Melon Dash

In 1983, Melon (Mary Ellen) Dash developed a new model of learning. It came from working full-time with afraid-in-water adults. From her perspective, everything she learned in her swim instructor training was wrong. At least it didn’t apply to afraid adults.

The students she taught were discouraged and frustrated by previous lessons that emphasized arms, legs, and bubbles instead of dealing with their fear. Students weren’t ready for arms, legs, and bubbles. They wanted to be understood. They wanted to feel safe. They wanted to be comfortable and in control.

Those students had quit their traditional lessons, let a few years pass, then tried again, only to be met with the same approach. Trusting that credentialed instructors must be teaching correct information, they figured the problem was their own, not the teaching. But the problem was the teaching, not them. No one knew this. Dash became the voice of afraid-in-water adults in the aquatics industry. She was not cordially received.

The pain of seeing so many adults who were committed to their learning but who were thwarted every single time in their attempts to learn compelled Dash to write her books.

The point of learning to swim is to be calm and safe in water over your head; comfortable, confident, and happy. Yes, being able to swim laps and play in the ocean with the kids are benefits, too. But first you must know you’re okay. One achieves this not by learning strokes, but by learning how the water works and how to keep oneself safe if something unknown arises. The skills and information in the book long precede the skills and information in "Beginning Swimming" courses.

Only after you can swim--are happy in deep water--does it make sense to learn to swim EFFICIENTLY: strokes. This fact separates Dash's system from other swim instruction books, schools, and juggernauts. Strokes are not needed for safety.

Dash produced a DVD, The Miracle Swimmer, hosted The Learn to Swim Show (now a podcast), created online swimming courses during Covid 19, and has added a dozen new concepts to the Aquatics industry that are changing the way swimming is taught. She trains instructors in her system. During Covid, she patented the Aquatic Learning Station to teach her courses while remaining 6 feet from students. Students can now teach themselves to float and swim on their own with the station and her book.

She resides in Sarasota, Florida and runs her swim school, Miracle Swimming School for Adults, created in 1983 to teach every adult who's afraid in water to swim worldwide and to train every instructor to be qualified to teach afraid adults. She's been nationally-ranked in three events as a masters swimmer.

In 2022, she was awarded a grant from USA Swimming / US Masters Swimming to teach underserved adults to swim. She won a grant from National Swimming Pool Foundation in 2012 to fund a comparative study of the major Learn-to-Swim systems in the U.S. In 2012, she won a second grant from U.S. Masters Swimming to train more instructors in her system.

Dash has co-written Conquer Your Fear of the Triathlon Swim with triathlon trainer Ali Meeks and is currently writing a swim instructor training text, a book about her 5 Circles system, and a book to end drowning.

The video on this page shows a student in January, 2023 who came to her in December, 2022 and took all 5 core courses of the teaching in Conquer Your Fear of Water: A Revolutionary Way to Learn to Swim Without Ever Feeling Afraid. In 33 days, he went from being afraid to put his face in water or let go of the wall to jumping off a boat into choppy waters, treading and singing.