Michelle Wilson teaches synchronized swimming at the Ventura Family YMCA, where six of her students put on two final class performances on Saturday.

Wilson has been teaching the sport for eight months since moving to Mandalay Beach in Oxnard from Palm Desert, where she has owned a swimming school for 25 years.

Before the second performance, Wilson explained to the spectators that everything is effortless.

"They are like a ballerina," said Wilson.

Six girls participated in the final performance.

Oxnard's Dahlila Finneran, 9, has been in the classes for two six-week sessions.

"It was my second show," she said, having performed after the first session was complete.

Finneran is in fourth grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe School in Oxnard. She's been swimming for six years. She also enjoys ballet.

Lauren Negrette, 8, from Our Lady of Assumption School in Ventura, praised her teammates for doing well.

The girls are good freestyle and backstroke swimmers.

Maya Tamang is a 10-year-old fifth-grader from Loma Vista School in Ventura.

"I've been doing it since it was a new class," she said.

"It was one of our better performances."

Tamang has been in a pool since she was six months old.

She has participated in AYSO soccer and Irish dancing.

Gigi Davis, 13, a seventh-grader at Balboa School, met coach Wilson through an aerobics class.

Davis has been a natural for synchronized swimming. Besides Irish dancing, Davis is a junior lifeguard. Ventura's Davis, the daughter of Kathy and Charles, said she enjoys writing in school.

Ventura's Christie Nelson, a 12-year-old who is home-schooled, was doing her second final performance under Wilson. She has played soccer at the YMCA and enjoys beading classes. Nelson loves reading books by Madeline Engel.

"Christie is amazing because she's always here and she's my example," said Wilson, who trains the girls twice a week with each session 45 minutes.

Ventura's Tia Johnson, 11, is a fifth-grader at Ventura Charter and was wrapping up her first class session. She learned about synchronized swimming through her friend Maya.

Although Johnson didn't show any signs, she said, "I was really nervous."

Wilson did a good job in bringing the girls through the performances, which were about 20 minutes each.

"I'm proud of these girls," she said.

Wilson pushes the girls in training and was elated with the final performance.

After the girls presented her with flowers, she treated them with stuffed animals.

Wilson said she was 9 years old when she learned synchronized swimming from her mother, who met Esther Williams. Williams, a competitive swimmer and actress, is credited with making synchronized swimming popular in the 1960s.

Wilson worked on her techniques in synchronized swimming and water ballet while attending College of the Desert. Wilson said she attended the 1984 Olympics synchronized swimming at the Long Beach Belmont Plaza Pool.

Wilson and her husband, Barry, moved to Ventura County where he's a farmer for Prime Time in Fillmore and grows bell peppers.

The next synchronized swimming class starts Thursday.

Information: Amber Stevens, aquatics director, at 642-2131, ext. 19.