Who can't swim

[MooPi]

I just happened across this article and am astounded by the number of people that can't swim. I can't remember not being able to swim. As a child I remember jumping into the local lake for a dip and hunting the bottom for snails and crawdads. Swimming was a natural thing and I hardly remember instruction on how to.
http://www.slate.com/id/2262802/

[Frogs Hair]

Swimming comes easy to most people , we do spend the first 9 months of our lives in water.

[whiskeylover]

Swimming comes easy to most people , we do spend the first 9 months of our lives in water.

Yeah, but we don't swim in that water.

[RiceMonster]

I was suprised when I found out some of my closest friends couldn't swim a few weeks ago (some how, I had never gone swimming with them).

My parents put me through swimming lessons until I was about 14, so to me swimming just feels natural. I usually find it suprising to learn that some people can't swim. Maybe it's because it's something I grew up with and the people I spent the most time with when I was very young all knew how to swim.

[V for Vincent]

Strictly speaking, I can swim, but I'm really, really bad at it. I just sort of had to learn how to do it on my own when other kids were well ahead of me, so my technique is terrible.

[ZarathustraDK]

I sorta learned it by accident.

At the time I used a foam-belt to keep myself afloat. Our local swimming-stadium had 3 pools, the big olympic one, a smaller one with shallower water, and a kiddie-pool with warm water and extremely shallow (like 30 cm's or so).

I liked to relax in the kiddie-pool once in a while because of the hot water, but I had to remove the foam-belt because it was so shallow. One day I forget to put it back on, and went on to jump from the 3-meter diving-board in the olympic pool. It all went natural from there, although I remember thinking "gee, it takes a long time to get to the surface this time..." -.-'

[LowSky]

When I was a kid learning to swim was just natural. I guess having access to pools helped. The way I remember learning was holding onto the edge of the pool and kicking my feet. Then I upgrading to using a small floating board and kicking my feet then learning to pull with my hands in the shallow end until I could do a few laps, then I was swimming as much as I could any where I could. By the time I was 7 or 8 I was jumping off the high diving boards and swiming the entire lenths of olympic pools.

Reading the article it does make sense on how few can really swim. Many people don't have access to pools or lakes and many think swiming is something they can just do, but once panic sets in they freeze.

[chiliman]

I took swim lessons at a Recreation center for years. It really teaches you alot. I couldnt imangine not knowing how to swim and being scared of the water.
Most of the time people who drown in rivers could have lived if they were just wearing PFD's (personal floatation device)

[Superkoop]

I live in a small town, and I never took actual swimming lessons, but there's a lake in town and a recreational swimming center, so throughout my childhood I would frequently go out to the lake. I learned simply from my dad holding me afloat in the water while on my stomach, and then kicking my legs and pulling with my arms; of course I was very young while I did this, but it didn't take too long before I learned how to swim. Really, after I learned how to float on my back in the water, that was when I became able to really swim, because I understood the concept of having hair in my lungs gave me the ability to rise to the surface without a whole lot of effort.
I am by no means a professional swimmer, but I can swim a few hundred yards (or meters, what have you) out to a buoy for kicks. Though I understand how some people don't know how to swim, it's not something you're born with, it's something you need to learn, and if you don't have access to a swimming center (not just water slides, but actual pools) then you won't learn very well. It also helps to have friends who you can dunk in, and splash, and just fool around with in a lake... it teaches you how to handle real life swimming situations.

[Paddy Landau]

My very first memory of swimming lessons was an unhappy one. The teacher asked us kids (only about 5 or 6 years old) who could swim. With those who couldn't swim (including me), she put at the side at the deep end and ignored us; the remainder she put in the shallow end and proceeded to teach them to swim better.

[Dragonbite]

We've been having our kids take swim lessons for a while now. While growing up, though, I wasn't very good.

I've gotten better with the help of some friends, and time to put it into practice.

[Jay Car]

Being a late bloomer, I didn't learn how to swim until I was 40 years old. I'd had a rather terrifying water-experience when I was quite young and was always afraid of deep water after that.

However, when I had kids I made sure they took swim lessons as soon as possible. They are both good swimmers.

After my 40th birthday I decided I was tired of being afraid of water and took swim lessons. :) That was nearly 20 years ago, but I'm still happily swimmin' along!

[chriswyatt]

I can but I'm crap at it, the best I got at school was a 5 metre swimming badge! I can swim really well on my back though for some reason, I have a bit of a squid-like swimming style that I came up with myself. :)

[oldsoundguy]

I taught swimming throughout my High School and College days. Helped pay the bills.

If you can float in the "jellyfish" position .. learning to swim is a snap. It's those that SINK in that position (depends on body type) that find it difficult to swim. BUT, once they do, they actually swim with better "form" .. they have to as that is how they stay afloat.

We have a pool here, but it is a joke .. you can fall across it!
Never go there .. too many whales there most of the time and no way to actually SWIM with that much blubber in the pool.

[MasterGamerJK]

i cant swim...

[MooPi]

I taught swimming throughout my High School and College days. Helped pay the bills.

If you can float in the "jellyfish" position .. learning to swim is a snap. It's those that SINK in that position (depends on body type) that find it difficult to swim. BUT, once they do, they actually swim with better "form" .. they have to as that is how they stay afloat.

Thats me I've always sunk like a stone when trying to float motionless. But I'm a frog in water and love to swim, just don't do it often enough.

[whiskeylover]

... because I understood the concept of having hair in my lungs gave me the ability to rise to the surface without a whole lot of effort.

Hairy lungs!

[Dragonbite]

Hairy lungs!
Imagine shaving those babies! Ugh!

Our youngest has no fear of water whatsoever! When she was just a toddler she would sit herself backwards and let the water go over hear head while she just looked up at us! (we were panicking, of course, but she wasn't at all!).

Now that she's done level 1 she's experimenting with diving! No fear at all!

[JDShu]

I can, just not very good at it. A course in high school made sure that we could swim breast stroke with our heads above the water for at least 20 minutes or something though. Some kind of survival course.

[ubunterooster]

Hydrophobia :( I kind of learned how to "swim" at one point but never got over my distrust of water and have likely forgotten

[NightwishFan]

I am quite good at swimming but I rarely do. I have done some very long swims as a dare.

[Khakilang]

I do swim when I was a kid. Me and my friend will just go to a swimming pool every weekend and we just learn from observing other people swimming. But haven't taken a dip for the past 20 years or so.

[cj.surrusco]

I'm 15 and I like to consider myself a good swimmer. I took lessons for a couple years starting when I was 5 or 6. I would say I'm able to swim at least 100-150 meters at a time.

[Lucradia]

I can float to the surface and keep above the surface for a time, but I can't really swim...

in fact, I haven't done so for a year or two...

[HermanAB]

I only learned to swim when I was about 16 years old - there just weren't many pools around where I lived.

I think people should be taught to swim under water before trying to swim on the surface. It is much easier (though slower) to swim under water and if you can do that, it is impossible to drown - you just go up when you need to.

So to anyone who cannot swim, go and buy a diving mask and try to swim under water in a pool. You'll find that it is rather hard to stay down and that you always float up, so there is no need to be fearful of sinking - you will always float at the surface. Scuba divers wear a weight belt for a reason.

[Warpnow]

Of course I know how.

I took a correspondence course on it.

I keep the punch out instruction card in my wallet.

[kevin11951]

I only learned to swim when I was about 16 years old - there just weren't many pools around where I lived.

I think people should be taught to swim under water before trying to swim on the surface. It is much easier (though slower) to swim under water and if you can do that, it is impossible to drown - you just go up when you need to.

So to anyone who cannot swim, go and buy a diving mask and try to swim under water in a pool. You'll find that it is rather hard to stay down and that you always float up, so there is no need to be fearful of sinking - you will always float at the surface. Scuba divers wear a weight belt for a reason.

Personally, I find no reason to swim above water. Below water is more fun, and its harder to drown. In fact the only use for swimming on top of the water, is speed, and I find speed to be second best to, you know... NOT drowning.

[Paddy Landau]

You'll find that it is rather hard to stay down and that you always float up...
As oldsoundguy already said (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9681903#post9681903), that depends on your body type. Some people genuinely just sink. My son is like that; he can't float, he has to swim to stay at the surface.

[Warpnow]

Fat floats. Give him a few years.

By the way, anyone who gets the referrence in my last post gets an imaginary cookie.

[ronnielsen1]

I can float to the surface and keep above the surface for a time, but I can't really swim...


If I move my arms and legs very fast I can propel myself through water. Otherwise I sink



Fat floats. Give him a few years.

I don't have any of that. I eat and eat and eat but can't gain weight and I'll be 50 next month so I don't think it's going to change

[Åtta]

Back in what would be the Swedish equivalent of elementary school, we had compulsory swimming classes every week for those that couldn't swim 200 meters. I was never very good at swimming, so I didn't actually learn until I was 11 or so.

Now I can swim alright. I'm not the fastest or the best swimmer, but I can stay afloat without much of a problem. I don't like diving though. Never have.

I don't think I've ever known anyone who couldn't swim; except for an exchange student from Uganda that we had in our class for a while during high school.

[HermanAB]

Otherwise I sink


The trick that nobody told you is to keep your lungs inflated. Breathe in and keep it in till you need fresh air, then blow out and gulp back in again quickly. One doesn't breathe same way while swimming as on ground!

[wkhasintha]

Actually I can't :(

Lack of practice and interest I think :( It's shame but not an essential thing to live on,

[Ctrl-Alt-F1]

Strictly speaking, I can swim, but I'm really, really bad at it. I just sort of had to learn how to do it on my own when other kids were well ahead of me, so my technique is terrible.

This.

[chriswyatt]

I used to like emptying my lungs and sitting on the bottom of the pool, and seeing how long I could stay down there. :)

Hehe, when I was younger me and my cousin annoyed some other kids and it was basically everyone in the pool against us, a big water fight! The supervisors of the pool weren't very pleased. That used to be a lot of fun, much more fun than swimming. ;)