Joining TNYA’s Swim Program
Prerequisites
(If you’ve been an age-group swimmer or a masters swimmer prior to this point, you can skip this bit and read about signing up.)
TNYA welcomes swimmers of just about all ability levels. Our workouts are run so that experienced swimmers and those who are new to masters swimming can swim together. However, there is usually only one coach on deck to look after 15-30 swimmers. So we ask for at least some degree of swimming self-sufficiency—otherwise, we’ve found that the experience tends to be frustrating for swimmers and coaches alike.
At the very least, we ask that our new members:
- Feel comfortable swimming 25 yards of freestyle—that’s the standard crawl stroke—without stopping. 25 yards takes you from one end of the pool to the other.
- Feel comfortable putting their faces in the water
- Feel comfortable swimming over deep water.
- Are willing to stay in the water for the full 90 minutes—even if they need to pull over and take some deep breaths from time to time.
- Finally, an awareness of the existence of the other three competitive strokes—backstroke, breast stroke, and butterfly—is helpful.
Sound good? Then jump down to signing up.
Not sure? If this sounds like something you might be able to pull off, but you want to ease into things, consider coming to our special Saturday practice, the Low Pressure Zone. Saturdays at John Jay, 12:30-1:30, we offer instruction in how swim practices work, clinics in all aspects of swim technique, and workouts geared for swimmers who swim at at the slower end of the stopwatch. It’s a great introduction to Masters swimming and a chance to get a feel for what you can expect.
On the other hand, if you feel like you’ll need basic swim instruction before you’re ready to do all these things, that’s more than we will be able to offer you with any degree of reliability. Our coaches do their best to help everybody out, but there are a lot of folks in the pool. For lessons for beginning swimmers, we suggest contacting local organizations like the YMCA or the JCC. We also have a couple of former TNYA swimmers/coaches who offer private swim lessons, and we will be happy to recommend them to you. Contact us if you’d like to be put in touch with one of them.
Signing Up
Joining the team is pretty easy, actually: just show up. Your first week’s workouts are even free!
Show up a little early for your first practice: the gatekeeper on duty will have you fill out a form for insurance purposes before you get in the water. (Note that you’ll also need to present some form of photo identification to get past building security.) When you’re ready to join the team, just join US Masters Swimming, create a TNYA member account online and print out a membership card.
(Please bear in mind, though, that our Brooklyn facility requires 48 hours’ advance notice of your arrival. See the schedule page for details.)
How Much Does It Cost?
All TNYA members pay an annual fee of $40 ($30 if you join after June 30). We all are required to join US Masters Swimming as well, our national governing body, which is an annual fee of $45 (less after August 31). Beyond that, you will pay on a per-workout basis. For a full breakdown of our fee structure, see our workout fees page.
When? Where?
For practice times and locations, including directions to the pools, see our workout schedule page.
