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Video Length: 29-minutes, 10-seconds

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Webinar transcript: 

I was teaching a client who was reaching retirement age and she was a hairdresser. 

She cut hair all day and her leg would fall asleep as she was trying to learn how to swim. She did not like to be on her back and she only wanted to learn freestyle. Obviously, this person was a non-swimmer.

She was a tough one. I would arrive 30 minutes before our private lesson to just try and figure out what it is I was going to do to get her swimming.

Then one day I grabbed two kickboards because you know that firmness and the buoyancy of those old-school, long kickboards would just allow her to hyper-ventilate without like actually choking on water. She could side-breathe. She could apply pressure down on the kickboards with her fingers this part of her hand as she grabbed the board. And then as she was hyperventilating. She got sick of hyperventilating and eventually she would just kick her face into the water. Obviously, she was uncomfortable as she started learning how to breathe and kick. She eventually was able to rest her ear on her shoulder and then repeat that process. And as soon as she was able to kick for 25-yards with that process, I was ready to then introduce the arms -- two months after we started, 2-to-3-days-a-week,

She was hardcore. She was like, I will do this. Right? And she was determined. If she missed, she made up the lesson.

And two months later, in the summer of 2017, I received a postcard from the Mediterranean Sea saying, "I've stared at this sea all of my life. And finally I was able to get in. Thank you. Big thank you." 

So that's the story.

What did I just do? 

Fifty-percent of my clients were at that time physically challenged, or they had ADHD, or, they had something. One client I remember had a concussion.

Then for my main client, Sarah Mergoddess Bofinger, we ended up just using this double board method. We got her onto the 2019/2020 PARA Team, USA C-Team.

And then COVID hit and I lost everything basically. 

So after about six months of gardening, I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna invent the real thing. Because my clients had a double-board-method going.

  • They would be flipping the board around so that the nose of the board would go through that water as they double boarded. 
  • Instead of a boat going through the water, it was one boat and then the back end of a boat going through the water, and then they'd have to flip it around.
  • And I was like, "No!" We don't need to flip anything around anymore because I'm going to invent dual boards. 

My vision: The board needs to be like a hockey rink shape to start, so that whenever the hand, like, moves, it's always going through the water with the same or very darn near similar hydrodynamics. 

I made some strategic contacts with the Small Business Development Center.

Kevin had been there and done that -- sold millions of something -- was competing against Under Armour when Under Armour first started.

He guided me towards how to take a product from the idea stage and then take it to the next level.

And so what you see there, that's like the fourth iteration, which became what they call the MVP, the minimally viable product.

  • We took the MVP to market. 
  • We've sold around more than 420 sets now. We're in 30 different states. 

We also sell videos, how-to videos. And we're actually selling video. Can you believe that? 

People are buying videos.

  • We're selling to ISCA members. 
  • We're selling to ASCA members.
  • We're selling to masters coaches.
  • We're selling to people who love water aerobics or stuff like that.
  • What I'm looking to do is break into water polo folks. I know you're a good contact. 

The dual boards is a game changer for vertical kicking. 

I can sit or stand really in deep water and just sandwich the boards on my side. I can kick even with a very mediocre kick all day long. So meaning; if somebody has just almost no kick at all, they can then be coached towards technically kicking well because their ears are out of the water. The boards keep their ears out of the water as the boards are underwater sandwiching their hips in a vertical fashion.

We've broken in to ISCA coaches such as Rob Fox

And coaches are tough cookies, right? They're like, why would I need that when I have this.

And Rob Fox, for example, did not like kickboards at all. He actually went from the kickboard to the triangle board, the Finis Alignment Board. 

Kickboard to Finis board to Dual Boards

And even though Rob Fox had a bunch of those alignment boards, which is probably the closest thing to what the dual boards are, it's got that genius technology, got the rubber single hand strap, right? Now the thing is with that board, if you try to double up, it's a little bit thicker. If you try to double up on that board, again, you'd run into that problem if you're getting into what I call, "the letter I position." That triangle is the back end. The bottom of the triangle is going through the water, as opposed to the nose of the triangle.

So Coach Rob Fox had a bunch of those triangle boards. I did a demo. All of his kids were smiles. And I remember one kid saying, "You know that triangle board gives me more, --what do you call it -- more stability. But the dual boards are just like fun."

So Rob Fox bought 50 sets. That's our biggest sale of ever since we started.

  • We started selling back in January of 2022 with pre-sales. 
  • Our website went live in June of 2022.
You're sort of young as far as the marketplace, right? You're just making your runs. You attended the clinic. So what was your experience as a new vendor at the ASCA clinic and then the Eastern States Clinic? And tell us where you're going to go for future clinics.

I'd like to talk about ISCA. 

I would say we had like a 95-percent talking success rate. 

And then there were those 5-percent that were just like, that's not going to do it for us. But most people were either intrigued, or they just purchased.

  • The folks who were like, what? 

Now obviously, folks who have a lot at stake, you know, those learn-to-swimmers, and also those people who don't want to get in the water. they're like, oh, what? Yes. OK. 

And obviously, we're showing videos and stuff like that.

And then over with ASCA, we sold out our on-site inventory at the World Clinic.

So what we're doing now is we're dedicating to doing free demos. 

We're going through that Coach Rob Fox of the Fox Swim Club scenario.

  • We're gonna do this demo for you for free. Cause we're local, right? 

He is a neighbor of ours. He's like an hour, an hour away.

Our advisor is like, "You've spent a lot of money going out there, getting the word out, selling. Now I think it's time to stay home, because you've had that success, Stay home with the demo. Let's just replicate that locally." 

We're thinking, we will!

  • We'll leak into Delaware with these demos. 
  • We'll leak into Philadelphia with these demos.

I'm in the DC area, kind of like in between Baltimore and DC.

I remember once I wanted to sell tortillas and this guy said when you start selling these tortillas, they sell like water. 

He's a Mexican guy, you know. Como si fuera agua, right?*

* "Como si fuera agua" is a popular Spanish expression which literally translates to "If it were water". This phrase is used to indicate that someone or something is calm or peaceful. It is often used to describe a serene and tranquil environment, such as a calm lake or a peaceful forest. The phrase is also used to describe someone who is calm and composed, as if they have the same characteristics as water. 

It's like once you start getting used to selling them, they sell like water sells, right? And so, and that's the thing. Sometimes they sell like water.

You trying to target or talk to teams or programs and go in for a practice and bring a duffel bag of goods.

That's exactly it. We have demo boards with those little glitches we'll take. We'll make them demos. We'll negotiate with the manufacturer discount, right, obviously. And then we'll just dedicate those boards to doing demos.

We'll drive to your locale. I will get in the water with the swimmers if, if allowed, obviously. 

And then I will get out of the water and let the coaches run the show essentiall. A lot of coaches don't get in the water. But obviously, they're smart enough to be like this is what I want you guys to do, because if we're going to think about purchasing these things, I need to know how to drive the bus essentially.

So what I do is I get in when the coaches are like, yeah, please get in. And then once I see that the kids are rocking and rolling, then I'll sneak out. I stand behind the coaches and let the coaches drive the bus.

If I see a slow in the demo, I'm not equipped to give each kit a set of boards yet. Because we're selling them and then we also sell the demos.

We ran a demo with six sets of dual boards in three lanes. 

So two sets of dual boards per lane. Then I would go in there and just kind of keep the train rolling. You know how kids are -- a little bit shy. It's a new thing. What do I do? Well, why don't you try this, right?

I latch on a little bit. I learn from going to like ASCA. I learn from folks like, world renowned coaches.

And one of them, Bob Bowman. He's saying vertical kicking is the fifth stroke.

So that's what we're saying. Yo, okay, if Bob Bowman saying vertical kicking is the fifth stroke, man, then just put these here, get in the deep water and start kicking. You can kick however slowly you wish, and you're not going to sink.

  • Rob Fox heard that and then saw it. He latched onto that as well. 

But if you transfer that into water polo, you take one of the boards off.

You just put one board in. If you think about the goalie, oh, he's gonna egg-beater that kick. But he's also gonna have a nice, buoyant piece of foam made out of car bumper foam, attached to his hand that's deep in the water, like probably a good 18 inches under near his side.

He's going to be able to train just the block.

I trained kids in lots of sports. 

Swimming was one of them, but I trained soccer, basketball, and then a lot of martial arts.

Dual boards is my tool. 

I don't need anything else. The snorkel's a nice thing. Fins are nice things. But really, I don't need a pool buoy because the dual board doubles as a pool buoy. You put that in between your knees. And the thing is, it's so thin, and it's not as buoyant as a regular kickboard. It just goes through the water kind of like a Ferrari. Granted, the tubes are attached, but a lot of people don't care about those tubes going through the water. So you can put the dual board in between your knees. You can put the dual board in between your ankles. Get a little bit more elevation.

Yeah, dual boards are my go-to. I don't need anything else.

  • Again, the snorkel's fun, the fins are great.

Essentially for swimming, Dual Boards get me into a position unlike no other. 

If my left arm has a board on it, and it's forward and it rides low a little bit, it can't ride low forever.

Eventually it's either going to go down as you kick.

We're just kicking with dual boards. We're not using them for our arm pulls, right? But if that arm is riding low, which it does for a lot of kids, some kids just like to just turn the water like that, right? So if it's riding low, the water actually pushes the board up. So the water actually fixes the positioning of the body. Because once you tell a learner that this is just a kicking thing, well, as the body tries to go towards its negative tendencies, as that body tries to go towards the tendency, well shoot, it's just a kicking thing. And what's gonna happen is the water actually pushes the board up.

So, and it doesn't push it overly up.

In other words, like you don't have a super buoyant thing on your hand. 

This tool is made for you to find a sweet spot at the speed with which you're kicking. You're always going to be able to find that sweet spot, the depth of the hand, in the lead hand for that freestyle position.

And with the back hand, you can actually jam it down into the water so that your hips rise, so that you feel like you're swimming downhill. As you increase the speed and the power of your kick, the whole body elevates, which is what we're trying to do, which is why some Olympians, they do it naturally. But some bodies just don't really ever get there. We can actually get there and get those folks that don't really have those natural abilities to feel what it is to be where those people are.

  • And once they do that, they then gain power, gain endurance, gain confidence and compete.
Dual Boards are a great catalyst to get the swimmers feeling that ideal body positions and then start to really zip ahead. Yeah, so it's a great tool for that.

The website is RipCurrentSports.com. 

Please, please go there today. We have some nibbles of video on Instagram at Rip Current Sports. Please follow us. Our website has some PDF files on them explaining what the feel of dual boards gives you in each stroke. Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. So we actually try and verbalize it. It's something that people may not necessarily have ever tried to articulate, perhaps.

  • And the reason why is because we introduce pressure. We introduce pressure to the explanation.
  • We introduce angle of the hand as it applies pressure on a tube as that pressure brings a board down underwater to help the body rise.
  • There's a lot of dimensions there.

There's angular pitch of the hand as it applies pressure downwards and what it does to the entire body. 

And that's kind of what we're trying to help people kind of just get into.

We want them to get into it because kicking is just kicking, right? 

You grab a board and here you go, right?

Everybody knows, you talk to your friend. Everybody knows your body's sagging. Everybody seems to say that, oh, the benefit of kicking is the following.

  • You get lots of oxygen. 

Now, great. You can get lots of oxygen, but are you teaching your head position anything?

  • Are you going to be able to do it when you're 57-years-old? 
  • Is that neck position going to help you out?

My theory is: If Katie Ledecky is using dual boards all the time, her career is going to go! 

I'm saying right now, if she left the traditional kickboard, put it aside, Katie Ledecky is gonna learn so much more. And, so is Anthony Neste, as she dedicates to kicking in swimming positions, always.

Now, I don't want Katie to not talk to her friends as she trains, right? But in reality, what is it giving her in reality as she's kicking with her neck strain? Up, right? Neck up, talking to her friend, talking to her friend. Never really in the actual swim position except maybe breaststroke. But even when she just shoots that kick and close those legs, her head never goes underwater, right? Unless she's, I mean, she's not a breaststroker, but she does do the 400 IM every now and then.

Those are great comparisons and great examples as to what your tool can help the swimmers perform better. They can train more specific. Specificity is a very important concept for swimmers. It has been for years. You're offering a lot of specific body positions and teaching angles and still allowing that leg strength and power and aerobic conditioning to happen too.

I imagine it's a little more difficult to reach the learn-to-swim market.

 But if you're a teacher, it would probably be a good investment to get four or five sets of dual boards. And then you could have them at the pool or you could bring them in your car when you're going to teach lessons.

They're going to be used sometimes. You're gonna pull out the dual boards and get everybody's body tuned up so. That's got to be a one of your selling points.

Trying to find those those teachers that are instructing the kids that might be a little afraid or maybe they're even just a frantic swimmer to make progress. These I think would help take them to the next level rather quickly.

You know what happens to my body as it's in chlorine for eight -- maybe not eight --  let's just say a maximum of 4-hours-and-15-minutes per day, right? 

I've lost all the hair on my body teaching swimming.

You don't need to do that with dual boards. You get in the water with a non-swimmer, you put the boards on them, and they freak out a little bit, yes, but then they realize that they're floating. Then the fear leaves them.

So think about how quickly they are then doing what you ask them to do. It's day one.

It is the IHM method of learning.

  •  The letter I is where the lead board is in a freestyle breathing position. Can you see that?

    The letter H is with both boards on front of you, more of a traditional position.
  • The letter M is with the boards at your side.

So when you go to our website, you will see a video which introduces the IHM positions. I recommend everybody look at that video.

Video inserted in the webinar.
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A lure video that we made has a 10-year-old, local boy trying to get onto one of the most difficult teams  in this area while having minimal experience.

He's gonna get into a tryout. We did video of each stroke. And we take the buyer, the customer, on a journey of how this 10-year-old tried to use dual boards as the main tool to try and get on this team, having minimal experience.

You know, a lot of those kids out there, they think getting onto a team is either easy or be like I'm I also going to try it. The parents are like, "You might as well try and get on the best team," -- even though you haven't invested that time to actually make the teams. 

And so it's a little bit unrealistic, to tell you honestly.

The dual boards, they like ramp up the confidence,

"I can't believe he's learning so fast. He's got a chance. And that's what the viewer, the purchaser of the videos, is going to see.

Mina Kimes is an ESPN reporter. 

Her mother purchased dual boards, And I was like, great, you purchased dual boards. And it's because of a ISCA Teacher in Tennessee who bought at the ISCA clinic. This ISCA teacher in Tennessee was like, hey, say Mina, that's her name. You gotta get these. She bought them. I said, "Hey, you might as well get the video, too." It took her a while, but then just two days ago, she bought the video. All right! There is a freestyle playlist.

So word of mouth got to be a friend of yours. And hopefully we can share this as a as an ongoing feature within our websites and help get the word out.

We're all about that. 

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