STA with Aquabatix, the world’s leading professional artistic swimming team, are bringing the joy of artistic swimming (formerly synchronised swimming) to a wider audience this summer with the launch of the leisure industry’s first ever series of online artistic swimming CPDs.

We hope to inspire aquatic teachers to deliver new creative skills and imaginative content during their swimming lesson programmes in a fun and engaging way to learners of all ages and abilities.

The aim of launching the three new CPDs, which have been written by Aquabatix, is to remove the mystique around teaching artistic swimming skills and make the sport more accessible to a wider grassroots audience.

The online CPDs will be available to anyone via STA, but will be hugely beneficial to level 2 swimming teachers or professionals with an aquatics background in particular—teachers who want to expand their skill sets and swimming programmes.

The founders of Aquabatix, Katie Fried and Adele Carlsen, who have both enjoyed long and extensive international careers in artistic swimming and who created Aquabatix in 2006 with the goal of changing the perception of sport, said that in writing the CPDs they wanted to share their knowledge and experience, and with STA bring the joy of artistic swimming to the masses.

Katie said: By creating this series of three CPDs, Experience, Explore and Expression, we hope to inspire aquatic teachers to deliver new creative skills and imaginative content during their swimming lesson programmes in a fun and engaging way to learners of all ages and abilities.

The first CPD to be released will be titled ‘Experience’. Experience focusses on three key areas: Body Balance, Sculling and Stroke Creativity, to enable teachers to deliver a comprehensive beginners experience of artistic swimming.

The second CPD, Explore, will cover Underwater Action, Team Work Makes the Dream Work and Body Balance, with sculling progression and eggbeater leg propulsion. This will give teachers the skills to deliver an explorative approach to artistic swimming in their classes.

Expression is the third CPD, which focusses on the expressive side of artistic swimming using choreography and creative body work for individuals, partners and groups.

The three CPDs will be available this summer exclusively via STA Online.

More teachers trained in artistic swimming means there will be more opportunities to inspire a new generation of learners and keep them active in the pool for longer.

Speaking about the partnership with STA, Adele said: We were honoured to have been approached by STA to write these CPDs. They have given us the support and the channel to make learning about this sport more accessible, both financially and in time efficiency online, for teachers and participants alike.

It is the perfect partnership, agreed Katie. And with STA’s Zoe Cooper being a highly valued member of the Aquabatix family too, having performed in Britain’s Got Talent’s finals with us as well as many other performances, we know there is no bigger advocate for artistic swimming. In her role at STA, we can combine our passion and work together to share this beautiful sport with everyone who wants to learn.

Zoe Cooper, STA’s Sales and Marketing Director said: It has been a dream to be able to combine my work at STA with my life-long passion for artistic swimming. By working in partnership with Aquabatix, who are the best in the industry, STA is able to facilitate the delivery of these new CPDs in an easy, accessible online format for the aquatics teaching world. Importantly for STA—more teachers trained in artistic swimming means there will be more opportunities to inspire a new generation of learners and keep them active in the pool for longer.

This announcement coincides with Rocketman being released at UK cinemas this week. The musical film is based on the life of Elton John and one pivotal scene involves artistic swimming and ballerina underwater elements being performed in a swimming pool by members of Aquabatix, including STA’s own Zoe Cooper.

To register your interest in the new Artistic Swimming CPDs and to be automatically notified when they are live, please click here!

About Aquabatix

Aquabatix is the world’s leading professional artistic swimming team who produce award-winning and innovative water entertainment for live events and on screen projects globally. By fusing the glamour of Hollywood with the acrobatics of an Olympic sport, they have forged their very own aquatic niche within the entertainment industry.