What You Can’t See: The Danger of Teaching by Observation Alone

Experienced aqua instructors are no strangers to improvisation. We swap ideas, watch each other’s classes, and browse online for fresh moves. It’s tempting to teach a new routine based only on what looks good from the pool deck or on video. After all, if it looks effective and everyone else is doing it, it must work, right? Not so fast. 

What you see isn’t always what you get — or what you expect from the workout. In this blog, Aqua Alliance, share why observation alone isn’t enough and why even experienced instructors could enhance their professionalism, knowledge and skills by hopping into the water to feel the exercises themselves. We’ll explore how water’s unique properties can fool the eye, why kinaesthetic (hands-on) learning beats passive watching, and how personal experience improves cueing, safety, adaptability and longevity of your career in your classes.

The Pool Deck Illusion: Why Observation Alone Can Mislead

Some of us have learnt a fancy new move by watching someone else, then adapted and included it in our class, only to realise it doesn’t quite work as expected. Relying solely on observation – whether from the pool deck or an online video – can create an illusion of understanding. The movement might look the same as a land exercise or a demo you’ve seen, but water has a way of hiding subtle challenges. The truth is, exercises that work on land do not translate directly to water. Without actually performing the move in the pool, you might miss critical details, such as how hard it is to push through the water, how balance is affected, or which muscles truly engage.

Instructors on land move in gravity, while participants move in buoyancy. The jumping jack move might be modified on deck (e.g. one leg at a time) to reduce the impact, but in water, both legs can lift thanks to buoyant support. If you haven’t done the move in water yourself, you may not realise how it feels. What looks simple or intense can feel completely different. Observation alone can lead to false assumptions about effort, technique, and safety.

Even as instructors, we sometimes have to ask: “Am I relying on routines I haven’t actually tested in the water?” It’s a valid question. Teaching by observation alone is like describing an exotic fruit from a photo — you can’t truly know the taste, or in our case, the feel or the effect without firsthand experience.

Let’s explore why that experience matters so much for aqua instructors.

Water Changes Everything: Resistance and Buoyancy at Work

Why does a movement that feel simple on land sometimes feel so different in the pool? The answer lies in the unique physical properties of water.  Water isn’t air and that changes everything when it comes to the exercise environment.

Properties like buoyancy and water resistance significantly affects how movements feel.  These factors influence balance the amount of effort required, and overall creative delivery skills on pool deck.

Buoyancy Techniques, Facts and Application

• Buoyancy lightens the load: In chest-deep water, the body bears only 40–50% of its weight — and even less in deeper water. This upward force reduces impact but challenges balance and control in new ways.
• Land vs Water: High-impact moves on land become joint-friendly in water, but they also demand changes in technique and muscle use. A stable move can recruit core muscles.
• What you see isn’t what they feel: From the pool deck, the effective instructor should emulate where effort, muscle tone and staying power are required to stay grounded or how buoyancy enables moves that might be too hard on land

Resistance Facts and Application

• Water is approximately 800 times denser than air. This density; viscosity of water, creates drag and resistance that you can’t see — but participants feel it with every movement. Even a simple movement, like a leg lift or arm sweep, requires the body to push against constant pressure.
• Looks can be deceiving: Slow movements may seem easy from the deck, but the body works hard against multidirectional drag. What appears graceful can be surprisingly intense. Water resistance at average speed is 12–15 times greater than in air.
• You need to feel it to teach it efficiently: Without personal experience of water resistance, it’s easy to underestimate effort, miscue timing, or overlook form. Practising every now and then in the water changes how we understand what’s actually happening in the body.

These properties (plus hydrostatic pressure, thermodynamics, temperature, etc.) make the aquatic environment challenging to accurately judge from above the surface. Exercise intensity and mechanics underwater aren’t obvious from the deck. That’s why fitness pros are taught to respect water’s unique demands and test their routines in the pool. As one trainer says, whether choreographed or freestyle, try all moves in water before teaching to ensure they suit the medium. Remember: not all land moves translate well to water. Simply put, water can upend even the best plans — only immersion confirms a flow routine as intended.

The Limits of Watching: Kinaesthetic Learning Beats Observation

Humans learn movement best by doing, not just watching. While observation helps familiarise you with a skill, it can’t replace physical practice. Research shows observational practice is less effective for retention than physical practice. Simply put, you remember and perform a move far better if you’ve done it yourself, not just watched.

Watching an advanced aqua fitness move or full class on YouTube or at a conference may look easy when the master trainer does it, but when you try it, in water and on deck, coordination or unexpected muscles may challenge you. That’s kinaesthetic learning—gaining body knowledge by physically doing. Instructors know the “aha!” moment when cues finally click. By getting in the water and performing moves, you teach yourself and refine tempo, balance, and effort. You haven’t truly learned it until you’ve felt it. Watching alone may not be enough!

Try Before You Teach: The Payoffs of Testing Moves in Water

Still not convinced that dipping into the pool makes a difference? Let’s break down the practical benefits of “test-driving” your aqua routines before unleashing them on your class. Taking the time to personally trial movements in water leads to improvements in four key areas:

Precise, Effective Cueing: Instructors who test their moves can give clearer, more relevant cues because they’re speaking from experience. Practising with colleagues or friends of different heights and ages offers even more insight—ask how the movement feels for them and what adjustments they needed.

• Feeling a movement firsthand reveals how the instructor could demonstrate the move appropriately and which cues help participants perform it correctly.
• Some moves require specific body engagement, like core stability, to work at a premium in water.
• Buoyancy can cause unintended drift, so cues to anchor- “keep your feet grounded under your hips” may be the difference.
• Testing moves and even videoing your movements allows instructors to give clearer, experience-based directions, improving participant results, and when they can do it, they love it and return.

Enhanced Safety: Trying a move in the same environment you’ll be teaching in helps you spot potential risks before your class does. It’s a simple step that protects both you and your participants.

• Identify balance issues (e.g. slipping on the lane markings during directional changes).
• Notice which joints or muscles are overworked and adjust intensity.
• Spot movements that don’t suit your class’s water depth or ability.
• Practise low-impact alternatives to demo safely from the deck.
• Reduce surprises by knowing what the move actually feels like on deck and in the water.

Clarity and Confidence in Communication: Work towards a place where you’re no longer guessing — your instructions are clearer, more relatable, and grounded in real experience.

• Speak naturally without overthinking or second-guessing offer some tailored cues based on water familiarisation, height, limb length etc
• Anticipate common participant questions or challenges.
• Give cues that reflect how the movement actually feels.
• Build trust and connection through confident, relevant instruction.
• Professional element of knowledge, skill and understanding of exercising in water for range

Adaptability and Creativity: Water is unpredictable — testing your moves in different pool conditions helps you respond confidently and creatively when things don’t go to plan. Some instructors find value in videoing themselves on deck and in the water.

• Trialling moves reveals how they work across depths, speeds, and participant abilities.
• You’ll find helpful modifications using tempo, equipment, or range of motion.
• You’re more prepared when a class can’t follow the “standard” version of a move.
• Experimenting encourages creative tweaks that improve or personalise exercises.
• Being adaptable makes your classes more responsive, inclusive, and fun.

Sharpen your Professional Practice at the Annual AquaSummit?

It’s no surprise that accredited aqua fitness training encourages instructors to get in the water. New instructors spend hours immersed, refining exercises, and are urged to keep practising and participating to sharpen their skills. This is exactly why AquaSummit matters — and why Aqua Alliance exists: to support ongoing, hands-on learning. Even after years of teaching, it’s worth holding onto a curious beginner’s mindset.

Our advice? Treat your own pool time as continuing education. Every lap and every trial of a new move builds the expertise you’ll bring to your next class.

From Observation to Immersion: Embracing Authentic Instruction

As aqua fitness instructors, we offer a valuable and viable exercise option for all fitness levels. Teaching solely by observation, risks becoming routine, especially for seasoned professionals. The danger? We stop checking how a move actually feels in water. The joy of exercising in water and the social impact of exercising in a welcoming and encouraging exercise environment, keeps our teaching real. It reconnects us with the demands of the aquatic environment — and with what our participants experience every class.

That’s why Aqua Alliance champions hands-on the opportunity to learn and expand our vibrant industry. Through AquaSummit, we bring together a uniquely diverse community: international and Australian delegates and presenters, all drawn by the event’s reputation, relevance, and energy. With interactive lectures, genuine in-water practicals, and peer discussions shaped by real experience, AquaSummit is where ideas are exchanged, not just presented.

At Aqua Alliance, we believe effective instruction blends knowledge, skill and professional attributes. Yes, watch others, study the science, get inspired — but then test it in the water. Feel the core activation, the resistance, the tempo. That lived experience sharpens our cueing, makes our programming more adaptable, and keeps our classes safer and more engaging. Most of all, it reminds us why we love this work.

We’d love you to be part of it.

AquaSummit isn’t just another industry event — it’s a shared space where instructors, presenters, and peers from every corner of the country (and beyond) come together to reconnect with what makes aqua fitness so rewarding.

There’s room for curiosity, for reflection, and for rediscovering the joy of learning in water. You don’t need to arrive with all the answers — just a willingness to explore, to move, and to share the experience with others who care as much as you do.

Whether you come for fresh ideas, good conversation, practical tools, or a moment of inspiration — you’ll leave with more than you expected.

Join us. Bring your questions, your experience, your swim bag. We’ll meet you in person at Gunyama. https://www.aquaalliance.com.au/aquasummit-2025