Who We Are
Our mission is to help every individual be safer in the water.
Founded as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Stride Aquatics is committed to breaking financial and physical barriers to swim education, ensuring that every individual has the opportunity to learn water safety skills. With Adaptive programs for the mentally and physically disabled, and Income based Pricing, everyone can take lessons.
Our Founder, John Manison, spent several years on both sides of the swim lesson environment and grew disenchanted with its common rigidity and inadequacy. After researching other swim schools, he found that all lessons followed the same general structure: Every segment of the lesson was set to a certain time schedule, there was no room for improvisation or customization, and instructors were not permitted to use their own judgment when teaching. That sort of environment can quickly become a grind for young students. STRIDE Aquatics is intent on flipping the model to serve swimmers better, in the hopes of instilling a love for swimming in every student.
Founder’s Story
Swimming is a great workout. It can also change your life.
Stride Aquatics Founder John Manison knows better than anyone in the world how transformative swimming can be. It’s been well documented that swimming can help people recover from injuries, but John’s love for the water is groundbreaking: He is the only known paraplegic in the world to fully recover.
“Swimming is the single-biggest reason I’m where I am today — able to walk again,” he said in an interview with Swimming World TV’s Brent Rutemiller, in which he recalls his journey of regaining his ability to use his legs after an auto-immune disease during childhood rendered him wheelchair-bound.
Despite being in a wheelchair all through high school, John was competitive in three sports, including swimming.
“In the water, everyone is the same,” he said. “Swimming makes you buoyant, so it instantly gets rid of the stress put on your joints and muscles.”
John went on to found Sailfish Swim Club in 2015 as a competitive swim club, naming it after the fastest fish in the ocean. His goal was to make the club accessible for both para-athletes and able-bodied swimmers, so para-athletes wouldn’t need to be viewed as different. As he grew the club, John felt a need beyond his own desire to compete — he saw how much the world of swim instruction needed to change. With a flexible teaching model customized for each student, John started Sailfish Swim School, and then in 2024 moved into the Non-Profit Realm to create an income based swim school called STRIDE Aquatics so everyone was able to learn to swim, which today has four locations throughout the United States.
Watch the full Swimming World TV interview