Paul Komanski is a satisfied teacher. His star pupil has just performed admirably, and it feels darn good. Komanski pumps a fist in the air.

"Yes!" he says, gazing at the pupil, a pleased smile on his face.

The student does seem rather proud of himself. He easily glides through the clear, blue water and swims back toward Paul. The student is prepared. He knows his stuff. He is ready to showcase his skills to his adoring public.

The student is a dolphin named Shadow, who turns 7 in July. Shadow has just performed a flip on command for Komanski and soon will be doing it for hundreds of admirers. Shadow is a part of the new dolphin show, "Coastal Connections: Dolphins at Our Shore," that will begin officially at Baltimore's National Aquarium on Saturday. Komanski is a senior trainer at the aquarium who has worked with marine mammals for more than 13 years. He and the other 12 trainers are putting the finishing touches on the new show.

"We started training about a year ago, at least," says Craig Thomas, the curator of marine mammals. Thomas oversees the training for all the dolphins at the aquarium. The trainers also work with and care for the gray and harbor seals in the outdoor pool.

Dolphin training is actually very repetitious work, Thomas says.

You wouldn't know it by looking at Shadow and his pal Cobie, who swim, flip, then eagerly accept fishes from their trainers. They glide away together, perfectly in sync. They head to the front of the pool, then stop, posing with their noses out of the water, as if hamming it up for a camera. Their graceful movements are poetry underwater.

"Cobie and Shadow are buddies," Thomas says, pointing to the two mammals. "Those two are always together."

Their flawless performance may look effortless, but it isn't.

"Some behaviors are learned very quickly -- maybe a month, but some take a while," he says. For instance, a back flip can take about a year to learn. Yet, no one would guess looking at these dolphins.

Shadow and the other dolphins learned how to do the flip, both backward and forward, in very small increments. In fact, Thomas says, dolphins learn much the same way as humans.

He compares their lessons to teaching a child how to read.

"A child learns the alphabet, learns the letters to the words, then puts them together," Thomas says. And just like humans, individual dolphins learn at their own rate.

The trainers use a variety of ways to get dolphins to perform.

One way is to encourage the dolphin to follow the movements of a trainer's hand or a long object with a rubber ball on the end that is called a target pole. The trainer then can blow a whistle once the dolphin does something correctly. The whistle becomes feedback for the dolphin to know he is on the right track.

So how does one reward a dolphin?

Food is one way. But Thomas says it is not the only motivation for Shadow or any of the other dolphins. "They do not work for food," Thomas says. "They will get food no matter what."

Right now, Shadow and some of his dolphin cohorts are playing with their trainers, who toss footballs in the water. The mammals swim easily toward the toys and nudge them with their noses. Occasionally, they are tossed a fish they gulp down.

This kind of fun, the curator says, is a good motivator. "Our job is to make sure they don't become frustrated. To make sure they have as much fun as possible," Thomas says.

Besides food and play time, rubdowns are another good reinforcement for when the dolphins do something well. Sometimes the trainer will swim with the dolphin.

Thomas also believes that the dolphins can tell the difference between their trainers, just as the humans can identify the different mammals. "They do respond to their favorite trainers," he says.

When the dolphins are not training, they swim around and interact with one another. "They are very playful," Thomas says. Researchers used to believe that dolphins didn't sleep, Thomas says. Now it is believed they sleep by possibly shutting down half of their brain.

The new dolphin show is part of the massive $50 million renovation the aquarium is planning.

"We tried to go back and look at the old show to see what we liked and what we wanted to change," Thomas says. "We decided to use the video screens more now, to make it more interactive with the audience and more educational."

In addition to the screen giving a close-up view of the dolphins, the narrator on the video will describe dolphin anatomy and offer other educational tips.

Another change from the old show is that the six dolphins will take center stage at the new show's opening. Their trainers will be stationed behind a prop while the dolphins swim out front to greet their public.

People will also get to hear the dolphins' unique sounds through use of an underwater microphone, Thomas says.

"We need to present things in a different way to get people coming back," Thomas says. To help finance the renovation, the National Aquarium raised its admission price on June 1. An adult ticket increased to $14 from $11.95. The price for children's tickets remained at $7.50, and senior admission remained at $10.50.

Aquarium officials plan on expanding the rain forest attraction and renovating classrooms. The aquarium has an extensive World Wide Web site. Officials also plan to spruce up aging buildings during the next 10 years.

Plenty of people are already flocking to the aquarium. In 1996, 1.62 million people visited the attraction. In 1997, it drew 1.6 million visitors. "Virtually everyone who comes to the aquarium comes to see the dolphins," Thomas says.

Back in the pool, swimming around and around, Shadow and Cobie are performing on cue. Thomas denies that the dolphins are learning "tricks."

"No, they don't do tricks," Thomas says. "This is an extension of what they do naturally."

THE FACTS

What: "Coastal Connections: Dolphins at Our Shore"

When: 30-minute dolphin shows run throughout the day; aquarium hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday

Where: National Aquarium in Baltimore, Pier 3, 501 E. Pratt St.

Tickets: $14; seniors, $10.50; ages 3-11, $7.50; kids under 3, free

Call: 410-576-3800

Web: http://www.aqua.org

Pub Date: 03/11/99