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Sarasota News Leader October 5, 2012 going over the basics that every student of Dash's learns — either through one of her books or in one of her classes. Kathleen McKenna, a Sarasota resident, just started working with Dash in July. Daria Ilun- ga of New York also had taken several classes with Dash, starting at the beginner level. Both were ready to begin the Ocean 202 class that morning at the beach, knowing it would en- able them to build on the comfort levels they already had attained. "I feel very confident in shallow water in the ocean, " Ilunga says, "and snorkeling, I feel fairly comfortable." She wanted to find that same feeling in deep water, because she and her family had planned a vacation in Hawaii in December. Her youngest child is 6, Ilunga pointed out. "It's a different ballgame, and it always has been, I think, with my children." Dash has a lot of familiarity with parents who want to be able to swim well so they can pro- vide an extra measure of security for their children in the water. The previous week, McKenna says, "I was able to get comfortable being in the ocean," includ- ing handling waves breaking over her head. Until she worked with Dash, she said, she "never experienced that before." McKenna adds, "I feel like I'm getting to do stuff I never got to do as a kid" without pan- icking. Like Ilunga, though, she wanted to be comfort- able in deep water — "the next little piece." "The way to do that is to go out with the inten- tion of coming right back; you suddenly feel safer," Dash tells her. "Just go a step at a time. Page 75 … If we stay in our bodies … the amount of time you stay in deep water grows and grows." 'IN YOUR BODY' In working with all her students over the past decades, Dash has helped them focus on a simple mantra: "Stay in your body." She uses a simple system, too, to make that possible. It's called "the five circles." In the first circle, a person is completely com- fortable. As McKenna puts it, "I really can do anything I want to do." Dash has her students focus on a stick figure encompassed by a circle. The second circle moves up a bit on that stick figure's "body," so the feet are out of the circle. "Cold feet" or "weak in the knees" are two ways to describe the feeling. "You still have presence of mind … and it's still possible to move back quickly" into the first circle, as McKenna puts it. The third circle moves even higher on the stick figure. Think of it as "butterflies in the stomach," or, as Ilunga describes it, "This isn't comfortable." Ilunga had experienced that third circle in the Caribbean, she says, when the water "was ex- tremely choppy." By the fourth circle, panic has begun to set in. That circle has moved up to the place where it barely encompasses the stick figure's head. "You're scared stiff; paralyzed by fear," Dash says. The fifth circle has moved above the stick figure. "You're completely out of your body," Ilunga says.