Podcast Episode – Michael de Souza

Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Aquatic Mentors podcast. It's great to have you onboard, I’m your host Katrina van Eyk and today we're going to be talking to the amazing Michael de Souza. Now Michael de Souza is a Caribbean born man who lives in London. He's fantastic swim teacher, who's using his background to expand and encourage kids to swim in a really fun and exciting way.

So, we talked today with Michael about how he learned to swim and how his journey started and what he brings to the swimming industry and to the kids that he teaches. So, Michael's had a lot of time teaching celebrities, children to swim. So, quite a few celebrities in London and around the UK, got him to teach their children to swim and they had a lot of farmers, a lot of entertainment, a lot of joking and a lot of rhymes brought into his teaching and we talk about the future and what he sees for it. And we also talk about his amazing talents as a writer. Now Michael wrote books about a mouse called Rastamouse and his crew Da Easy Crew and his books are fantastic, and they have been made into a TV series, which is played here in Australia called Rastamouse. He is now developing other books that are related to swimming as is one of his main passions and I really can't wait to be able to read them and show them to my students and my children.

So, I hope you really enjoy this episode. I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot from it. He has a lot of wisdom and knowledge to share with us, but I've also left the little sacred in the end of the episode for you, just for a bit of laughs. Alright, enjoy it. And we started at podcasts with Michael de Souza and we are asking him where he started his journey and swimming.

How did I start my swimming?

Yes, your journey in swimming.

Well, basically as a self-taught swimmer, I was very, very scared of swimming, petrified actually and, I eventually taught myself. That's how I got into swimming, just teach myself.

Wow, good work. So, you just threw yourself in the deep end and off you went.

Well, I wouldn't say deep end. I would say very much the shallow end.

Good point. Do you find that helps you when you are teaching other kids that are scared?

Well, absolutely, totally and completely, because I would say I understand fear of water very, very, very well. Like I can recognize it from 500m, to be honest with you, I've seen it in all forms, guises. People pretend with ego and they say I'm all right, but, you know, because I know it couldn't have been anyone more frightened than myself in the water. So, you know, I more say to myself that I'm more about someone that eradicates fear as opposed to just being a swimming teacher, specialising in eradicated fear.

Wow, I really like that. That's a good way of putting it, eradicating the fear from swimming. What a good idea. What's been your biggest lesson that you've learned through swimming?

I think what I've learned that it's a great equalizer. It doesn't matter what you look like, sex, age, height, build it doesn't matter. Once you got the love of the water, anyone could really enjoy it and look wonderful in water.

Perfect! I really liked that and I feel the same and I know on land I'm not so elegant, but once I'm in the water, I feel as elegant as dolphin and a mermaid and that's the same for everyone, I think.

Absolutely, yeah. That's one thing I've definitely done.

And what's been your biggest highlight of your swimming journey?

There were a couple of things, right? One student, people was said that he didn't concentrate and what not. Anyway, after teaching him, he entered this new competition in Spain, held by the King of Spain and he won a gold medal.

People, found it difficult to teach him, but I didn't find it difficult at all. That is the main one really. And then the biggest thing for me was going to Sri Lanka after the tsunami in 2005, 2006, I was invited over there to teach 69 children to get them into the water. It’s as a big highlight.

Wow, 69. That would be just amazing, the whole fear factor involved in that would just be amazing to be able to push them through that and get them in.

Yeah, completely and the thing is, some of them hadn't been in water before. Some of them were going to return to the water, but equally as well, they've never been in a swimming pool and fortunately for us, there was a, one of the people that sponsored me. She had a friend, I think his name is Jeffery Bauer, an architect. He owned a property in Sri Lanka. So, I asked him if we could use the swimming pool and we got the students in there. It's the first time they'd ever been in a swimming pool and I managed to get 65 of them in that week in the swimming pool in the deep end.

Wow, that’s fantastic.

Yeah, it was fantastic.

That's great and that shows a lot to the power of swimming and your teaching skills and what you've been able to do to be able to get people in there, and especially not coming from Sri Lanka and having to deal with sort of the cultural background and be able to get them in the water and get them skills. That's fantastic.

Yeah, it is quite interesting as well, because obviously there was a language barrier, but what I decided to do was try to have a common language that neither of us knew too great, which was Italian. So, when they did something, I'd say ‘Fantastico and Bravo’ and they loved it.

What a great way of looking at it. I would have never thought of something like that.

Yeah, because they don't speak my language, I don’t speak their language. Do you know what I mean? I thought let's meet in the middle, you know, it's like that.

Yep, oh wow, so smart. So, no wonder the kids relate to you so well to be able to think outside the box like that.

Yeah, that's what you got to do with children. You know, you have to, you have to think outside the box also, it mustn’t be predictable. Cause I think when you are predictable swimming could be a bit boring, you know?

Yeah, that's right. And that's the thing I think for teachers, a lot of swimming has to be repetitive because that's how kids at that age learn. But it's about being repetitive with the skills, but the way you teach it being different.

Absolutely. Look, the thing is right. At the end of the day, when you're swimming, your arms bends and straightens, your legs bend and straighten and they'll kick up and they don't do much else. So, it's how many different ways you can persuade someone to do that. So, I've been dealing with children, their whole world is about play. You've got massive scope there. So, you know, it's just a blank canvas, really? That you can fill up.

That's brilliant. Wow, that's great thinking. And that is it. They are a blank canvas. Swimming is something that we can fill their lives with and expand in so many ways. It becomes, you know, a lot of people I've spoken to have said that swimming, it's not just confidence in the water. It's confidence in their whole life as well.

Most definitely. It seemed to me like you were gonna say that. And I said, if you weren't, I would have said it because there's been many, many occasions where I've had taught children and the parents have said to me, listen, it's made such a difference right across the board is lifted up their confidence in every aspect of their life, which is brilliant.

Yeah, it is great. And I find that here in Australia, because we're such a water based society that, there's so many different aquatic sports, and even, people go on holidays to the beach, people go on holidays to the rivers and they water ski and a jet boat and they do all sorts of things like that. I think having that skill and that confidence in the water, they can then do so many other activities, whether they'd be water-based or whether they're not the, they can feel confident and know that they're going to be safe while they're participating.

Yes. Yeah, exactly.

So, was there anyone that played a big role in your swimming journey? Like a mentor or family member?

Yeah. Well, when I looked at that question, I thought there were two people that influenced me and they were both when I was in primary school, one was one of my peers, Tony Nash. He was an English fellow and you know, when we come from the Caribbean, obviously none of us can swim very well, but he was like the original little English fish. He was a proper little fish. He swam good, he dived well plus he looked good in his trunks.

The other person that really was a massive influence was a teacher called Mr. Limerick. He was from Australia and in our primary school every Friday, he used to show us real to real life films of Sydney, films of Australian divers, swimmers, Mexican cliff divers and that's where I got my love for diving and swimming. Cause I loved diving. Anything to do the water by that time.

Yeah, it was funny. Cause it was the first time I'd met an Australian. This w...