Splash!

"I got you, don’t worry."

During a Monday afternoon class at the shallow end of the Laniakea YWCA pool, instructor Alexis Moon spoke with a cheery and confident manner to allay the fears of one of her young students, successfully coaxing the child away from the tiled edge he was clutching.

Moon, 38, teaches summer swimming classes Mondays and Wednesdays at the Richards Street facility and Sundays at the Kokokahi branch in Kaneohe. The YWCA’s aquatics program has been an important part of Moon’s life, and not only as a source of employment and job satisfaction. Her four children all learned to swim there, although with another instructor "because they don’t listen to me," she joked.

The YWCA is celebrating the centennial of its aquatics program, which began in 1912 at a pool at a private home. Swimming and water safety classes expanded when the pool at the Richards Street YWCA, now known as Laniakea, opened in 1927.

Ka‘ipo Walsh, middle-school dean at St. Andrew’s Priory, learned to swim at the pool as a 9-year-old after nearly drowning during a family outing to Wai­mea Falls. She was saved when her younger sister on shore held out a branch for her to grab onto, but the incident prompted her mother to sign up Walsh for swimming classes.

"I grew up on the North Shore, living on the beach in Haleiwa, and after what had happened, my mom thought it was safer to learn to swim here at the YWCA than having my dad throw me into the ocean," said Walsh, 59. "She knew that the Y had a good reputation and that it was safe to leave children under the supervision of the staff."

Walsh said she enjoyed the lessons, except for the flowered bathing cap she had to wear — which her mother bought for her at a Wigwam store.

During a recent visit to the pool, Walsh looked around the enclosed pool area surrounded by balconies in the ornate building designed by Julia Morgan, one of the country’s first distinguished female architects and the designer of Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif.

"It’s retained a lot of its original character," she said. "I’ve always looked fondly on this place."

Kimberly Miyazawa Frank, chief executive officer of YWCA of O‘ahu, said the Laniakea site is one of the few YWCAs still in its original building.

"Prior to its design, women were relegated to using wading pools. Regular-sized pools were considered not appropriate to ladies at the time, so what Morgan did was very much pioneering work. She envisioned what women could do," Frank said.

Now that sense of empowerment is something Frank is hoping her two young daughters are learning through their swimming class with Moon, who has been a swimming instructor for more than 15 years.

"I also had a near drowning, when I was 3," Moon said, "so I have a real affinity to those children who are timid in the water. It’s easy to be patient."

She also teaches classes for adults. "It’s nice to have a connection with 30- to 80-year-olds who want to learn how to swim. … I came into teaching through being a lifeguard, and I just fell into teaching first at Kokokahi. It was my calling, I think," Moon said.

The biggest obstacle for her students is to become comfortable in the water, she said. "The hardest part about swimming is relaxing and breathing."

As Moon spent some one-on-one time with an older girl in a later class, she placed a supportive hand under the student’s head as the girl gamely attempted to swim on her back.

"You don’t have to be scared. Auntie will help you."

Another round of swim classes for keiki and adults begins Aug. 6 at the YWCA’s Laniakea and Kokokahi branches. Call 247-2124 or visit www.ywcaoahu.org for more information.