Swim With Sofia

Sofia is an amazing, talented swim teacher who has the right combination of kindness and firmness that allows kids to show strong improvement over a shorter time than many swim schools. We found Sofia online after paying a large monthly fee for our two boys (age 3 and 5) to do swim lessons at a school for over four years. She did private lessons with each son for half hour and was extremely well able to meet their different developmental and swim needs. She worked with our five year old who is a talented swimmer to increase his motivation to work hard on four strokes — something that caused lots of frustration at times for him. She worked with our three year old to make games that allowed him to find swimming fun and he made strides each session. I would trust Sofia with kids of any age and swim level. If she was not moving we would absolutely still be doing lessons with her, but not for long because her goal is to help and not keep you in lessons forever.

Sofia is definitely the best! My son is almost 5, and he hasn’t been in swim class since he was 3. We started lessons with Sofia this past June, and he was swimming on his own by his 3^rd lesson. I was really, really impressed with the results. Granted my son loves being in the water and he may be an exception to the curve, but I never expected such great results so quickly. We also started private lessons at the JCC after the 3^rd or 4^th lesson with Sofia (after we sadly learned that she was leaving SF for San Diego). My son definitely learns a lot more a lot faster with Sofia than at the JCC since the JCC operates swim lessons on a script whereas Sofia really gets to know your child and personalizes her approach to teaching. We are so sad to lose Sofia in SF. San Diego, you are very lucky to have Sofia!

Sofia is a talented swim instructor. I have been trying to get my son to be water-​safe on and off since he was 2.5 years old. He’s now 5 and still has a fear of going under. Within 3 lessons, Sofia had him with his face under working on his strokes. She has a lovely demeanor and was a pleasure to be with.

We are so lucky to have found Sofia! My two children have responded differently in the water and she has been able to understand and meet their needs. They have felt incredibly comfortable and thrilled to have time with Sofia.

Sophia is simply the best! I tried two awful instructors off craigslist before I found Sophia.
Sophia has been a swim teacher, lifeguard, collegiate swimmer and high school coach. She’s patient, professional and personally invested in your success. If you want to learn technique and form in a safe and nurturing environment I can highly recommend her. I’m super proud of my work with Sophia and we accomplished a lot in about 10 private lessons + 1 hour per week of practicing between those sessions. I can’t stress enough that you’ll need to practice in between lessons for maximum return on investment. It’s definitely a commitment!
I’ve never taken group lessons, but I made an assumption that working 1-​on-​1 would be the most beneficial for my needs. That was definitely the case. Most private lessons are in the South Bay so if you live in San Francisco that’s a trek. I was so happy to find Sophia who lives and teaches in SF (and elsewhere in the Bay Area). With that said, finding an SF public pool that works with your schedule can be a bit tricky but we managed make it work!
I still have some personal work to do on overcoming my fear of deep water. Learning swim skills didn’t make my fears go away like I’d hoped — which has nothing to do with Sophia’s lessons.
I definitely plan to work with Sophia again over the summer.

Of all the swim teachers I’ve personally experienced or witnessed as teachers (and I’ve seen and taken classes from a lot of them), Sofia is quite simply the best and most exceptional swim teacher that you or your child could ever have! By far, the best!
I came to Sofia because I knew I wanted to incorporate swimming into my exercise routine, and I needed a teacher who could teach me how to swim with technical precision instead of just flopping around in the pool.
Many things make Sofia the ideal swim teacher (and in my honest opinion, the only teacher you should go with).
Sofia is tremendously knowledgeable on an vast array of subjects in swim. Her knowledge and expert ability to teach each of these subjects make her the most masterful swim teacher I’ve ever come across. Some swim teachers have a very limited range of subjects they can teach or they will pretend to teach you something when they really don’t have the experience in mastering it, themselves. Not Sofia. She knows, I mean really really knows her stuff. And her extensive experience at different levels in swimming: lifeguarding, diving, water polo, coaching swimming– it all comes into play in the lessons. She is an encyclopedia of knowledge and she knows how to teach it in a super clear, easy to understand way. So, while I initially came to Sofia for lessons on 2 strokes, our lessons have branched out and she has taught me flipturns (these are huge lessons for me), breathing techniques, water polo style treading, butterfly stroke, emergency deep water tactics, etc.
Sofia is amazingly patient. She works with you all the way, helping you, guiding you through the process. She points out areas of correction or mistakes she sees but never in a way that makes you feel demeaned or frustrated. Personally, I always appreciate it when she points out what she sees that needs correcting. And she’s great at pointing out subtle things that once corrected, make a HUGE difference in how the swim technique feels! Sofia is always incredibly supportive and in all the lessons I’ve had with her, I’ve always felt that she was on my side giving 100% to help me see improvement in my swimming. I also greatly appreciate the fact that she doesn’t mind questions that I ask. I’m the type of learner that asks a hundred different questions sometimes– Sofia always answers every one of them and provides helpful answers, every time. She would never cut me off or discourage my constant questions. In fact, Sofia is incredibly attuned to different learning styles and adapts her teaching according to the best methods for the student she’s working with. Bottom line: what makes Sofia a great swim teacher is that she has the qualities that make her a great teacher, period. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, Sofia would be an exceptional teacher in any area, it just so happens that she teaches swimming.
After a lesson one day, I saw her beginning a class with a young student who must have been anywhere from 4 – 6 years old. Although I only caught about 5 minutes of their class, I was so impressed by how well Sofia works with kids. I saw enough in those 5 minutes (and knew enough from the lessons I had with her) to know how great she would be as a swim teacher for kids. She is AMAZING!!! I really can’t emphasize this point enough: if you are interested in swim lessons for your children, there is no other person you should take them to … other than Sofia. It would take me a whole other essay to explain how incredible she is working with kids. The only thing I can say (apart from writing a whole other essay on this subject) is … if I had a son or daughter or both, or several kids of my own… it would be a foregone conclusion that once they were old enough to move in the water, I would send them off to Sofia for swim lessons… and I would trust Sofia with their lives… and I would pay any amount that Sofia asked to teach them swim lessons. This is straight talk coming from me. I couldn’t be more serious or honest about this: Sofia is the best swim teacher for your kids!
Finally I have to say that Sofia completely revolutionized my freestyle stroke. We were focusing one day on something else related to freestyle. She asked to see me swim a few laps without stopping… after seeing that, she paused, then said: «why don’t you try this…» What she said next changed everything for me. It totally brought everything into focus and made my freestyle stroke a quantum leap better than it had before. At least, that’s what it did for me. I can’t promise the same thing would work for others. But Sofia will always be a miracle worker to me for teaching me that, what I have secretly now dubbed «the sofia stroke.» It’s a testament to the type of teacher she is: totally all about helping the student become a better swimmer. Sofia is by far the best swim teacher I’ve ever seen or taken lessons from.