Learning to Swim the Easy Way

[mso489]

I think I learned to swim the easy way, after several tries with swim class at the city pool that gave me a chance to size up the problem and consider how I might get it done myself. I ended up with my family on vacation at a resort with a lakefront and swimming area with smooth pebbles rather than sand under foot. Rather than proceeding from shoulder deep water, I got a little over waste deep, pulled on a diving mask to avoid water-in-the-eyes, and plunked down on my belly. Unavoidably, I floated, and after that, all I needed was to pull with my arms and kick with my legs and feet. No fearful plunge. I felt like I had cheated terribly, but by that afternoon, I was swimming in water over my head. If you have a kid or grandkid who is not taking to the water with comfort, this might be the way. I know many resort to the old rite of passage of throwing the kid in the deep end, but I recommend the easy way, because it gives the new swimmer a sense of control. The water floats you. Carry on.

 

[didimauw]

I think of myself as a very confident swimmer. Not great, or skilled, just confident. My 8 year old daughter already has more knowledge and skill than I do. She grew up on a lake, so she started at about 6 months. If we were on a boat that turned over, I'd say she would save me moreso than I, her. Lol

 

[anotherbob]

Sorry to anyone that disagrees I always thought that throw them in the deep end shit was shit. Especially as a kid that took a while to get into the swim of things with swimming. A better and less scaring way to get them into the water is let them sit there doing nothing while everyone else is having fun. Trust me that will eventually get them in and when they do go in they'll be a lot quicker to try going deeper on their own. Plus if someone doesn't want to do something what is the gosh darn big deal of it.

 

[Chasing Embers]

At 2% body fat I have to actively tread water when not swimming to stay afloat.

 

[anotherbob]

At 2% body fat I have to actively tread water when not swimming to stay afloat.

I always suspected you primarily ate tobacco. You can tell how my body fat is distributed by how I float, my legs act like cinder blocks in the water.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I always suspected you primarily ate tobacco.

I eat the worst foods possible to keep up my daily required calorie count.

 

[mso489]

I agree that if you let people figure it out, they'll learn to swim. No need to evoke panic. I think that's mostly from dad's who don't have the patience to wait it out. I think I was about five or six when I finally took to the water, and it was fun to figure it out rather than just get impelled to swim for my life. I think it made swimming after that more fun. In the Navy, I felt badly for the guys who had to take swimming lessons to pass the swim test. I think most of them just didn't have a place to learn to swim, in the big city or otherwise not near a swimming hole or pool.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

My experience was pretty close to MSO’s. My best friend threw his protesting son into our pool to teach him to swim. I was pissed and had to jump in to get his sinking body and quickly swung him upside down to clear the water from his lungs. It was one of the few scariest moment of my life. And his son’s scariest to be sure. I don’t advise this method at all, especially NOT IN MY POOL!!!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

On another note, two years ago when we were active at the Y, I took traditional swimming lessons to not look like a goob swimming laps. I got the four basic swimming forms down. Before that I was still doing a country boy frog leg style I picked up from bad habits. Now, I can stroke out 12 laps faster than most. It’s a great way to stay in shape. I just wish our home pool was longer to keep them up at home.

 

[briarbuck]

I did 10 Ironman's and can attest that swimming sucks.

 

[hawky454]

My daughter is 4 now, she’s currently taking swimming lessons and she’s picking it up extremely quick. At first she hated putting her head underwater, that is, until I bought her goggles, now she’s like a mermaid, she barely comes up for air. She can do backstrokes and she’s swimming laps already. I’m a very proud papa. Granted, I’ve been taking her swimming with me for two years now and every Friday we go to the river.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Also you can make swimming way more enjoyable if you learn to slowly release air out your nose.

I hate getting water up my nose and that was always one of the worst parts of swimming, then finally in 2019 I signed up for a year of lane swimming, it took a few months but eventually I got the rhythm.
For the first time in my life now I don't need a nose plug and I don't blow water out my nose like a whale every time my head goes under water.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

I did 10 Ironman's and can attest that swimming sucks.

How do you stop your shoulders from getting inflamed?
I can swim hard but my supraspinatus always gets hurt by the time I try to go 1K in a session.

 

[briarbuck]

How do you stop your shoulders from getting inflamed?
I can swim hard but my supraspinatus always gets hurt by the time I try to go 1K in a session.

Never had any issues. I used to do drills every practice for flexibility feel and strength.

Catch up's
Finger tip drag with high elbow
Swimming with fists clenched (teaches you to use your forearm in the pull)

 

[STP]

Sorry to anyone that disagrees I always thought that throw them in the deep end shit was shit. Especially as a kid that took a while to get into the swim of things with swimming. A better and less scaring way to get them into the water is let them sit there doing nothing while everyone else is having fun. Trust me that will eventually get them in and when they do go in they'll be a lot quicker to try going deeper on their own. Plus if someone doesn't want to do something what is the gosh darn big deal of it.

That’s how I was taught, with an uncle that would dunk us to the verge of drowning, but I used a more friendlier approach w/my kid. It starting with leaning how to float, then doggy paddle, and then freestyle/crawl.

On another note, I’d like to think that I’m a good swimmer, but when watching Katie Ledecky swim the 400m in Olympics trials, you realize how truly amazing these athletes are… Looking forward to the Olympics ?‍

 

[krizzose]

I was very lucky that my grandparents had a little cottage on a small lake which they bought well before I was born. My siblings and cousins basically grew up in the water. I have no memory of when or how I learned to swim, but I know for sure it was not because an older relative threw me off the end of the dock into water over my head. That seems like a guaranteed way to make a kid terrified of the water.

 

[Country Bladesmith]

I am a pretty good swimmer, but I found out the hard way that even a great swimmer is no match for river current. Damn near drowned myself trying to swim to a buddy to help him get a canoe unpinned once. I’m just a Louisiana boy, used to slack water lakes and bayous. That was something I’d never experienced. Current ain’t no joke. ?

 

[mso489]

At the coast rip currents are the danger, and currents around sand spit islands. My late wife and I took a boat trip to an outlying island along with five or six other tourists at the N.C. coast. A young guy in his twenties said he was going to swim out to a sand island about 300 feet from shore, but he never came back, and they found him the next morning a ways up the coast, taken there by the currents. You really have to know your area and the conditions, swim parallel to the shore to swim out of rip "tides," as they are called. The Coast Guard sent rescue swimmers while we were waiting to find the guy. They are amazing; two of them swam out to the island and searched it. But it was clear, these were not weekend warriors; they were pros. They came back and said the currents were strong. James Dickey, the poet and novelist, has a piece about swimming in the river, and how it (the river) doesn't care about you, whether you live or die. Just looking at the Mississippi River, you can feel the force just watching the current glide by.

 

[STP]

I am a pretty good swimmer, but I found out the hard way that even a great swimmer is no match for river current. Damn near drowned myself trying to swim to a buddy to help him get a canoe unpinned once. I’m just a Louisiana boy, used to slack water lakes and bayous. That was something I’d never experienced. Current ain’t no joke. ?

Almost died at Cancun when I was young. Flight arrived late and it was dark when arriving at the hotel. I headed straight for the ocean, oblivious to the black flags waving on the beach. Yeah, they’re there for a reason… The hotel lights were getting smaller and smaller. Long story short, the rip tide carried me down 3 properties. The people I was with thought I was goofing off, when was drowning ?

 

[mso489]

STP, I didn't want to click on "Like" for that, but it is a cautionary tale that stands with fair warning.