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The Gallaudet University pool — home of Old City Swim School

Our Story

How We Learned
To Swim.

Our coaching process was inspired by who taught us. Here's how we learned.

Quantico, Virginia

Where We
Learned To Swim

We grew up in the water. Year-round practices, summer swim teams, vacations to the Outer Banks. Our family spent more hours at the pool than anywhere else.

Swimming wasn't a sport we did. It was where we lived.

Young Sean Emery in a Quantico Swimming team shirt
Young Sean with his sisters at the pool

San Antonio, Texas

Then We Met
Coach George Block.

Early on our family moved to San Antonio, and we were lucky enough to swim for Coach George Block at the Alamo Area Aquatics Association — one of the best swim programs in Texas, the kind of place that produces national-level and Olympic swimmers.

We'd been swimming our entire lives. We were fast. We were confident. We thought we knew what we were doing.

And then on day one of our first season, Coach Block didn't have us swim, he had us float.

Coach George Block with Sean Emery at the 1999 US Open in San Antonio

With Coach Block — US Open, San Antonio, 1999

The Foundation

Eight Weeks.
Every Season.

At the start of every season — before we did a single hard set, before we touched a stopwatch — we spent eight weeks on principles. Floating. Balance. Body position. Breathing. The stuff that, if you get it right, makes everything else easier; and if you get it wrong, costs you for the rest of your career.

We weren't novices. We were some of the fastest age-group swimmers in the country. And we still drilled the fundamentals for eight straight weeks every single year, because Coach Block believed — and now we do too — that the difference between good swimmers and great swimmers is very, very subtle. And it almost always starts at the foundation.

That's where the Balance First Method™ was born.

Not in a book. Not in a course we took. In eight weeks of drills, season after season, taught by a coach who knew that the root of every problem in the water was the same thing: hips that won't stay on the surface.

Newspaper clipping — Sean Emery competing in the 200-meter butterfly for Navy

Annapolis, Maryland

We Took It
To The Navy.

We swam four years of Division I at the United States Naval Academy. Best events: 200 IM and 200 Fly. Same method, same drills, same foundation at the start of every season.

After Annapolis came eight years in the Navy as a submariner. We stopped doing the drills, but the lesson remained: when you slow down and fix the foundation, everything downstream gets better.

Coach Sean demonstrating a balance position on the pool deck for adult swimmers in the lanes

Washington, DC

We Adapted It
For Adults.

Adult learners are different from elite age-group swimmers. You have more ingrained habits, more to unlearn, and more at stake emotionally. The pace changes. The drills get slower. The classroom shrinks to one coach and one swimmer.

But the foundation is the same one Coach Block built us on, and the same one we'd build any national-level athlete on today. Floating first. Balance second. Stroke comes last — but it comes easier when the first two are in.

Same method. Slowed down. Made human. Taught by people who've been there.

Background

All-American
High School Swimmer
D1
Naval Academy, 4 years
8 Years
US Navy, Submariner
200 IM / Fly
Best Events
Sean with his teammates and coach at Alamo Area Aquatics after a tournament win in San Antonio

Come Swim With Us.

Learn-to-swim as a total beginner or work with us to improve your proficiency in the water. We use the same method that produced All-Americans, slowed down and taught one-on-one. Enroll directly, or book a call to find your fit.

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