I believe that this podcast offers a topic you might not have considered – and it very much has to do with life and death. “Drowning deaths are on the rise in the United States, following decades of decline, according to a new CDC Vital Signs study. Over 4,500 people died due to drowning each year from 2020–2022, 500 more per year compared to 2019.” Many of these drownings could be prevented – not by knowing swim strokes, but by learning to be in deep water without panic. This is a perfect podcast to hear as we head into summer months, and the lessons Melon shares apply to more than just pools, rivers, lakes and oceans.

https://miracleswimming.com/

https://www.facebook.com/miracleswimming2020

https://www.instagram.com/miracleswimmingschoolforadults

https://twitter.com/melondash?lang=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melon

https://www.youtube.com/user/melondash/videos

Transcript:

Diane Hullet: Hi, I’m Diane Hullett and welcome to the Best Life Best Deaf Podcast. Today I’ve got one of my little more out of the box episodes and I’m really excited about it. I’m talking to a wonderful woman in Florida named Mellon Dash. Welcome Mellon. Thank you. So melon, you know, I think has a really interesting story and also bring something really relevant to the world.

I believe melon runs the miracle swimming school for adults. And this first came across my radar, I think, in the summer of 2023. And my dad, who is a great source of topics for me, sent me an article. about Mellon’s work. And I was like, Oh, that’s kind of an interesting subject for a best life, best stuff podcast, because it has to do with the fact that a great number of adults every year drown and why, and how might that be preventable?

And what does the miracle swimming school for adults do to impact that? So, you know, melon start wherever you want, if you want to introduce yourself or talk about this, this sort of strangely prevalent. And, and preventable way of dying. Thank you 

Melon Dash: so much. Those are the best questions. I wish I had been asked that for the last 40 years, every month or so.

I’m Mellon Dash. I started Miracle Swimming School for Adults in 1983. I started it because I saw that adults weren’t learning to swim. And I was a little born swimmer, born in the water, born wet person all the time in the water. You know, that’s where I’m most myself. And I had decided that the job I had wasn’t me and I needed to find what was me.

And I had done something in grad school that was along this line and I decided that is it. That is me. This is what I’m supposed to do. I’m home. So I’ve been doing it for we’re about to start the 42nd year. And We, one of your questions was why how many people are drowning, I think, and why is it so prevalent in the adult community?

Well, it’s true. 80 percent of drownings in the United States are by adults, 78, 79, 80. And you would think that because we have always said, okay, we’ve got to make sure all the kids learn to swim so that by the time the adults are adults, all the adults can swim. Well, that never panned out at all. And it isn’t true. 

Now there are three times as many adults as there are kids in the United States. So that’s another piece of the puzzle. There are going to be more drownings if there are more adults, but why didn’t kids? learn to swim? Why don’t adults learn to swim? What happened to the kids who could swim that can’t swim now as adults?

 What happens when adults go to swimming lessons? These are all questions that I would like to talk about. 

Diane Hullet: Let’s do it. This is so critical because there is this question of adults learn differently and they need to know something differently, right? So keep going. I interrupted. Yes. Well, you know, swimming 

Melon Dash: lessons are designed for children and children have a more trusting outlook on life than adults have and children haven’t had an experience that already made them afraid.

So they’re not coming to swimming lessons. By and large, with this fear, now a lot of them, I can’t say a lot, some are because their parents are afraid, and their parents have passed along a little bit of the fear to the kids, so the kids are a little bit tentative when they get to swimming lessons, but the parents are saying to themselves I really don’t want my kid to grow up like I did, I’m going to make sure I take them to swimming lessons, and then they’ll learn, and a lot of the students that I’ve had have done that with their kids, and their kids are fish.

As they say, and they’re very happy about that. And now they’re, now that they’ve gotten to this part in their life, they’re giving swimming lessons to themselves. So that does work in a lot of ways and it doesn’t work in some ways because so many adults who are afraid in water, and that’s half of adults, are not taking their kids to swimming lessons because they’re terrified that their kids are going to drown in lessons, partly because they’re terrified that they would drown if they were in lessons themselves, partly because they’ve taken lessons and they didn’t work and they were very scary and They got so discouraged.

They thought, there’s no way I can’t learn to swim. I, nothing works. And it was true because the system is made for kids. It’s not made for adults. It does not work for adults who are afraid. It works for adults who are not afraid, but it doesn’t work for adults who are afraid and half of adults are afraid.

So when an adult goes to swimming lessons these days and takes traditional swimming lessons at the, or the, then we have you know what that was, right? 

Diane Hullet: How many guests? At the YMCA or at the somewhere, right? Yes. Yes. At some kind of public rec center, they say, I’ve got to learn to swim and they sign up.

But when they get the lesson doesn’t work. Yes. Because the 

Melon Dash: instructors try to teach people who are afraid to put their faces in, who are afraid to open their eyes underwater, who don’t want to take their hands off their nose, who don’t want to take their hands off the wall, who don’t want to take their feet off the bottom.

The instructors are saying, everybody jump in. Or they’re saying. Push off the wall in a streamlined fashion, or they’re saying, kick your legs like this. And everybody is going, what do you mean? I mean, they’re, they’re not saying it out loud. And I wish they would. They need to be saying, what are you, what are you talking about?

I don’t even want to put my face in. I’m afraid I’m going to panic. If I put my face, if I lie down, if I let go of the wall, I don’t know how to stand up now. These are not crazy concerns. These are not these are justifiable. They are questions that half of the adult population in the United States has. 

There should be no shame about having these questions. People just don’t have the background. So the first thing I want to say is. Cancel your shame. I wish I could just cancel it. I wish I could say it’s now wiped off. Take a, take a, a tablet of vitamin C and your shame will be gone about swimming because we do not need it.

And you need to tell your instructors that they’re telling you things that are far too advanced for what you’re ready for. And you’re going to be in charge of what you’re going to learn. And this is what’s first and just say, I don’t like putting my face in the water. I don’t want you to just tell me to put my chin in and then my lips and then my nose.

I want to know how I can feel in control. And so we have this whole system and it came about in a very magical way. When I said to myself in a psychic class in Berkeley in 1983, how does fear work? And a few days later, I was sitting in my recliner, I wasn’t sure I was going to share this, but here I am.

I was sitting in my recliner daydreaming out the window and in the window appeared three circles, a diagram, part of this diagram, I’ll show you here. The first three circles came up And my window and I said to myself, Oh, that is these three circles came in part of the answer to my question and I but I knew it wasn’t the whole the whole answer.

So I forgot about it, frankly. And then a couple days later, the same thing happened. I was sitting in my recliner daydreaming out the window and the other two circles appeared in the window. So then I had all five of these circles. 

Diane Hullet: So let me describe these. So the first circle has a little person inside with kind of an oval all the way around it.

And it says calm, like we’re, we’re surrounded by calm. Nervous is when the circle is moving up scared. The circle is about at our heart and up terrified. Just our head is in the circle and panic. This circle of calm is completely above our head. So it’s like a diagram of understanding how that. Feeling moves, and I’ll definitely throw a picture of that in the show notes.

Yeah, thanks. 

Melon Dash: This is the spectrum that all of us humans go through when we lose it. When we go from perfectly calm to freaked out, not in control of what we’re doing, inhaling underwater, thrashing, all those things. It’s because you’re in the fifth circle. And the problem is not that you don’t know how to do freestyle.

And it’s not that you don’t know how to tread water. And it’s not that you don’t know how to breathe. It’s that you keep leaving your body and you’re not in control of what your body does. You can’t say to yourself, I’m underwater. I need air. Now is not a good time to inhale. You’re not in control enough to do that.

So that’s the whole problem. And when this came to me and I went to my class the next day and I explained this, they said to me, yeah, why didn’t anyone ever tell us that before? And I said, I think I’m onto something here. Now, 42 years, you know, 41 years. Every single class I’ve taught, no matter what level, begins with this, and we get buy in.

Every single person understands this. I say, if you’re reading a book, and you have to read the same paragraph three times, Where are you? You are not there. Okay, why are you not there? Because your body is in the chair, but you are someplace else. You can do that because you are not your body. You got your non physical part of yourself and your physical part.

If the non physical and the physical are together, you’re in control of what you do and you won’t inhale underwater. But if they’re not together, you, you will, you have a very good chance of inhaling underwater. And that’s what happens for people who are afraid in water taking swimming lessons. They’re always out of the first circle.

They’re always afraid. They’re, they’re worried about being pushed by the teacher or, or finding themselves in a scary situation that they can’t get out of. They’re running out of breath and they think they’ll sink or whatever. I’ve been talking for a long time. You get, you get what I’m saying 

Diane Hullet: here?

Absolutely. No, I think it’s fascinating because you’re kind of saying people have in their heads that if they’re going to quote unquote, learn to swim, that somehow that has to do with strokes. That has to do with. As you said, treading water, that has to do with some kind of technique. And you’re saying really the biggest thing that adults are coping with is panic and fear.

So you have to understand your body’s, your, your mental, emotional, and body leap. I guess that would be mental, emotional, and physical kind of how Fear or calm encapsulates you in order to feel in control and water. And so your lessons focus on something completely different than what people think of as swim lessons.

Yes. And 

Melon Dash: when you learn it, and it’s just simple mindfulness. It isn’t complicated at all. It’s just learning how to be here. And when you learn it, well, this is what my students taught me. When they had learned it and they were out in deep water and they could stay there as long as they wanted, they said, I can swim.

And I thought, Oh, wait a minute. Why are they saying they can swim? They haven’t done any strokes. You know, I’m a competitive swimmer from all the way back. And so strokes were always part of learning to swim to me, but they were right. When they said they could swim, I realized I was wrong. They were right when they said that.

Now, strokes would be learning to swim efficiently, but now if they can hang out in deep water as long as they want, they can swim. And this is what I’m trying to bring to the Red Cross and the Y today. This idea, and to all swimming instructors, the idea that when you want to teach adults to swim, you need to teach them how to be still.

In deep water, not how to move. Not how to move from here to there with freestyle and shallow water. 

Diane Hullet: No. 

Melon Dash: Not even, not 

Diane Hullet: even expending a ton of energy treading water, but just how to be still and be 

Melon Dash: afloat. Right. And you know, if you’re expending a ton of energy treading water, that ain’t treading. That’s not sustainable.

It’s not treading. Yeah. So this is such an important message. And the people who take our classes are so good. So grateful to finally be in a place where they’re understood where they’re being taught the things they need to know and where they can learn it because they’re not enough. They feel safe.

They’re not pressure situation or a scary situation. They feel like, yeah, this is my sandbox. I can play here. I have permission. I’m warm enough. I can practice for two hours before I get out of the water. You know, it’s a ideal situation. 

Diane Hullet: So how do you take someone who comes to you and says, I’m afraid to swim.

Maybe I had some kind of experience as a child. I’m nervous. I want to learn how to swim. How do you take them from that state to being relaxed in deep water? 

Melon Dash: Yeah, well, the first hour of every one of our sessions is on land, and so on day one, session one, we, everyone introduces themselves, and this is eight people usually, eight people and a couple teachers, and they say their name and where they’re from and what made them afraid in water.

And everyone has a story, and no one is surprised by anybody else’s story unless somebody, you know, somebody’s twin drowned or something like that, that has happened. And then, so at least they all know that they’re in good company, and that everyone understands their story. And then I explain the five circles, and I say, We do not care if you let go of the wall.

We don’t care if you put your face in the water. We don’t care if you take your feet off the bottom. What we care about, and what you came to learn, was how to be in control all the time in the water. Whether you’re at the side or in the middle. Whether you’re at the surface or mid water. Whether you’re in shallow water or deep.

You came, correct me if I’m wrong, because you want to just be yourself. You want to feel yourself in all these places. So because you want to be expert at that in the water, that’s the thing we’re going 

Diane Hullet: to practice. So interesting. And as you said, it’s as much about mindfulness than anything else. And how would you describe mindfulness in this capacity?

Mindfulness is 

Melon Dash: being in your first circle in that first circle and staying there because you feel what is going on right now in your body and you say, this would feel good. I can do this. That wouldn’t be fun. I’m not doing that. And I and you have to keep bringing yourself back to what’s comfortable and stay comfortable 100 percent of the time when people stay comfortable 100 percent of the time they learn in record speed.

When they push themselves, they prevent themselves from healing their fear. 

Diane Hullet: Wow, Mellon. I think that applies all kinds of places, not just swimming. That’s what everybody says. It changes their whole life. It does. It changes your perspective to say, how do I stay safe? And in that feeling safe, gradually move out and try new things rather than being thrown in the deep end of the pool, quote unquote, right?

Exactly. So this, you know, this aspect of drowning being preventable, do you know, do, do you find students come? Do they believe you when you say that? Do they believe me when I say drowning is preventable? Yeah. 

Melon Dash: I think they know drowning is preventable. They just wish they knew how. Yeah. That’s kind of what I mean.

Like the getting from here to there. Yeah. I, I think that when they are on the edge of signing up, they’re on the edge of deciding whether to believe me or not. And when they do sign up, they’re saying, okay I’m jumping off the cliff here. All these people said it works. I’m going to see if it’ll work for me.

And we have a guarantee, you know, people can get their money back if it doesn’t work, because we know that if they feel safe to sign up, they’ll come. And then they will have a great experience. I’m not trying to stop my class here. I’m just telling you, I’m trying to answer your questions. You know that.

Absolutely. So that’s a really good question because people do need to decide if they’re going to take a chance. And if they do take the chance and come then they’ve, they’ve plunked down a bunch of money and they’re saying, I want to get my money’s worth, I better listen. And they’re telling us in day one, challenge me.

We tell the students challenge us with all your questions. Don’t let one question go unanswered because if you’re, if you don’t ask a question, you start going to the second circle. 

Diane Hullet: You start to get, you start to have that panic come and maybe it’s not panic yet, but that fear and that shame. And I love that you talked to us right at the beginning about feeling like.

If there’s one thing you could check for people, you’d check their shame at the door. So they don’t have to feel like this is, there’s something wrong with them, that this fear is in them. And again, I think that’s applicable to a lot of places as well. Not just swimming. Absolutely. What do some of your students have to say about this work?

Melon Dash: Oh, they say all swimming lessons should be taught this way. They say this changed my life. They say five years later, I’m still using what I learned in my swimming class, and it’s changed so many things. I never thought I could learn this in a week. You’ve blown my mind, these kinds of things. And today, I just want to read you this one that I got today.

This woman took my classes probably 25 years ago. And she said I’m so glad you’re in my life. I’m currently taking a liberate class for cancer patients through humans are good. Your teachings are so complimentary to their teaching. I feel you gave me a head start. Thanks for always being there for me.

And she, she has been one of, she went through all of my classes. She is a lap swimmer and a snorkeler and she has been a spotter for us. She’s come to help me teach for many, many years. And I haven’t heard from her for a few years. So this is a real treat to get this today. Now that I see she’s working with cancer patients.

Diane Hullet: I mean, Amazing. Amazing. Well, in a way, I think about maybe it’s just me, but you know, fear of drowning is a real fear for me. And it’s funny, I, I don’t have a lot of fears, but for some reason that one, that one does come up. And I would say I’m a swimmer, like you define a swimmer, like I can be pretty comfortable in, in water.

And at various times in my life, I’ve done strokes, but, you know, not with any kind of consistency, but that sense of like, Out of controlness with the water is I think part of it and that fear of somehow I’ll sink. So I don’t think I’m alone in that. And I wonder about adults. You know, I mostly had good experiences with swimming, but I do wonder about that fear and shame that come up for people when they’ve had a really terrifying experience and water is such a prevalent thing in our world.

So how do we move into that? How do we overcome that? And you’re based mostly in Florida is where your schools are. 

Melon Dash: Yes, but we have classes in Palm Springs and Chicago and Atlanta and West Palm in Florida. Wow. Do people fly 

Diane Hullet: in to take your class? 

Melon Dash: Yeah. Most people do take the classes fly in. 

Diane Hullet: Wow. They’ve heard about it and they’re committed and they want to do this.

That’s amazing. Yeah. 

Melon Dash: They stay. We usually do it at a hotel in Palm Springs and yeah, in Palm Springs, we do it at a hotel, sometimes in Sarasota too. So they have a place to stay and then we use that pool. What was your question again? I don’t know. I think it was more of a comment. It was good. It was a really good Oh, what do you do with that?

Oh, yes When people are afraid they’ve had a bad experience and they’re afraid that if they get back in the water They’re gonna sink or whatever and I recommend this for you to go into the shallow water and see if you can sink 

You can’t it’s harder than you think It is. You have to know what to do.

You have to do it on purpose. You’re just not going to find yourself on the bottom. Now, everybody who’s afraid in water believes that they’ll find themselves on the bottom. Now, not people who are fine and shallow and, and afraid in the deep, but they do, sometimes they’re afraid they’ll sink in the deep.

So I say go test it in a place where you feel 100 percent safe. Whatever you have to do to feel safe, if you have to have nine people lined up between you and the deep end, do it. And see if you can sink. And prove to yourself, don’t get out of the water until you have proven to yourself. And if you say, well I’m 99 percent sure, it’s not time to leave.

You want 100 percent sure. Yes. And show yourself, because once you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, you will not worry again. You won’t worry again. You 

Diane Hullet: just prove it. That’s a kind of deep knowing. So then if you fall off a dock by accident, or you’re thrown off a boat, or you’re in a swimming pool, and something feels out of control, you’ll be able to tap into that space.

You won’t even have to tap in. You’ll already be 

Melon Dash: there. It’ll be who cares? Yes. I fell in. That’s funny. You know, they’re probably up there laughing and I can, too. You know, that sort of thing. Wow. Yeah, I wrote something to the Red Cross recently saying, or somewhere, saying If you were to step off a ledge into water that’s over your head, would you chuckle?

Would you panic? Or would you realize what just happened and regroup, you 

Diane Hullet: know, good question. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think I would, I think I would regroup. I mean, I think I’d go, Oh, and then regroup and I’d probably chuckle about it later, but I’d also be nervous. Yeah. Yeah. So you want 

Melon Dash: to be somebody who would chuckle.

And if you, if you want to get there, go and prove to yourself that you float by now. Yeah. Remember. I mean, not remember because I haven’t brought it up already, but you, if you float in shallow water and your feet are on the floor, you’re still floating. Okay, a lot of people, especially people who are fit, float on their stomach and on their back with their feet on the floor in shallow water because their legs are denser than the water and their legs go down.

But notice they can put their hands on their head and notice the back of my head, if this is a front float, is still in the air. I can feel my hair in the air. The top of my back and my neck are in the air. I am floating. What’s holding them up? The water’s holding them up. That’s floating. 

Diane Hullet: How do we float?

Is it just that we’re, we have more water and air inside us than we realize? 

Melon Dash: Yes, we’re buoyant and fat. Air and fat are buoyant. Breasts are buoyant. Yeah. So we, we float unless we have so little air and fat, like people who are the Olympians, let’s say the Olympic swimmers, probably none of them float. Yeah, because they’re, they’re pure muscle and it’s heavy.

Right. So if they take the biggest breath they can and they have enormous lungs, they might still go to the bottom because they’re so dense, but it’s not an emergency. And it doesn’t have to be an emergency with anybody who’s any less dense than they are. Somebody who has more air and fat relative to their total body weight is going to be more buoyant and is going to float horizontally or close to horizontal.

Somebody who is less buoyant is going to float diagonally or at a, you know, with their feet on the bottom. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. And people need to know that because so many people Lie back in the water, kick their feet up, thinking that’s where their feet are supposed to be.

And when their feet start dropping down, they go, Oh no, I’m sinking. And they don’t continue. Right, right. They think because 

Diane Hullet: their feet go down there, the whole thing’s going down. Exactly. Why do you, like, why do you think this is important? I mean, if you’re a person who doesn’t live near water and doesn’t go near water, is this still, is this an important skill?

Melon Dash: I think so. Partly for preventing emergencies, just like when you teach your kids to look both ways before they cross the street, you don’t want them to ever not look both ways, even if they’re in a little town, you know, they need to have this basic life skill. Just in case they’re out on a, on Lake George and a tourist boat and the thing rolls over like it did a few years ago.

 And almost everybody drowned. That was an absolutely ridiculous situation. There is no way that should have happened, but those people couldn’t swim. Sure, a couple people were pinned, but most people just couldn’t swim. They, they died of panic, not of anything else. Why should they learn? Why is this important?

Because it gives such people so much confidence. You stand taller when you can swim. I, we’ve talked about this in my classes. People feel smaller. They feel diminished. They feel less than if they can’t swim. And that’s why they don’t tell people they can’t swim. Sometimes people come to class and they, and they’ll say, I didn’t even tell my husband that I came.

I didn’t tell my wife that I came. I told everybody at work, I was coming to a conference. 

Diane Hullet: Wow. That’s how deep that’s, that’s how deep we perceive this fear and this skill and the shame that goes with it. Yeah, like they feel like they’re supposed to 

Melon Dash: have it. So if you feel like you’re supposed to have it and then you find a way to get it and then you get it, you just stand up taller and it changes everything.

But I think it’s, yeah, it’s huge. I think it’s important as a life skill, just so that you. You know, you feel safe going on cruises. You feel safe with your friends at the beach and at the lake and at the, on the boat and at the pool, and you don’t mind accepting social invitations to pool parties and water activities.

You know, it just is another part of life that anyone who can’t swim wishes they could be a part of. 

Diane Hullet: Yeah. Oh, I think that’s so well put. And again, I think the way you’re describing human’s approach to fear is incredibly relevant to other situations. Right? So, oh, and I wish there was a better way to describe your visual is so good.

The one we talked about at the beginning, because The visual has to do with, I don’t know what you would name those circles as, or those ovals as, it’s, I think you said it was like a sense of connection between your mind and your body, and so you’re, you’re in one space, and therefore you know you’re safe.

Is that what the circle would be called? You know, I call this the spectrum 

Melon Dash: of presence. You’re fully present in the first circle and you are not present at all in the fifth circle and you’re losing presence of mind through the whole spectrum. 

Diane Hullet: Ah, the spectrum of presence. Very, very good term for it. And I love, I love that you threw out that you got this after work with a psychic.

I mean, what was that? What else came through, if anything? Well, you know, I was in a psychic 

Melon Dash: class learning how to develop my own psychic ability, you know, having been told everybody’s psychic and having doubted it myself and then saying, and then saying, no, wait, my friends have done this. I can do it. Let me go see.

And it was so good for me because I proved to myself what one of our assignments was go do a psychic reading, given the things you’ve learned in class so far. On 10 people you don’t know and we were all terrified to do that and we we didn’t do it for months. And he said the class isn’t going to meet again until you do this.

So everybody did it. And when we did it, we found out. Oh, my gosh, I used the teaching that we were given in class. And I, I was really good, excuse me, I was really good with these readings and people told me, people I don’t know, told me that I was right on the money, a lot of the time, and I can trust these things that come to 

Diane Hullet: me.

I think that’s awesome. I think there’s a huge field of information that most of us don’t tap into. And, and I’ve done, I’ve had a little bit of experience with that work too. And it’s so interesting. One person I spoke with said, imagine it’s like you’re watching a TV screen. She said, just imagine it’s a screen and see what shows up on that screen.

And I have used that at times, and it’s so interesting. And I almost have to say, Stop myself from doubting what I saw on the screen, but that’s what way it’s not that there isn’t images and words and information on the screen. It’s the doubting of it. But so, and so, and then in sitting with that part of what came to you was this visual that helps us understand this spectrum of presence, which is so relevant for fear in swimming, but also in other ways.

Melon Dash: Yes. 

Diane Hullet: I 

Melon Dash: use it in my whole life. You know, they say that you teach what you need to learn and I definitely need to learn it. And I am learning it and I’m getting better all the time and I can do things now that I could never do before and say things better than I ever could and not that I’m done, I’m sure not done, but it’s served me.

It’s, it’s It’s good stuff. 

Diane Hullet: It’s good stuff. Well, I thank you so much, Mellon. I mean, this is, you know, we’re having a conversation about, about drowning and the tragedy of drowning and how people can work with that. But it’s also this spectrum of presence and how do we be present with our bodies to ’cause we’re living in these bodies, so how do we be present with them, even through fear and shame and something as big as swimming in deep water.

If we’ve been afraid of that our whole lives, how do we do that differently? And I love what you said, that it builds confidence for people that if this has been such a big subject that they maybe haven’t tackled or been afraid to tackle or try to a, a class at A-Y-M-C-A or a Red Cross and got intimidated by it, there’s there’s another way to come at it.

Melon Dash: Yeah, and your body knows your body has the answer and sometimes their body gives us the answer and our minds dismiss it But we need to in this class we learn to listen to our bodies and do what they say 

Diane Hullet: Amazing amazing that’s there’s advice for life, right? Well, I so appreciate your time. I love what you’re doing.

 Give us a little website on how people can find out more Okay, we are at 

Melon Dash: miracleswimming. com. And on that site, we describe what we do. We have a course schedule. We have a description of all the levels of classes we teach from absolute rank beginner to scuba diving. And everyone starts in the beginning because anybody who has any fear in deep water is a beginner to us.

Even if you’re a lap swimmer, even if you’ve been a triathlete, a triathlon, if you’re afraid in deep water, You start with our essentials 

Diane Hullet: one course. Yep. And I love right on the, right on the website, right at the beginning, you say you can learn to be happy, feeling the water, hold you up, happy to have your face in happy to be in control of whether you sink and able to move from here to there gracefully and peacefully.

And I remember when I read those, I was just like, that is not what you expect to see on a swimming website. So I just love it. Well, I am so grateful for your time and for the work you’re doing in the world. And. You know, for listeners again, I think this topic, this subject or the way we’ve approached it today is a little bit different than sometimes, you know, talking to a palliative care doctor or a hospice chaplain, but I think it’s a really powerful subject in terms of your best life.

And so as always, you can find out more about the work I do at best life, best death. com. And thanks again to Mellon dash for joining me today. Thank you so much.