I don't have fun? And I spent my money and I was like what? And so it was interesting, I'm like this is not a child, how is this possible? And then I was able to sell it to him by, you know, mentioning that there was an island called Ibiza, where the people party and there are clubs and you can have a lot of fun and people are dancing. And then he was like oh, okay, so finally I sold it and he had a really good time. He is different. Everybody comes with their own personality.

Cori Myka: 19:56

Yeah, I mean there's so many different factors to it. This is one of my favorite things to do on, you know, in different swimming groups, lifeguards and teachers and things like that, and it's not infrequent that people will come up and have these questions about parents, Like why did the parents bring their kids to? The most recent one was to sign them up for for a camp. That's about recreational swimming and when their kid doesn't know how to swim and they should really be in instructional swimming, and I think, well, let's have a little compassion on those parents. There could be lots of reasons why they do that. If we start from the place that the parents are trying their best right and they do have love for this child, there may be some very compelling reasons and we can drop our judgment and bring in compassion and help the child out or help, you know, any person out. It's when that judgment comes in versus no. There's lots of different answers. There's lots of different ways. Everybody's just trying to make their and find their way in the world.

Daniela SM: 20:58

Yes, that's true. There's also how many different parenting styles you know? Yes, Although they're books and everybody has their own way. That's true, it is. Yeah. Yeah, there's no one formula for nothing For nothing. I'm learning that now and it's frustrating sometimes.

Cori Myka: 21:16

We want one answer, but we're not all the same.

Daniela SM: 21:18

That's true, I just want one answer. It will be so simple. I can move on into another subject. Corey, you were in the swim club, and then what happened?

Cori Myka: 21:30

As I said, I was teaching at the. You know, it was my summer job all through high school and college, maybe much like your son, so that I was kind of figuring out what to do with my grownup life, which is where I met my husband. And at that time then we said well, why don't we try this on our own? Why don't we open our own swim school? Why don't we see what we could do here? We had nothing to lose, we weren't married at the time, we didn't own anything, so we opened our own swimming school.

Daniela SM: 22:15

But do you have to have a swimming pool for that, or how does that work?

Cori Myka: 22:18

Yeah, we rented pool space. So most of the we've been doing this for. I had to look at the calendar. What year is this? Okay, 26 years. So we rent pool space at different places over the years. We also bought a house that had a pool. That was later in because of pools coming and going, and have worked different models over the years.

Cori Myka: 22:41

But, yeah, so we started teaching kids. But, man, that passion for me for teaching adults was always still there, so I was always still had my toe in the water, so to speak, with teaching adults. And when I really started to focus on them and added water, so to speak, with teaching adults, and when I really started to focus on them and added this emotional component to it, really a mindfulness component and studying what things that then later became life coaching, at that time it wasn't called life coaching, there wasn't a thing called life coaching really at that time, but the elements of what went into what people call life coaching now were there in terms of mindfulness, with actions, and so when I started to apply that, then our adult program really took off. We sold our kids program so we could just focus on the adults, and that's what we continue to do now.

Cori Myka: 23:30

I take people on retreats and we go to warm tropical places because people really want to know what it's like in the ocean and in you know. They want to go kayaking and snorkeling and those kinds of things. So we go on adventures like that.

Daniela SM: 23:46

In the episode before this one, I had interviewed a lady who she is teaching older people to play the. It's like a guitar but has four strings, so it's a typical instrument from Venezuela. She had 10 students. Some of them were over 84. People have this idea before that when you're older, you don't get to learn. So she created her own method for music, and so I wonder if this is also the case that you saw. People think you know, I'm too old, I will never learn, and if you have developed your own method that is different from everyone else.

Cori Myka: 24:20

Yeah, we did so. We call it the foundations of change. It's about 80% mental to 20% physical, so it's really understanding what these mental components are to then apply to a physical step. And then, once you've done a physical step, then you have a reflective step, right? And how is it that we reflect upon the step that we just took? Do we say I did amazing, or do we say it should have been better in broad strokes? Right? So it's taking these mental pieces and adding it to a physical step to really build up a big, strong foundation instead of just leaning on a physical step. Right? If you think about a three-legged stool, if you have too much of the physical step of one, that's only one leg of the stool. It's not going to stand up. So we really have to have the other two legs, which are really the mental steps.

Daniela SM: 25:16

And how do you develop the knowledge of the emotional part?

Cori Myka: 25:19

I mean, I have a degree in health and safety, but it wasn't really in the psychology. In terms of the academic world, I've just taken individual classes and done a lot of reading and a lot of research and a lot of practice and different kind of therapeutic modalities and understanding of the psychology of learning and that sort of thing. So mostly self-study on that of applying those pieces to the learn to swim process.

Daniela SM: 25:45

And, of course, you're a self-taught anyway. So what is the most difficult thing?

Cori Myka: 25:50

the emotional content block people from learning how to swim the most difficult part is for them to allow themselves to discover, because we're so, so taught in, like we talked about before, these physical steps. Just tell me what to do. I mean, I had somebody recently said well, if you just manipulate my body to do it for me, couldn't, wouldn't that work? And I'm like, no, because you have a body that you know how to work. You need to be in charge of your own body. We just need to take a smaller step so you're not so overwhelmed People get overwhelmed with I have to do all of the things.

Cori Myka: 26:30

I mean, maybe, like your mother with speaking English, she may have a piece that's like I have to speak it at the level of which I can think in language. Right, it has to come out of my mouth in that sort of fluidity and vocabulary, correct order of words and all those kinds of things. Right, because she's smart and she can think that way. So it can be this overwhelm of I have to then produce it that way and we don't allow ourselves that space to have those smaller steps that we can hold on to.

Daniela SM: 27:05

Interesting. You have stories of people that they never thought they could do it.

Cori Myka: 27:10

Yeah, Actually I just got an email from somebody who's interested in swimming with us and she said my aunt is Rhonda. And I was like, oh, I instantly love you because Rhonda is my very best hug I have ever gotten, standing on the back of the boat in Hawaii. After she climbed back in the boat and just gave me the best hug ever because it was her dream to be able to jump off the back of the boat and go snorkeling in the beautiful waters of Hawaii. You know Rhonda's very smart, very capable. She does competitive weightlifting.

Cori Myka: 27:46

She was a principal of a school for many, many years, so she's very smart. She made sure all of her kids and grandkids learned how to swim. So she's very capable. But she had the experience when she was a teenager. Water and it dropped off and she went from where she could stand to suddenly where she couldn't stand and she had to be rescued. That put such an imprint on her of the shame and the embarrassment and the fear that she just cut that off from her life, even though it was her dream to be able to go in and enjoy those beautiful waters. So after she retired she had time for herself. She took her time. It was her time to realize her dream, and she came to learn to swim with us and then went with us to Hawaii.

Daniela SM: 28:46

Oh, that's wonderful. So you teach classes or individually, both.

Cori Myka: 28:51

So we actually teach online, we teach one-on-one and we teach in group lessons, so we have many different modalities that we teach.

Daniela SM: 28:59

And how does it work online?

Cori Myka: 29:01

I know, yeah, that does seem weird. Like what Swimming online? The reason why so learning to swim online part of why we have it is because we have people who fly in all over the place to take our classes, because there's a need In local communities. You don't have adult swim lessons that meet this emotional and physical need and so you know we can't be everywhere. So this was the best way for us to get the information out there. I have students all over the world who do the online classes and what it does is it teaches them those mental parts and we break down the physical parts into small enough steps that you can go to your local community center or your local pool and you can do those steps. And so we lay them out in very, very small steps. It surprisingly, amazingly works. And then people also do zoom sessions with me. So we go through I've been, I've been around the block a few times that by talking it through and asking questions and we can kind of find the sticking spots and make a plan.

Daniela SM: 30:07

Well, but that's great, that you are teaching this part, so you're the first one doing something so interesting. That's fascinating.

Cori Myka: 30:13

Yeah, there are a few other people out there that teach in a similar fashion, but yeah, it's not by and large, it's not the normal regular system.

Daniela SM: 30:22

Yeah, wow, quite interesting. You say that you met your husband. What were you swimming? Or he was a lifeguard. How was that?

Cori Myka: 30:30

After I worked that volunteer job for the year, there was a new aquatic facility that was opening, and so we both started working there when they reopened, and so we met each other there.

Daniela SM: 30:41

That's wonderful Because I know, I saw in Instagram what you were doing and I found it fascinating because I grew up in Venezuela. I remember my cousin who was seven years younger than me. They put him into swimming lessons back home and immediately, at six months, he was already floating, going under the water, and I thought that was perfect. And so when we were living here in Canada, in Vancouver, we had our first son and we're like okay, registering him for the swimming lessons and, you know, expecting that they were going to make him go under the water and learn. But no, instead they make us go in the water and we just have to sing songs. And first of all, my husband and I were from here, so we didn't even know the songs and we were like, what is this? And why are we singing songs instead of teaching him how to swim? And we're still curious about that because we thought why can they not have the same method, which is so efficient? And so you tell me yeah.

Cori Myka: 31:44

Well, so there's sort of two frames of mind in terms of teaching very young children, so for infants. So there are programs out there that is really based in training. You're just putting the child through the motions and so you can dip the child. Usually they teach them to flip over onto their backs and to float and they do things like teach them actually not to climb out of the water, because it's very difficult for them to climb out of the water because of the weight of their head and some other things like that. So that's one method. It's efficient.

Cori Myka: 32:21

There's some controversy around it as well in terms of what it does to them psychologically. On one hand, you're like if you live in a place where you can't engineer safety for a child in terms of water so say on a farm and there's irrigation systems that you just it's really difficult to engineer a block between the child and that it may be a good idea to do that kind of a method right, that you're going to make sure that they have that physical safety training For most kids. They don't have that. Most people don't have water in their backyard Not everybody, it depends on where you're at but most they don't have that. Most people don't have water in their backyard Not everybody, it depends on where you're at, but most people don't, and so when you're around water it's a pretty controlled environment.

Cori Myka: 33:03

So the other method of having a more playful, interactive experience is useful, because that's how children learn right. They learn by interacting in an environment you think about. You know, how did they learn to navigate the jungle gym and climb and stuff like that? It's not that we force them into drills. We provide a safe environment for them to explore, and so that other method is really about that. Sometimes, in my opinion, lean too heavily on, like you said, the singing and the songs. Singing songs is a way that we teach language and teach concepts and have closeness with our babies and a rhythm and that sort of thing. So I think it kind of comes from that idea. So those are sort of the two models that are out there.

Daniela SM: 33:52

Throwing the kid in the water. What is the side effect of? Could it be traumatic?

Cori Myka: 33:57

Yeah, and I'm not an expert in this area, because babies can't tell you when they're traumatized. I mean they tell you in terms of crying. For some babies, for some people, that trauma they'll be able to process and come away with the skills and they're just fine. And some babies will not process it well and they will come away with trauma, Like we talked about. Different people are different. Like my older child would have done just fine in that I mean we did dip him and things like that. He never was crying. That was my limit on that. But my younger child, if we had done that, I think it would have been really traumatic, would have lost a lot of trust, connection, so it wouldn't have been good for that child.

Daniela SM: 34:41

So yeah, that's true. That's true, as you say, it depends on the child, and so why you decided going to adults instead of children.

Cori Myka: 34:51

I find it's much more interesting for me because the brain is developed differently and so I do have to have a different kind of conversation and a different learning style with adults than with children. And there's lots of people out there that teach children. There's lots of really great children learn to swim methods that are out there. There's a lot of mediocre ones too, but there's a lot of variety out there and there just isn't for the adults. It's a service niche that really spoke to me and is interesting for me and very satisfying to me, so it is a need out there.

Daniela SM: 35:29

Yeah, it's interesting what you said, that that maybe the way of teaching kids doesn't work for adults.

Cori Myka: 35:35

For sure? No, it doesn't. They don't have the same brain.

Daniela SM: 35:38

Yes, I remember that you had to pass the levels right.

Cori Myka: 35:43

Yeah, we got rid of the levels. I did not like the levels because of this idea of success or failure versus learning. You know if the person is learning and improving, when you might have one, two, three benchmarks for one person, they might go one, two, three. Or when they might go one, three and another person might go 1.1, 1.2, 1.2a. They're still learning, they're still progressing, they're still developing and that's what matters most to me is that people have that and feel that and grow the pieces that are good in them, instead of getting to 1.5 and being told they're a failure because they didn't pass the class.

Daniela SM: 36:29

How do you do this with adults then?

Cori Myka: 36:32

Did they have also a method that they know how they're improving, or let's just say somebody puts their face in the water and then they come up. The first thing that I will ask them is what did they notice? How did it feel? What went well, those are the areas that we focus on, because those are the things that we want to grow. Sometimes they come up and they start talking and telling me all the things that went wrong, how it wasn't supposed to go, and I know then at that point I actually don't care about the what went wrong. I care about the fact that they didn't stay present in the activity. Through it, they left, they skipped out of the activity before they were even done. They skipped out mentally. They started thinking about me or what they were going to say, or judging themselves or evaluating themselves. So they weren't even there to feel what was happening.

Daniela SM: 37:24

Wow, it was very holistic then.

Cori Myka: 37:26

Yeah, so that's the piece that we want to key into, and so when people key into that, they know their sense of growing. It's the judgment, the shame, the comparison. That's the part that we end up being in that failure mode, right, and it just makes us small and doesn't help us continue to grow.

Daniela SM: 37:47

Well, it's interesting how you put holistic, emotional, physical all together as one perfect method of learning.

Cori Myka: 37:56

Because that's who we are right. We aren't just our physical bodies, we're also our mental bodies, our spiritual bodies. All of these things have to come together.

Daniela SM: 38:06

Yes, and I wonder if that method could be used for a lot of other things too, because it seems that that's really what it is Like if you are learning an instrument or a language or I don't know running or Money, Money, or you know using the computer or something. What went right, Like it's true. Maybe are you writing a book, I'm not writing a book right now.

Cori Myka: 38:32

That is one that sort of niggles around for me sometimes. I am looking at doing a new podcast of our own called Mindfulness in Motion, where we really do highlight just how you apply this mindfulness way of being in different areas of your life right To put it in action. Mindfulness isn't like meditating on a mat that can be part of it but it's how do you put it into action in your life, right? How do I put it, implement it and use it as a tool in action in my life? So that is something that we're definitely leaning into and helping people with with our coaching and part of the online piece of coaching is that getting those mental steps to be an action, be it swimming or something else.

Daniela SM: 39:20

I wonder if you are a holistic spiritual couple, or is this just that? No matter what you're doing, it's a point that it needs to be added to any learning.

Cori Myka: 39:30

Well, I think we always are holistic, spiritual people. It's whether or not we're paying attention to it to use it in a way to help us, or we're not paying attention to it and it's sabotaging us. I personally come from this holistic approach and I do have the belief that even the scientists there's very astute scientists who's written books about spirituality because he's like, at the end of the day, there is some things that we can't explain, or there is things there is into, you know, intuition, and there is there's a lot of science that we can put into explaining it and there's something else?

Daniela SM: 40:12

Wow, super interesting. I like what you said because it made me think about okay, when I learn, next time I have to be present. I will think about your method, even if it's not swimming, wonderful. So you're going to continue with these courses and then you're having a book there somewhere thinking about it. What else is there?

Cori Myka: 40:33

for you, staff and employees, and so for me, I'm really leaning into teaching and training people and helping people with these mental steps to apply to more than just swimming. So that's what I'm working on and developing right now, like I said, with the upcoming podcast of our own leaning into and helping people explore that, yeah, we can all kind of have our dreams. And then I'm also leaning into my empty nesting and my our own travel and who we are as a couple and and who I am is adding new volunteer things and whatnot to my own personal life.

Daniela SM: 41:20

So do you feel, now that you have so much to offer, that the sky is the limit? You can do anything, and you feel like, oh my God, there's so much to do at the moment, now that you have the empty nest?

Cori Myka: 41:31

I do. I actually, when I had my 50th birthday, I had a big birthday party for myself, which I don't usually do in a band and a whole thing, and I'm like this is just the most amazing time. I think it's the most amazing time Physically so capable, still mentally so capable, not so worried about the money anymore. There's nothing sort of laid out as the supposed to next step and you have all that wisdom that you think. Yeah, this second half is an amazing, joyful time of discovery and creativity, and so I'm having fun in the beginnings of that space and leaning into it.

Daniela SM: 42:13

Right. Yes, I had the same feeling too. I feel like there's so much we can do, so I'm excited about that, and I think that's happened to us I don't know if it happens to men, but it happens to women for sure that we are like what else is there? I can do so much, I have learned so much. She has to be able to do something with all the things that I know now. Yes, yeah, for sure. Yep, lots of fun things to come, and so when is your podcast going to start?

Cori Myka: 42:40

So we'll roll it out in the fall. So we're working on, we're putting it together this summer, so start releasing episodes in the fall.

Daniela SM: 42:46

So is this just going to be you and your husband and have some guests from time to time?

Cori Myka: 42:56

Not my husband, although we started the swim school together. He actually has been a firefighter for many, many years, so that's his primary job. He does kind of the honeydew part of the business. Right now It'll be me and it'll be guests. I actually you had my ears peaked with the gal teaching the music. Yeah, if she adds that mindfulness part to what she does, well, I'd love to inspire people into what's fun and what's possible and what new things you wanna learn and how to go about doing it in a way that is loving and supportive and growth giving for you.

Daniela SM: 43:26

Yes, that's true. That's true, that's true, and it was very inspiring her story. Yeah, I'm sure you're going to have so many stories like that. There are many stories. These people don't talk enough about it, but it's true, yeah, yeah.

Cori Myka: 43:38

So many. I mean, I think that is what I love about what I do is because it does change people's story. When I talked about that three-legged stool, one does change people's story. When I talked about that three-legged stool. One of the first things we do is we ask people what their swim story is. It really is about being able to change that. It's both in changing it because they're learning something new, but it's also changing. How is it that you're telling that story? Are you telling that story in a way that is useful for your growth in the world, or are you telling that story in a way that keeps you small and holds that place?

Daniela SM: 44:13

That's true. That's true, so wonderful. Looking forward to see the podcast. Anything else that you would like to share that we have not mentioned? We covered a lot.

Cori Myka: 44:22

Oh my gosh, I think just if there's anybody out there who wants to change their story and quiet those saboteurs and increase, you know, that kindness and love and sage in tiny little steps, we'd love to see you online.

Daniela SM: 44:37

So connect with us. Yeah, great. Thank you, kori. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Learning things that don't come easy to us could be about understanding the fears, judgment and stories we carry with us. The emotional part matters just as much as the physical Rewriting our story is possible. It starts with presence, curiosity and a little self-kindness. If this episode made you think differently, smile or breathe a little deeper, share it with a friend who might need to hear it or could have a story to share. That's how the ordinary magic keeps going. Join me next time for another powerful story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto.