Community Corner
Art Was the Springboard to Swimming Teacher's Success
Artist Emily Cohen uses her creative side to coax fearful children into the pool.
She wasn’t coined “The Water Whisperer” for nothing. Teacher Emily Cohen has turned swimming instruction—and helping children overcome their fear of water—into a fine art.
Maybe it’s because the 42-year-old mother of two is an artist. Or that she taught elementary school for five years and art for even longer. Or perhaps it has something to do with how she taught her 5-year-old daughter, Thea, and 7-year-old son, Caleb, how to swim when they were infants.
“By the first week of introducing them to the water, both of them started to swim like fish,” said Cohen, who opened The Water Whisperer swim school in Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills. During the last seven years, the school has taught hundreds of people to swim, specializing in children who are scared of swimming pools or have failed at other swim schools. She accepts babies as young as 5 months old.
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Cohen uses song and art in her curriculum and swimming techniques. She has trained her 17 employees to do the same, encouraging children with hugs and kisses, and assuring fearful youngsters that she will be by their side in the water. She says her students learn to swim after 10 lessons.
“There is nothing more rewarding,” Cohen said. “We do whatever it takes to get them to swim.” She gives credit to her creative side.
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“Originally, I’m an artist,” Cohen said, crunching on an apple while sitting at the kitchen table in her Sherman Oaks home. “While I was at Rhode Island School of Design, it’s not like I thought I was gonna be The Water Whisperer. I’m an artist, that’s what I am.” She jumps from one topic to another, speaking quickly but articulately.
After some setbacks, she went full throttle with her life and pursued her dreams. Her husband, Jonathan Pine, joined the business after being laid off as an executive at a large company.
Cohen is grateful for the many people, and mothers in particular, who have helped her promote her business along the way.
Her advice for people with a business idea or dream?
“Find something that you’re passionate about, fulfill a niche, and then believe in yourself enough to promote it. Sometimes it promotes itself,” Cohen said.
“I knew I was going to do something with my life, but I never thought I was going to be The Water Whisperer. I ran with it.”
