Minreet Kaur the Asian swim Teacher

Meet Minreet, an Asian swimming teacher from Hillingdon. In this blog, Minreet shares her journey of becoming a Sikh swim teacher in the Asian community in her 40s. Minreet aims are simple. To educate the Asian female community on water safety and improve their confidence with the water.

It was a warm sunny day, in the summer of 2021 and I met a friend for lunch and we were talking about careers and how I was finding it really tough to get a break in the media despite winning report of the year for ‘skipping Sikh’ a global story that inspired many to exercise in the lockdown and also having lead reports on front page publications.

My friend suggested I look into swimming teaching as she learnt at the age of 50 and she knows of many other Asian women who also can’t swim. I left feeling inspired and so I looked into it and found a course with Triton Training and signed up and the rest is history. I have just qualified and I couldn’t be happier.

I never really grew up loving being in the water or even going to swimming classes as I just felt excluded and that looking different and being the only person of colour in my class just made me feel awkward. I also felt embarrassed to show my skin, I just didn’t like wearing swim wear, I felt so exposed.

My mum who is now 71 has always loved swimming, never felt shy or conscious, she is very confident. My mum learnt from my father and this inspired me as I have always put swimming to the side until I had lots of people from the South Asian community ask me to teach them to swim. I then realised there is a real issue and it’s a bit of a taboo and I need to make a change and help my community to love being in the water, even if it’s just to build their confidence, for them to learn water safety skills, it’s a life skill and it can save their life if not someone else’s.

Since I qualified I have fallen in love with being in the pool. I turned 40 in lockdown and have really fast forward in my fitness. I can now do tumble turns, hand stands and most of all know how to breathe under water which I never knew. I would always hold my breath in.

I took this change in career because I want to bring diversity to the pool and I hope through my swimming journey and story you feel inspired to learn to swim.

Minreet Kaur, 41, Hillingdon.