Fulda (oz/pf) – There is great joy in the “Swimming” department of the 1st Fulda Judo Club eV. The club has been a certified swimming training center in Hesse since the end of last year. The two swimming coaches Heike Thiel and Andrea Kohaupt more than earned the award in the form of a certificate for more than 100 seahorse badges last year.
Under the motto “Swimming is important for survival”, the DLRG Hessen, the Hessian Swimming Association, the Hessian Ministry of Education and other institutions joined forces in 2021 and founded the “Hessen Learns to Swim” initiative. The 1st Fuldaer JC makes an important contribution to teaching Hessian children to swim, according to the certificate awarded. Last year, a total of 122 seahorse badges were accepted and the 1st Fuldaer JC is one of the 49 clubs from all over Hesse that have been certified so far.
But how does it come about that a judo club becomes active in the “swimming industry”? “We have seen time and again that children in the judo beginner’s area were not able to take part in club training or even turned their backs on the club completely because their swimming lessons were taking place during our training times,” reports sports director Mike Thiel. “We thought about how this problem could be solved and were able to put our ideas into concrete terms during the Corona Pandemic. We have been offering swim lessons outside of our training times for three years now. With Heike Thiel and Andrea Kohaupt, we have found two dedicated trainers with a C license in the area of popular swimming, who teach children to swim with a lot of passion and can award seahorse badges. The offer applies equally to members of the 1st Fuldaer JC and non-members.”
The trainers Thiel and Kohaupt can already look back on seven years of experience in swimming courses and 15 years of experience in aqua gymnastics. The time during the corona lockdown was used intensively by both of them to complete additional training in the field of “preventive sports” (trainer B license). In addition to “swimming courses”, the association now also offers “aqua fitness” and “prevention courses in the water movement room” for people who would like to exercise.
So far, the courses have only been offered in the holiday park in Wehrda, but a cooperation with the Mediana Wohnstift in Fulda has made it possible to offer additional courses in Fulda since the beginning of the year. A swimming course is currently taking place on Fridays from 3:45 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and a prevention course in strengthening aqua gymnastics is also taking place on Fridays from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Additional courses will continue to take place at the Wehrda holiday park. For more information and to register for the courses, go to www.judo-fulda.de.
