The e-Book all Teachers Should Read
This e-book invites you to explore new ways of working with water and teaching.
Swimming is not just about strokes and lanes — it is about understanding, feeling, and mastering the water with your whole body, and about approaching water with knowledge, reason, and awareness.
Liselotte Christensen and Maria Jæger challenge traditional swim instruction and show how Water Competence - the interplay between Mind, Heart, and Body - fosters understanding, confidence, and empowerment in and around water.
Throughout the book, you will encounter topics such as Understanding Drowning, The Brain and Aquatic Environments, The Forces of the Water, the Self-Saving Ladder™, and Reflective Swimming - as old assumptions are questioned and new approaches are introduced.
The book explains why developing basic skills is more crucial than mastering the Freestyle, and why relying on body-attached flotation aids can do more harm than good.
Drawing on inspiration from research, practice, and many years of experience, the authors present the foundation on which they believe the future of swimming should be built.
This is not just a book about swimming.
It is a movement toward a way of relating to water in which joy and responsibility go hand in hand, and in which everyone deserves to become water competent for life.
(if you want the book in printed version - you can buy print on demand on Amazon.com)
"This book fills a knowledge gap that has been overlooked for decades."
““Do you want to help make a real difference?
Are you water competent — or water incompetent?
If you want to understand how to prevent drowning — for yourself, your children and everyone you meet in and around water — then this book is indispensable.
There are many books about swimming technique and training methods.
But there are no other books that so clearly and consistently focus on true water competence — the foundation for all safety, confidence and joy in the water.
Being water incompetent is not a small problem.
It is a real risk.
For yourself. For your children. For the people around you.
We do not accept that people cannot read, write or do basic maths.
We know that lacking motor skills reduces quality of life.
But when it comes to water, we accept a dangerous blind spot:
If you are water incompetent, you — and those around you — are at risk of drowning.
This book fills a knowledge gap that has been overlooked for decades.
It challenges old assumptions about swimming, questions the misunderstood use of flotation devices, and shows why water competence should be as natural as learning to cycle, navigate traffic or get a driver’s licence.
The book is relevant for everyone who works with — or spends time in — water:
• teachers, coaches and instructors
• lifeguards and emergency services
• sailing, kayaking, SUP and diving clubs
• scouts, maritime schools and the armed forces
• parents, educators and PE teachers
• anyone who wants to understand the forces of water and learn to work with them
It is written with research, practice and experience — and it strikes a balance between seriousness and joy, between respect for the water and love for it.
As K.E. Løgstrup wrote:
‘You always hold a part of another person’s life in your hands.’
This is especially true in water.
Step 1:
Read, understand and apply the message in this groundbreaking book by Liselotte Christensen and Maria Jæger.
It is not just a book — it is a foundation, a movement and an invitation to take responsibility.
Call to action:
Go out into the world.
Become water competent.
And save lives.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this book.
It is relevant for everyone who — in one way or another — encounters water.
Which means all of us.””
"This book fills a knowledge gap that has been overlooked for decades."
“The Essential Book of Water Competence makes a striking impact with its bold and necessary challenge to an ingrained culture within the swimming world, where the focus has traditionally been on the activity of swimming rather than the human being in the water.
The book convincingly shifts the perspective from technique to competence, from performance to understanding, and from activity to safety and life skills.
Many will experience the concept as new, but the book makes it both accessible and meaningful. It shows that one can be a skilled swimmer without necessarily being water competent — an insight with potentially life‑saving consequences. For me, this was a genuine aha moment.
The book is particularly important as curriculum for swimming‑teacher education, PE‑teacher training, early‑childhood education programmes, and the swimming courses offered by sports organisations. Water is a fundamental element of our lives, and a good life is supported by the ability to move safely and freely in all environments.
The path to understanding goes through embodied experiences, and when you learn to master free movement in water, you simultaneously expand the boundaries of your own capabilities more broadly.
One of the book’s strongest contributions is its consistent connection between theory and practice. The many examples, images and pedagogical explanations create motivation and make the material vivid and applicable. The tone is positive, engaging and inviting — and it makes it easy to translate knowledge into action.
After reading the book, it is clear to me that water competence should be a central theme in both schools and community life. It is a neglected area that this book brings into the light in an exemplary way. I feel affirmed in the importance of the topic — and at the same time more courageous and motivated to advocate for it whenever the opportunity arises.
The Essential Book of Water Competence belongs in schools, associations, educational programmes and at the political level. It is a significant contribution to creating a safer, more inclusive and more competent water culture.”
"This book fills a knowledge gap that has been overlooked for decades."
About the Authors - It Started in The Shower
Our shared journey began at Bernstorffminde (a Danish Boarding School) in 2011, where we met for the very first time. Liselotte was teaching at an educational course for the group of teachers running teacher courses within one of the two National Swimming Federation (DGI) frameworks, and Maria was there as a participant.
Before the day's practical exercises in the swimming pool, we both ended up in the showers — and there we started talking. It turned into one of those conversations where time disappears, ideas bubble up, and the world around you dissolves in laughter and curiosity. In fact, we became so engrossed that we were late for the class Liselotte was supposed to lead.
Since that day, our so-called popcorn brains have come together time and again. We have challenged each other, developed ideas, and worked closely together - both as teachers in DGI and later as swimming school leaders and project leads in a large swimming club.
In 2020, our shared passion for water, learning, and life skills took yet another step when we founded Your Potential International Swimming Academy.
The Vision for Your Potential International Swimming Academy
We love the water — to swim, play, and explore it, and we wish to share that joy.
Our purpose is to convey the joy of water, self-saving, and lifesaving, and to inspire both children and adults to teach, communicate, and develop Water Competence.
We see it as our most important task to enable people to safely and confidently navigate in and around water, while also contributing to reducing drowning statistics worldwide.
We teach the teachers - all over the world.
And we teach the parents as well.
You can always contact us and hear more about how we do it.
