Julie Martin Gause

I am a grandmother, and I taught my own children to swim at a very young age because we spent a great deal of time in the pool. Even though we didn’t have a life-saving swim lessons, as we have now I taught them to immediately swim to the side but also to roll over on the back to give them a rest and a way to stay afloat.

I try so hard to educate people when I see them shopping for the puddle jumpers in the stores, but sadly most of them just act like I don’t know what I’m talking about.

 But to get to my story…. My grandson had taken the ISR swim lessons. My son and his mother separated, and he would go to visit his mother where she was staying with her mother where they had a very large pool in the backyard. He was doing quite well with his regular swimming at the age of four but when he went to see his mother, she put the puddle jumper on him. I guess thinking that would keep him safe, even though I believe my son told her, they said not to put it on him. After spending some time there…. A couple of weeks….. I went to get in the pool with him, and as he walked down the steps into the water, he could not get his legs up into the horizontal position. I was witnessing the fact that his muscle memory had gone vertical by wearing the puddle jumper. I had to work with him for some time to be able to get his legs back up behind him so that he could swim. I was just shocked! Anyone doesn’t believe these things cause muscle memory to go vertical they do!! Even in a swimming child.