What it is
The instructor's shoulders must be submerged in the water while supporting the swimmer, in addition to the swimmer's own shoulders being underwater.
Essentials
- Cue: "The INS's shoulders needs to be in the water too!"
- Instructor keeps own shoulders submerged while supporting the swimmer.
- STAY WHERE YOU ARE until the swimmer reaches you.
- If the INS's shoulders are out of the water, weight shifts to the elbows and the instructor sinks (Wrong Holding #2).
- Gliding alone is Streamline.
Progression
- Glide alone (Streamline).
- Supported glide — INS shoulders in water, STAY WHERE YOU ARE.
- Swimmer recovers to standing without fear.
What goes wrong
- Wrong Holding #2: Swimmer is confident, laying flat, face in, feet kicking, arms stretched — but the INS's weight is loading the elbows. The instructor is going to pitch forward and sink. → Keep the INS's shoulders in the water so the load stays on the torso, not the elbows.
How you know it worked
The swimmer can recover to standing without fear.
How you teach it
The safety logic is straightforward: if the instructor's shoulders break the surface, the support point drops to the elbows, and the combined weight of instructor and swimmer tips the instructor forward into a sink. The cue exists to keep the instructor's torso as the load-bearing structure rather than the joints. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE" is the positional rule that pairs with the shoulder cue — the instructor does not chase or reach forward; the swimmer glides to the instructor. This keeps the instructor's shoulders naturally submerged because they are not leaning out. Because the before-skill (glide alone) is already Streamline, the supported glide is a direct bridge: the swimmer adds the instructor's body as a reference point without changing body position. The pass condition is not just that the glide happens, but that the swimmer can end it by recovering to standing without fear, which confirms the support was stable enough to trust.