People often ask what moment changed the way I teach.
They imagine a dramatic turning point — the kind of story that rewrites a person in one day.
But I don’t have a moment like that.
Nothing “changed” me.
The instructor I am today wasn’t born from a single experience, a crisis, or a certification.
My teaching comes from something quieter, older, and more deeply woven into who I am.
It comes from truths I carried long before I ever stood on a pool deck, long before I learned the terminology, long before someone handed me a manual.
Here are the three truths that built the way I teach.
1. My life taught me early what safety feels like — and what it doesn’t.
I nearly drowned at three years old.
It wasn’t dramatic; it was quiet and fast — the way real drowning often is.
After that, I was placed into swim lessons I didn’t want, with instructors whose methods didn’t match what my body needed.
Even as a young child, I remember thinking:
“This isn’t the way. This doesn’t feel right.”
That early experience shaped me more than any training ever could.
It taught me that water can be gentle or unforgiving, depending on whether the adult guiding you understands the difference between pressure and presence.
From that moment on, even before I had words for it, I carried a deep internal knowing:
Safety isn’t just physical. It’s emotional, relational, and nervous-system deep.
That truth became the foundation of Joyful Waters and the way I work with every student, no matter their age.
2. I follow the objectives — but I will never sacrifice the human being for the checklist.
I teach the standards.
I respect the objectives.
I stay certified, informed, and aligned with best practices.
But I’ve also been in rooms, at trainings, and on pool decks where I witnessed approaches that my body rejected immediately.
At a recent event, I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said:
“My cartilage doesn’t let that happen.”
And she understood.
Some people talk about intuition.
Mine is somatic — bone-deep.
There are moments when I watch an instructor rush a child, ignore fear, or power through resistance, and I feel it physically:
a tightening in my spine, a pressure in the cartilage between my ribs, a marrow-level knowing that says:
“No. This is not safe. This is not right.”
I listen to that.
Because teaching is not just technical; it is embodied.
The nervous system speaks long before the brain catches up.
So yes, I teach the required skills.
But I refuse to check a box at the expense of someone’s emotional security.
Progress built on pressure is not progress.
It is harm.
And I will not participate in that — not for a card, not for a standard, not for a program.
3. I am still certification-hungry — because mastery requires depth, not memorization.
I take certifications the way some people take vitamins: consistently, intentionally, with the belief that staying educated is a responsibility, not an accessory.
Worldwide Swim School.
American Red Cross.
YMCA.
If there’s a curriculum, I want to study it.
But here’s the part most people don’t expect:
I’m terrible at tests.
Not because I don’t understand the material, but because I can’t sit with a chapter and skim it.
My mind wants depth — diagrams, research, cross-analysis, the physiological “why” beneath every technique.
Certifications reward memorization.
My brain craves immersion.
So I keep studying.
I keep pushing.
Not to prove anything to anyone, but because knowledge deepens my standards.
Every course sharpens my ability to advocate, refine, and protect.
And that, to me, is the real purpose of education.
Why I teach the way I teach
Because I’ve lived both sides of the water — fear and confidence, force and trust, pressure and protection.
Because my body remembers what my mind didn’t yet know how to articulate.
Because the smallest hesitation in a student matters.
Because the moment a child feels truly safe, everything changes.
I teach the way I teach because I refuse to replicate what harmed me.
Because emotional safety is not optional.
Because instruction is not performance.
Because when you know better — when you feel better — you have a responsibility to do better.
My teaching is not the product of one moment.
It is the accumulation of a lifetime of clarity, conviction, and listening — to my students, to the water, and to my own body.
And that is something no certification can give you —
and no system can take away.
Nicole Fairfield
https://linktr.ee/NicoleFairfield