Can You Swim?

[Loricybin]

oh yeah i didn't even think about floating!

 

I LOOOOOOOOOVE floating. . .

it makes me feel so in tune with the earth, like, just bobbing about as the water tells me to.

oh man, that's the best.

 

staring up at the sky, imagining if gravity suddenly reversed itself and i just started falling into the blue.

 

wow.

 

i

need

a

pool

 

then again, isn't that what the pacifist ocean is for?

[herr_chris]

:singer: i can't swim......but i want to learn......if i have time.

[IrishEyes]

I learned to swim at age 3. We lived in Panama. I wanted so much to swim in the ocean (either one!) behind the shark net. So my mom took me to classes, and lied to get me in them, and I started swimming. Classes were fun, pools were ok for a bit, but nothing compares to the ocean.

I don't swim nearly as much as I'd like anymore. I've developed a sensitivity to chlorine that makes pool very difficult. However, I make nemo take me to the ocean at least once a year, and try to make it on my own at least one other time. We go to Virginia Beach as a family. I take weekend trips other places occasionally. Honestly, I feel that I am most at peace near the ocean, and I can actually breathe better when the air is tinged with salt. My favorite part of any beach trip is when the kids are all tired and resting on their towels, and I get to jump in without any lil ones around my neck. I swim until I can't hear my kids yelling. Then I stop and float for a while. Then I swim back. The ocean is the place that I love to be, and swimming is how I like to spend my time there.

[Mercury]

I, well, I know to float. But when I flip around to try to move towards the other end of the swimming pool, I sink downwards and remain near the bottom of the pool. :cup: Embarrassing...

[alexander]

top junior league, St. Petersburg, Russia, me and a friend of mine the top of our class, we were invited to a sport oriented school to continue our swimming careers, but both of us didn't go, i went to a language oriented, almost private school (wicked hard to get into...), and at the same time if i didn't go there i would not be able to type this post today as i would probably still be living in Russia... but i heard from a guy in our group about 7 years ago, he went to some competition, and took 3rd, brought home 1500 bucks... Sad part is that he wasnt even all that good...

[ingannilo]

I learned how to swim when I was fourish by falling out of a 13 foot skipper boat just outside Stone Harbor (New Jersey) in the Atlantic ocean.

 

Seeing water out to the horizon is like taking a whole bottle of valum.

The ocean is my love.

[Turtle]

Within an hour's travel from my house, 9 people have drowned in the last 4 days. Every incident was preventable! Without exception! Not one of the dead wore a life jacket. For the drowned adults, it was their own ignorance & carelessness, & for the drowned children it was the carelessness of their parents and/or supervising adults.

I encourage everyone to take a lifesaving class & barring that at least buy the Red Cross Lifesaving manual used in the course and read it thouroughly. While the courses do equip a person to save someone else's life, the thrust is on keeping yourself (the rescuer) alive. Learn what water conditions present hazzards & how to avoid and/or escape them.

The fact is, virtually no drowning is not preventable. Summer's here in the Northern Hemisphere & swimming is on full force. Take a Lifesaving course & save a life, even if it's only your own.

[Jules Grimm]

I learnt to swim when i was very young and took to it so well that my family nicknamed me "the waterbaby" - still love water - but i only really like to swim in warm water - a little hard when you live next to the atlantic ocean...

[ronthepon]

How was I to learn this?

 

I was simply loitering around the swimming pool one day and suddenly one total stranger (he was an army officer, they to things of this kind here) told me to get in the pool and dom two lengths.

 

After telling him I could not, he pushed me in. :eek:

Thank god he was giving me continuous instruction stream and jumping in himself.

[Alluvia]

 

My dad taught me to swim. When older the middle school I attended had a pool. All students were taught swimming and safety.

 

Alluvia

[learnin to learn]

When I was 3 years old I drowned. My uncle had fallen asleep in a chair, and I had fallen into the deep end of the pool. I would not go anywhere close to water for many years.(i tried to stay away from the bath tub, but my mom would have that! lol) Then, when I was 8 or 9 my brother threw me into a pool and hell! I could swim!:angel:

[ForensicsGuy]

I taught myself some basic dog-paddling one time while camping. I asked my parents for swim lessons. Eventually I was taught at the local municipal pool. I continued until I even got a lifeguarding certificate, although I never worked as a lifeguard.

 

I started my son in swim lessons at 3.5 years old. He's really enjoying it now at 5, and he's darn good at the back-stroke. He didn't learn that one from me, I hated the back-stroke.

[Mercedes Benzene]

When I was 3 years old I drowned.

What is that supposed to mean?:)

 

I was simply loitering around the swimming pool one day and suddenly one total stranger (he was an army officer, they to things of this kind here) told me to get in the pool and dom two lengths.

:eek:

Where do you live? Yikes.

 

If someone did that where I live... it would be: sue, sue, sue! muahaha.

God bless the USA.

 

 

Anyway, I have never really thought about how I learned to swim. I probably just went to the community pool one day, started in the kiddie beach section... and started to work my way to deeper waters. I remember I was on the swim team for a couple years when I was really little.

Then I told the coach she was fat and quit. I kinda feel bad now, but I was like 5, and did not know what I was saying. :cup:

[TheBigDog]

We have a nice little pool around the corner from the house. I have been taking #3 and #4 to the pool at every opportunity.

 

#3 swore we was not going to learn to swim this year. He is comfortable with just playing in the shallow end. The first day we went he had to be pulled from the pool by the lifeguards because he was struggling and thrashing where he could have simply stood up. The lifeguards are very nice about it (and hot to boot!) and we made sure he stayed in shallower water after that. Over the past couple of weeks he has learned to get much more comfortable in the water. He floats, swims to the bottom (of the shallows) and dog paddles about half way across. His hangup was a face mask. He hates getting water on his face or in his eyes, and before if he got his face wet he would panic and want to dry his face off. How that we got him a mask he spends most of his time submerged. He can't swim well enough to pas the deep end test yet, but maybe by the end of the season. He is doing great!

 

#4 has #3's old floating swimsuit. He is so short that he can't stand up even in the shallowest part of the pool. But he is a demon in the water now. He totally trusts the suit in the water and paddles around the shallow end of the pool like he owns it. He is not allowed in the deep end because the pool rules are that you need to be able to swim unassisted, and he cannot yet. I am going to begin weening him off of the floating suit a little at a time. He doesn't have the tactile issues of his big brother, and like it when I throw him as far and high as I can (he bobs back up like a cork with a look of panic followed by a big smile and "do it again!").

 

It is a real joy helping them learn to swim. Makes me feel like a real dad.

 

Bill

[Turtle]

It is a real joy helping them learn to swim. Makes me feel like a real dad.

 

Bill

 

I concur; makes me think of you as a real Dad. :) Let them take their time finding their comfort zone. Practice with them putting their bare face in the water & blowing bubbles; doesn't matter if they close their eyes. Make a game of it...who can do it 3 times in a row?? :)

 

PS Unbalanced chemistry in pool water can irritate anyones' eyes. :eek:

[Turtle]

We have a nice little pool around the corner from the house. I have been taking #3 and #4 to the pool at every opportunity.

 

...#4 has #3's old floating swimsuit.

 

It is a real joy helping them learn to swim. Makes me feel like a real dad.

 

Bill

 

Picking up here, I'm not sure what you mean by 'floating swimsuit?' Is that it is inflatable, or simply so big it fills with air?

 

At any rate, I recommend at least 5 minutes each session with each rascal working on floating on the back. With no flotation aid except a real Dad, stand in shallow water holding the pupil in front of you so he is facing away. Begin by walking backward (you can hold him under the arms) so his feet begin to float out in front of him. Now cradle his neck with one hand as you challenge him to look back at your chinny-chin-chin-chin. Continue walking backward as he moves into a back float position while you support only his head/neck. Challenge him to 'splash his toes' (this brings his feet to surface.)

 

As you progress session to session, use less & less pressure to support the head & neck until at last he floats free. :) Add sculling with the hands.

 

Back floating is an important survival skill, and learning it keeps the face out of water. Keep us posted on your polliwogs! :eek:

 

PS on the orange>>> If the legs aren't kept straight for this and they raise their knees, it will sink them down. The more of the body in the water, the more buoyancy. Adapt the lesson to the individual...:)

[IMAMONKEY!]

Phhh.. survival... If I was out in the middle of Lake Michigan I would just start swimming towars the sun or any other direction and see if I made it back within the day! :cheer:

 

When I was about 2 my Mom pushed me into a pool and said "SWIM". I had been in pools before assisted but not alone and never so...suddenly... Naturally of course I started to slip down under the water but my mom grabed my shoulder and held me head over the water line. She did not let me out though but kept me in and told me to dog-paddle, w/e that is... :Clown:

 

Now at age 16 I am a swimmer for my High School. I LOVE Swimming... Unfortunately I didn't start competitive swimming until my 8th grade Summer (after school). I REGRET THAT A LOT! This is to all of you parents out there:

 

GET YOUR KIDS IN A POOL! Even if they don't much care for swimming. It's one of the greatest workouts you can do and is an amazing sport. I can't stress how important teaching them to swim early on is. Get them in maybe 3rd grade and have them swim with maybe 4 or 3 month breaks in between seasons so they don't burn out.

 

I wish with all my heart I had started earlier and now I'm paying for it because I have to go to camps and classes to gain technique and develop unused juvenille muscles I should've trained earlier...

 

Anyone else here swim competitively? (past or present)

 

I'd appreciate some times :doh:.

 

Oh, and as for Oceans and other extremely large bodies of water... I hate them. I get scared in the deep end of an 18 foot pool so waddya think I'd do in one of those murky, mile-deep, shark-infested death-traps? I hate the Ocean with a passion. I will never go swimming in it... Maybe because I'm afraid of sharks...badly afraid...

 

I know shark-attacks are rare buuuuuuut... Murphy's Law - What can and may go wrong, will go wrong. :Clown:

 

So I'll stick with my 25 yard 5 foot deep pools thankyouverymuch.

 

IMAMONKEY!

 

PS. I would like to see some times. It's never bad to know them :cocktail: