The 4 Essential Questions for Authentic Aqua Instruction

How to design and deliver exercises that actually work in the water

The Aqua Alliance team is pleased to share a [webinar link] we created for our aqua community, focused on a simple but powerful idea: four essential questions every instructor can use when designing exercises.
 
This session isn’t about creativity for creativity’s sake. It’s about designing from experience—feeling what your participants feel, and teaching in a way that reflects the real properties of water. These questions have come out of our own practice and group discussions. We’ve found them useful, so we’re passing them on.

Key Takeaways

Teaching from land? Get in the pool first. Here’s why:

• What looks effective on land can feel completely different in water.
• Water properties like drag, resistance, and turbulence shift everything.
• Small tweaks—like finger position or foot angle—can create big changes in effort and control.
• Cueing – both visually and verbally becomes clearer when you’ve felt the movement in your own body. 
• Moves taught from the pool deck are performed in gravity—your participants are working with buoyancy.

Use these 4 questions to guide your planning:

• Where do I feel the effort most? (Which muscles are actually working?)
• What changes when I shift my hand, foot, or arm position?
• How can I increase or decrease intensity?
• How would I describe this clearly from the pool deck?

These questions support confidence, clarity, and credibility—especially when you’ve tested the movement yourself.

Key Timestamps

(Use these to scroll to key parts of the video)

• 00:53 – What is Aqua Alliance?

• 03:07 – Curiosity and creativity: Where do instructors get their moves from?

• 06:25 – Why it matters to feel the moves in water before you teach them

• 09:40 – The 4 Essential Questions

• 12:15 – Mermaid variations: stability, resistance and intensity

• 22:00 –Cueing clearly from the pool deck

• 31:12 – Rock & Roll: arm lines, turbulence and demonstration tips

• 40:17 – Crisscross Jack breakdown and hand position shifts intensity

• 48:15 – Rocking Horse: Three variations to target different muscle groups

• 56:40 – Hitch Kicks: grounded vs. lifted versions

• 1:05:15 – Final reflections on what makes instruction authentic

About the Presenters

All three Aqua Alliance co-founders, Marietta Mehanni, JSP and Dominic Gili are long-time educators and advocates in the aqua fitness field. Our charge is to raise the standard of water exercise education, promote community among instructors, and make sure every movement we teach makes sense in water. We hope you enjoy exploring these ideas as much as we’ve enjoyed putting them into practice.