can you swim?

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if so, how'd you learn? if not, is it ever a problem?

my mum took me to the Y when i was a wee lad.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't. Is it ever a problem? Um, only when I see people swimming and think "gee that looks like fun".

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Similarly to oops. I do like soaking in a swimming pool, though.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes. Really well. It's like my superpower. I swam 365 days / year from the ages of 5-12, less frequently for a few after that, not much in college and now go down to the pond / beach at least 2x every week. I was a junior national swim champion but I false started and fucked-up the team. Most of my dreams are in some sort of semi-liquid environment.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm incredibly excited about this thread.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I was severely traumatized as a toddler and have a overwhelming fear of water. (not like if I see a glass of water or when it rains. you know, BEING in water, drowning, that sort of thing)

xpost yes I love being in a pool so long as my feet can touch the ground while my head and shoulders remain above water.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

The ocean scares the living shit out of me. I love it.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

yes! the best thing ever is swimming in the ocean with the object of your affection.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm kinda like jeremy, it's one of the only vaguely athletic things I'm any good at, but I'm ridiculously good at it. I never managed to not place in any of the swim meets I swam age 7-12, and usually did the best in the backstroke and whatever they call that one dolphiny thing (OMG I'VE FORGOTTEN!). One of my favorite things in the world is swimming with the current in the ocean.

I stopped about the same times the hormones kicked in, oddly.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I couldn't swim until I was about 10, when an uncle tossed me into a pool and said "swim!"

this is how I felt:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002KZ1.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a pretty good swimmer thanks to the YMCA of North Hollywood and the gigantic Pickwick Pool.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Your uncle was buff.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

An x-post, perhaps.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm ok. I swam alot as a child, it was the easiest way to get to school.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim like an otter. When I jump off a cliff, I'm more concerned about breaking something than I am about drowning.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm brilliant at it. I beat my friend silly in a race, and he's about ten times fitter than me. It's all about technique and confidence, I've just always felt at home in the water.

― Wooden (Wooden), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

i was on a kids' swim team briefly when i was little, but it didn't last because it was too early in the morning for me. i do remember being up on the board or whatever at a meet and having to piss really badly, so of course i let loose during the heat. it's kind of tough to concentrate on swimming well when yer peeing.

there was a pretty cool article in the new yorker a couple weeks ago about whatshername the cal/olympic swimmer and the mysterious biomechanics of moving a solid object through a fluid.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Also a problem: I really wanna try surfing sometime, but will most likely never get over my fear of being in open water.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

There was (is, but with neighbors in the way now) a little pond about half a mile from my house where I used to sneak away and swim with my sister. We'd be totally unsupervised, totally alone, and I don't think for at least a decade anybody else even knew it exisited. When I was 14 I'd get baked and go to it myself. It was little nirvana, and in my dopey state I'd float on my back and let the turtles and fish nibble at my legs and ponder the state of the universe and my weird adolescent preoccupations. I conceived of buying the land (it wasn't up for much) but when I mentioned it to my father he laughed. And then some schmuck bought it and turned it into the centerpiece of a subdevelopment o' McMansions.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm an ok swimmer. I can't really do the breast stroke 100% right, but close enough that I can get around. The ocean is scary to me too.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to learn, but i guess it really is (swimming, i mean, not surfing)

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I've tried to learn a few times since my toddler traumatizing. Each time has ended with me freaking the fuck out and being on the verge of tears.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I actually was in lifeguard training when I pretty much gave up my swimming obsession at about 13 years old. It's where I learned CPR and how to swim while dragging a limp body with me. It's pretty cool, because, what with the near-weightlessness/buoyancy (sp?), even a scrawny little 100 lb. kid like I was then can haul a 200+ pound person through a body of water at pretty fast speeds.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

So yeah, if there's ever an ILX pool party/FAP, me and jeremy will play lifeguard.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

It would be a total speedofest.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I went out on a boat the other week for the first time and, though I wasn't worried about falling in at all, the people I was with tried to quell my fears. One guy was a lifeguard and told me that if I fell in to not yell "HELP!!" but rather by holding my breath I'd effortlessly rise to the surface and that people usually drown when they struggle. Is that true?

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Like ooops and ned, I never learned how to swim. I like splashing about in the ocean though. It's only ever a problem for other people. "you grew up in california? and you can't swim?!!!"

― mouse (mouse), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

If you panic you're bound to sink yourself ... but buoyancy varies significantly from person to person. Your individual ratio of muscle mass to fat to weight may make you an innate sinker. A lot of drowning occurs from people trying to 'climb' the water and hold themselves on top. Holding your breath = good idea so you don't inhale water, but 'pushing' down with your closed hands is a better idea, since you'll give yourself far more lift than an open-fingered climb.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

i love swimming. i can do it very well, although i'm not as fast as i used to be. i was one of those often-mocked synchronized swimmers as a child, although i never wore a silly cap.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

well I'm skinny (6ft 150lbs). Would you think I'd be very bouyant?

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

It's only ever a problem for other people. "you grew up in california? and you can't swim?!!!"

Haha -- I know exactly what you mean!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

took Y lessons as a kid. Love swimming. Used to swim laps every day a couple years ago but now am too lazy.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Badly. Even so, ocean swimming is one of the most exhilirating things in the world. Swimming pools bore me unless you count this one.

― Tag (Tag), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

are you in good shape?

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm kind of person-shaped.

― Tag (Tag), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

i am more buoyant than i used to be.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Thursday, 29 July 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

that was to oops, an implied xpost.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

like, am i muscular? not really, but I'm not flabby either. I can run a few miles no problem and play sports often, so yeah I guess I'm in good shape.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

then ... decently.

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

swimming in the ocean is one of the most amazing experiences. even being near it is great. i went to the beach in march for the first time in quite a while, and now i understand why invalids were sent to the seaside. it has a pyschosomatic healing power.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I like flumes and high diving boards myself. You don't them at the seaside.

― Wooden (Wooden), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Treading water: to tread water, hold your hands with your all your fingers touching in a vaguely scooped shape, and push and pull them simultaneously forward and back parallel to the water's surface, sortuv rounding the strokes off at each end, while scissor-kicking with your feet. I realize this description probably doesn't translate so well onto the screen w/o pictures, but hey.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I hate getting sand in my ears/down my pants etc. hence don't like the beach.

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

brrr...i'm partial to a bath, but that's as deep as I like water. Can't swim, will never learn. Should, but never will.
At least I live in New York and it's about the last thing anyone ever does, unless it's laps at their gym. God help me if I was Californian, Australian or something...

― paulhw (paulhw), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm also ridiculously good at it - my stepdad tossed me in the pool when I was five, and I haven't looked back. (I can't - JAWS might get me).

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost - dude New York City has great beaches!

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim, but I've never swam in the ocean :( Actually I've probably been on a beach for 5 minutes of my life.

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Thursday, 29 July 2004 19:47 (twenty-one years ago)

i can swim, just not particularly well. i still find it GREAT fun when i do, though (it's been a while) - beach or otherwise...

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Thursday, 29 July 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost - dude New York City has great beaches!

I read this as "New York City has gay beaches" for some weird reason.

I don't remember how I learned to swim, but adults who can't strike me odd in the same way as people in their mid-20s who don't have a driver's license. Like, I know it's not unfathomable and that it doesn't really matter, but I take those things for granted so much that having to think of the possiblity of something different is weird.

― martin m. (mushrush), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i am in a very water oriented family so it almost surprises me when i hear that people cant swim.

i swam competively from the ages 5 to 18 and i still play water polo which is quite a fun and difficult little sport

― todd swiss (eliti), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Are there really some here who, if thrown into the deep end of a pool, wouldn't be able to tread water? I am pitiful at formal forms of swimming, but I can keep my head above water, and get from point a to point b just fine. The 'how' of it seems pretty instinctual, doesn't it?

― Aaron A., Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

*raises hand*

A few years ago I visited my sister in Tempe, and her apartment complex had a swimming pool. She tried to teach me to tread water, but I'd just start sinking and, consequently, would freak out. It's hard to learn something when you can't go through the initial trying-but-failing attempts without dying. Maybe I should learn how while wearing SCUBA gear!

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

As one who fulfills both of your descriptions ;-) -- I take not knowing how to swim/not having a driver's license just as much for granted. It just is, etc.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Sometimes I can barely remember how to walk.

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Ned, don't you live in LA? How IS that possible? ;-)

― mouse (mouse), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I took swimming lessons back when I was in Colorado. I got as far as you could before you're actually taking lifeguarding lessons. Haven't swum in a long time though.

― CeCe Peniston (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

whatshername the cal/olympic swimmer

Natalie Coughlin.

I had awesome freestyle technique when I was about 15. But the worst breast stroke ever; I had no idea how to synchronize the kick and the front part.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

ARMS ....... OUT ....... TOGETHER ..... GLIDE ....
LEGS .....UP....OUT......TOGETHER ..... GLIDE ....

― x j e r e m y (x Jeremy), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm white, I have no rhythm.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

ned can you ride a bike?

I promise we won't taunt you.

I swim, in fact, aside from walking, it's the only exercise I do. I swam a lot as a kid, then didn't for many years, then picked it up again. It seems very natural and easy to do for me; I'm not sure how I learned.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:53 (twenty-one years ago)

ned can you ride a bike?

Already answered on other thread (the answer is indeed 'no').

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 29 July 2004 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Never fear, Ned, I cant swim or drive either.

My swimming things a bit like Oops - when I was about 8, I got middle ear infections and wasnt allowed to get my ears wet (due to surgery I'd had on my ears) so I sort of developed this pathalogical "mustn't get head wet" thing. Plus, the timing came right at that time of primary school where all lil aussie tykes are hauled off for swimming lessons, so I missed out.

I mean I dont mind being in the water - in fact as a child I loved going to the pool and you couldn't get me out of the surf - but I cant *swim* in the doing laps sense (I'm horribly unfit too which doesnt help) and my dodgy ears means I have a TERRIFYING FEAR of getting ANY water into my ears. I mean, total freak out city.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

But did you have your dad and your 6'6" swimming instructor repeatedly dunk you underwater as you cried and cried?!!?

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim but apparently not well as I flunked the swimming test and got put into stupid people gym class for two years because of it.

I spent my summers on Long Island, on the Sound and the Bay. I don't remember when I learned how to swim!

I haven't been swimming in 4 years, I think.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Haha speaking of embarrassing high school swim test stories: I could swim like a fish (long as it was freestyle), but never got clued in to treading water (one of the requirements). I had this insanely ineffective way of doing it (learned from GI Joe -- for shame!) and had to go into the remedial class. When the gym teacher saw me actually swimming, she was like all agog!

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, because my grandmother intervened at age 7. I learned in a private pool in Massapequa Park. I need to start swimming again soon.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

i can swim but not very far. i'm probably not doing it properly. i can body surf ok.

― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i remember the good ol high school days when i would swim about 7 miles a day, 6 days a week.

i also would eat anything i pleased and still lost 10 to 15 pounds a "high school swim season" (lasts about 3-4 months)

― todd swiss (eliti), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, I'm a very good swimmer, in fact, I was a swim instructor and lifeguard for about six years. I never got into competitive swimming though, because swim teams always start practice at like 5:30 AM and that's just fucking nuts.

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 29 July 2004 22:52 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, we had ridiculous early practice

5am on christmas eve... yay
also, it was the ten mile practice day

― todd swiss (eliti), Thursday, 29 July 2004 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't imagine not being able to swim. It seems that almost everyone in Australia learns to swim as a kid. One of the benefits of being in this insanely sports-oriented culture, I guess.

Ronan: sand in your ears?! How the hell do you manage that?

― Andrew (enneff), Friday, 30 July 2004 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I ALWAYS manage to get sand in my ears when I go to the beach. i'm scooping it out for days. One of life's mysteries, I suppose.

― Wooden (Wooden), Friday, 30 July 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't swam in 8 years. back then I could do back-flips into the pool. I wonder if I can still swim.

― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 30 July 2004 00:10 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost to oops: scuba gear involves wearing a weight belt to make you SINK due the buoyancy of the tank, your bod and different viscosities of the water ie. salt vs fresh. No weights in snorkeling, tho.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 30 July 2004 00:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Andrew: yeah, did we all get sent off to swim lessons as kids in primary school? Seems like it. Wise I guess - pool drowning deaths are sadly far too common here.

I hated school swimming lessons, we seemed to go too early in the summer, and I lived in Canberra, so going swimming at 9am when its only about 15 degrees with a chill breeze is NOT MY IDEA OF FUN. All I seem to recall about swim lessons is being so cold I wanted to vomit.

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 30 July 2004 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

(Cold, because we went to an unheated, outdoor pool. In cold weather. In Canberra. Thats some form of abuse, I tells ya)

― Trayce (trayce), Friday, 30 July 2004 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

The one group of swimmers that I have a hard time figuring are groups like the Polar Bears that take a dip in January (northern hemisphere) when it's about -20C.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 30 July 2004 01:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i once won $140 on a drunken bet to go in the atlantic at 2am in january--it was about -5C. it's not too bad if you go in quickly.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Friday, 30 July 2004 02:02 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah maybe snorkeling gear would provide me with a safety net I need in order to learn.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 02:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I am a good swimmer, and my fear of heights nearly disappears if the high object I'm on is over water.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

My most recent swim

― LC, Friday, 30 July 2004 09:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Great swimmer, from the first time I got in a pool at 6 or whatever. Had to be taught to breathe tho, otherwise I just held my breath till I got to the end of the pool cos it was easier for me (I wonder if I can still swim an Olympic lap underwater after 8 or whatever years of smoking actually)

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim pretty well, but I haven't gone in quite some time. i really want to, but the logistics of a "beach day" never seem to work out. plus i don't even own a bathing suit right now (which is ok -- if t-shirts and boxers are good enough for men, they're good enough for me).

― Maneating Leopards of India (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

They're hotter too

― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:41 (twenty-one years ago)

It took me forever to learn how to swim. I even had lessons when I was a child, and it never did any good. When I was 9, we moved to a house with a swimming pool. I learned to swim within the summer.

(Same as with riding a bicycle, I did eventually learn, but now I've forgotten.)

― Super-Masonic Black Hole (kate), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim and I really enjoy it, although I'm not a particularly strong swimmer. My dad used to take me swimming on Sunday mornings at the local pool. I had lessons as well, but it was also my dad who got me confident enough to swim without arm bands. We were on holiday in Spain when I was about seven and we were in the sea in a sheltered harbour area. My dad told me it would be easier to swim without arm bands because the salt would make me more buoyant. Almost total bollocks but it did the trick.

Swimming outside is a great hangover cure.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim OK, and I love the feeling of being in water. This is somewhat surprising given that I endured 3 bad experiences:

1) I took swimming lessons as a kid which I HATED with a passion. It was in a crappy pool at a rival school and the kids there were really nasty. Plus I wasn't very good and struggled a lot. I was terrified of diving, and I would get bad head pains if I didn't hold my nose. I had to wear one of those clips which of course made the teasing worse. To this day I still don't dive into water - I prefer to just jump in. Although I'm glad my parents forced me to go to those classes because I can swim.

2) When I was very young and on vacation in Wales, we went to a beach/surf placed called 'Mwnt'. I got caught in a bad combination of the tide pulling me out and waves crashing on my head. The water was actually shallow but I was too overwhelmed to stand up. I basically passed out and luckily someone grabbed me and pulled me out.

3) In high school on a class trip to a teacher's cottage (odd in itself I know), we all went swimming in the lake - everyone was obviously much better than me. Everyone decided to swim out to an island which I reluctantly joined in on. Halfway out I realised I was weaker than everyone and wasn't going to make it. Panic set in, I swallowed water, felt nauseous, and started freaking out a bit. Two of my classmates (girls) pulled me back to shore. As you can imagine, the social embarassment factor was pretty high.

Somehow these events didn't put me off swimming. I don't like pools much but enjoy swimming in the Ocean, and love lakes most of all. However I do NOT like trying to swim long distances. I am in OK shape and can actually swim/tread water for a VERY long time when I'm relaxed, so I could probably cover a lot of distance. But trying to swim an untested/unknown distance gives me the fear. I'd rather just swim closer to shore.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to be strong swimmer (my best stroke was butterfly) and swam for a club but got out the way of it in spite of living less than five minutes away from an olympic sized pool. I do intend to start again soon once i go through the agony of finding a decent swimsuit.

― leigh (leigh), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:12 (twenty-one years ago)

lol Rob = Larry David of swimming

― LC, Friday, 30 July 2004 10:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know this Larry David person.

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

If I was back home in Canada I'd probably be at a cottage today. Whenever I went to my cottage the first thing I did after parking the car was to strip down, run for the dock and jump right in the water - that's how much I love it. Fucking hell I want to do that RIGHT NOW. I'm so goddamn happy there - I can picture it: the dock, the lake, the sunshine, cold beer, good weed... £&T$^$*&£%^£*$ (head hits keyboard)

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I learned to swim at Red Cross courses over many summers, getting all the patches before I stopped going around age 11 or 12. I was okay at breaststroke but never good at the crawl because I had asthma as a child and had real trouble regulating my breathing. I preferred the sidestroke (does anyone still do that?) and the backstroke, which my instructor once called "elegant." After this I didn't swim again until I was 19, and decided to try swimming in the bay at Cape Cod, in October. I lasted a few minutes, but it was great! Then last year in Denver I went swimming in the uni gym, and the shock of jumping in the unheated pool (this was in winter), without a warmup, made my entire body seize and I started to panic. I managed a lap before hauling myself out in disgrace.

Barring breathing troubles with a couple strokes, swimming came so naturally to me as a kid that I'd hate to think I've lost it, but I fear what'd happen if I tried again.

― sgs (sgs), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm very good at swimming, i'm like a fishy!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I learnt at about 4 yrs old, being shoved back and forth between my parents while wearing armbands. We'd go swimming nearly every day for years, so I feel completely at home in water. My backstroke used to be good, but I'm a lazy bastard and prefer mucking around. I can turn somersaults forwards and backwards underwater, bobbins at diving though.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:40 (twenty-one years ago)

i had semi-traumatic childhood experiences of getting chucked in the water and thinking i was going to die. i could just about doggy paddle, but no more. at my summer camp, there are 3 levels of water- A water is under a foot deep, B water goes to about 3, maybe 4 feet, and C water is from 4-7 feet or so. i'll never forget my favorite lifeguard (matt justice), let me swim in B water even though i couldn't pass the test. it was so nice not having to swim with the babies, and since the water wasn't over my head, it was ok.

we got a pool a little after that, and i got better at doggy paddle, but never really learned to swim. but at least i wasn't scared anymore.

then, in high school, my track coach convinced me to try to learn how to swim properly, and i ended up on the team for the next three years and was a co-captain of the team my senior year, represented the team at homecoming (paraded out on the foodball field in a convertable and everything!), and swam year round with an excellent coach 6 days a week. like todd swiss, i ate so much and was totally buff-- i wish i still had the motivation to do that!

― colette (a2lette), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:55 (twenty-one years ago)

i can swim, but not underwater without holding my nose. My wife has been swimming competively since she was 5. Captain of her swim team in college.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Friday, 30 July 2004 10:58 (twenty-one years ago)

at a certain age water just equals certain death.. my mom signed me up for swim classes at the Y and i feigned sickness for the first time in my life.. I feigned it so well that I actually WAS sick.. of course i didn't "realize" I was sick until I'd changed into my swim suit and started walking towards the group at the side of the pool. The next time around I actually attended the lesson, which began with a pole being lowered into the deepest part of the deep end. Our teacher told us to get in the water, and go down as far as we could, holding on to the pole, and then come back up. i got down about several atoms below the water's surface and re-emerged spluttering and indignant. one of the kids was a "ringer" and he went ALL THE WAY DOWN which impressed the shit out of the rest of us, we all held our breaths and stared intently down to the bottom. "the kid is going to die" i told myself. i was shocked that such a thing could happen in front of a bunch of impressionable kids. surely the teacher was to blame for this recklessness. then the ringer shot back up to the surface, laughing and spurting water out of his mouth. haha very funny, jack.

later that year I went to a pool with a "high board" and had apparently already internalized the competitive nature of such things - i knew i had to go off the high board or be branded a "gayford" or worse. the phrase i kept repeating to myself, on each rung of the ladder up, was "watery grave.. watery grave.."

it's funny to think about my fear then, because it's been a long long time since i was scared of water or swimming. i have realized, though, that if i needed to ACTUALLY swim like, the length of an olympic swimming pool a few times, i would be fuXored

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 30 July 2004 11:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I like the ocean but im not one for swimming in it...Im afraid of whales.

― Velveteen Bingo (Chris V), Friday, 30 July 2004 11:20 (twenty-one years ago)

seven months pass...

I just a tankini type thing that features a skirt. I am officially old? Its saving grace is that it features my trademark black-with-red-cherries pattern.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 01:31 (twenty-one years ago)

This is my favorite thread of all ILE

― Remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I like to swim. Can't say I'm very good though but I could save my own life in the deep end. If needs be.

Haven't done much swimming in the sea, didn't take my first overseas holiday til I was twenty one, and the climate here isn't much suited to outdoor swimming. Took a couple of dips round the coast, Girvan was my family's beach of choice but even on the warmest of days our waters aren't the warmest.

My first 'real' swim in the sea, like off the coast was off a catamaran in the Canaries. That was nice, to feel nothing but ocean under me, fish swimming past. I wish Scotlands waters were warmer. And had less jelly fish.

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 08:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't swim. As a child I went to lessons every so often, but never really cottoned on, mainly because I spent 90% of the time chatting to the other token unenthusiastic child in the shallow end, and the remaining 10% refusing point blank to do anything which would get water in my eyes or up my nose. And after every bout of lessons finished, I'd never go near water anyway, so what basics I had learnt were quickly forgotten.

I can't ride a bicycle or drive either, in fact I have no means of transporting myself around other than walking.

― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 09:38 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah i'm a really good swimmer. that's partly because i grew up spending massive amounts of time at the beach and on boats and what have you. where i live the lifestyle is very much focused on the sea and the big river that runs through our city. so the govt heavily subsidises a practice they call 'vacation swimming' which is classes that kiddies have to go to in their summer holidays and during the summer term at school. that's where i learned.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

no, i can't swim.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Hell, yeah, I swim! I learned to swim in Door County, where I used to stay with my grandparents. I was a regular mermaid. In Chicago there's a stretch of the lake that is set aside for adults and lap swimmers, and I swim there. Only problem is, the water is only warm enough for two months of the year, if you're lucky. It's nice - it's not a beach, it's a concrete drop-off, so there are no shallow parts, and you can just jump off. I hate the beach, though - too crowded and too many screaming kids.

― Shatterproof Glass (dymaxia), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I like fifties and sixties suits, too - they fit my shape better, and they're not all flimsy in their construction (material is nice and thick).

― Shatterproof Glass (dymaxia), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm pretty good -- or I used to be. I make it to the pool now and then these days, but not nearly as often as I did through high school. And it's been far too long since I've had a good swim in the ocean.

When I was really little I would always wade in the shallow parts of lakes or rivers and try to fool my parents or others I was with into thinking I could swim by walking around, with my legs hidden by the water and my upper half going through the motions. One summer, when I was 5, I think, we were driving up to the beach for our vacation. It was a really hot day and about halfway there we stopped by a roadside pond to cool off. I went into my usual fake swimming routine, only at some point I suddenly lifted my legs off the pond bottom and started kicking, and that was that.

I wonder if I'd have been as eager to swim if I'd known the misery of swim team that would follow in a few years. I'm glad my parents made me do it now, as it was great exercise and the only sport I was really good at, but at the time it was pretty painful. I spent many a summer afternoon praying for a thunderstorm.

― the krza (krza), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)

there are pictures of me at four years or so wearing water wings in the pool at my grandmother's condo in florida. i was all blond and cute. less so now.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

"I'm kinda like jeremy, it's one of the only vaguely athletic things I'm any good at, but I'm ridiculously good at it. I never managed to not place in any of the swim meets I swam age 7-12, and usually did the best in the backstroke and whatever they call that one dolphiny thing (OMG I'VE FORGOTTEN!). One of my favorite things in the world is swimming with the current in the ocean.

I stopped about the same times the hormones kicked in, oddly."

This is my story, too (except I remember that the "dolphiny thing" is called butterfly.) I made a brief return to competitive swimming at 15 or 16 but by then all the kids I used to swim with were way better than me.

My college has a rec center where I can swim for free, I should start again. Swimming is great!

― stephen morris (stephen morris), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I can swim. I haven't swam in more than half my life. I have a 10 metre swimming badge.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

does this mean you can swim 10 metres? or survive in water that's 10 metres deep? or that you have a badge that's 10 metres wide?

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

"I spent many a summer afternoon praying for a thunderstorm."

I remember this feeling well.

― stephen morris (stephen morris), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I won't drown, but I can't do any proper strokes and I hate sticking my head underwater. That said, I have swum in the North Sea by Aberdeen in May. It was cold, to say the least.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

My jobby job provides gym membership. The gym has a pool. The rub: it is a HEATED pool. I HATE HEATED POOLS.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Heated pools make me feel dirty.

― stephen morris (stephen morris), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 21:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Heated as in, HEATED, or heated as in just barely urine temperature? I don't think I've ever been in a heated pool.

― sunburned and snowblind (kenan), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I swim like a fish

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

But not nearly as often, unfortunately

― W i l l (common_person), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

yes but I hate the L.A. beaches, always have. Some semi-private ones are ok but I can never remember where they are. I even lived in Harbor City for 2 years and never ever went to the beach. In Guatemala this past winter I got to swim in the Atlantic and the Pacific and a few lakes and rivers and a pool, and of course I come back home and never ever go near water.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Tuesday, 22 March 2005 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

The last time I swam, the exertion made me nearly vomit.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm pretty bad. my wife is really good. she's just got her bronze medal and is now a surf lifesaver! she has an awful uniform (big baggy banana yellow shirt, ridiculous little hat) and has to go on "patrol" with these 18 year old guys in dickstickers. should i be worried?

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:24 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.circumstitions.com/Images/retrac-anim3.gif

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:36 (twenty-one years ago)

(sorry)

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 00:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I dunno, I guess it means I can swim ten metres, which is like no distance at all. I don't want to know what happens when I get to 11 metres.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 23 March 2005 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

ten months pass...

mein gott! i came looking for a can you swim? thread because in the last couple of weeks i discovered that TWO ilxors that i know irl cannot swim and that just seemed to be complete mentalism, like it seemed an abnormally high number. so i come here and lo! there are loads of you! HOW COME you never learned to swim? mentalism i tells ya again. apart from missing out on all the ENJOYMENT and FUN and SPLASHY HEALTHNESS and also SOCIAL ACTIVITY (fact, take some teenage girls who say they want to go swimming, put them in a pool and after an initial flurry of activity nearly all of them will spend the entire time hanging onto the side and gossiping) it is irresponsible parentage not to teach your kids to swim! what if they fall in the river? or off a boat? or are once in a VERY BIG BATH? or wandering around amsterdam or similar canal city out of their gourd late at night and fall in?

the sound of the sea is my joint favourite sound in the world the other one being electric guitars yes). i can swim like forever, i can stay underwater for hella long (or, could, last time i tried), i can dive sometimes messily but effectively and THAT is one of the best feelings in the world, i can do backwards dives fairly cleanly without landing slap on my back or front, i LOVE to play with the waves, esp the ones that are *nearly* too big to play with and are likely to pick you up, pull you down, washing machine you then dump you on the bottom spitting sand and not knowing which way is up, swimming against the current in a fast river is one of the best pointless activities ever, cold water is great esp when italian tourists are pointing and taking pictures of you, jumping off cliffs is awesome. i love sand in my ears. i am at my most totally completely happy and peaceful and alive when in the water, more so if it is the sea but anything will do really. hampstead heath bathing ponds are gonna see a lot of me this summer. (nicka otm re heated pools, they always make my toes go weird after a while.)

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:40 (twenty years ago)

i'm a good swimmer. not a fast swimmer, but a good one.

― kanye twitty (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:42 (twenty years ago)

i can swim, but i don't think i've swum since... 1998.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:44 (twenty years ago)

why not? didn't enjoy it? inconvenient with your life these days? i imagine it's something that becomes a lot less fun if it's a struggle. but it's so easy to pass that phase and get good at it! no? i have taught some friends to swim, but they were either not from first-world countries and didn't live near large bodies of water (i am trying to figure out how to phrase that so it doesn't sound dismissive and shit, but pls to understand i mean no offence) or there was one friend who just had rubbish parents.

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:48 (twenty years ago)

where *does* one swim? in pools, i suppose.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:49 (twenty years ago)

I can swim, but I only like it in natural waters (lakes, the ocean) ...
I am also great at floating on my back for hours.

― clodia pulchra (emo by proxy), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

problem with nature is, it's full of rat's piss.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:51 (twenty years ago)

I didn't learn to do the crawl stroke properly for years and years, but throw any of us kids in the water and we'd bob around like corks for the rest of the day. That's what comes of growing up at the beach!

I can't believe it took me so long to visit the East Coast ocean, but I've got my beach routine down, now. If you can't find me next summer, just take the train to Asbury Park and shout.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:53 (twenty years ago)

pools, rivers, ponds, lakes, seas. reservoirs (was this illegal? we always had a vague idea that it was but ohhhhh it was irresistible on a hot day. also i loved TEH PHEAR that they were suddenly gonna need some of the water and would open a giant plughole in the bottom of the reservoir and i would be sucked down into it).

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:54 (twenty years ago)

A friend of mine, who is almost 28, just learned to swim this autumn! In the summer we were going for bike rides, which I suggested we join up with swims - which is when I discovered that even when people say they can "sort of swim" it means they really cannot swim, even if they're not particularly afraid of the water. He joined the Y and took their (free) swim lessons, starting from the basic "put your head in the water, blow bubbles" and now he's swimming! (slowly, but the technique is totally there, no flailing around.) I think that's so great and exciting. It makes me want to do something like learn how to play hockey (ice). (But maybe I say that b/c women's hockey is on right now.)

I love swimming, especially in the ocean. I think I will go swimming today (in a pool.)

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 14:58 (twenty years ago)

If you can't find me next summer, just take the train to Asbury Park and shout.

i always try to go down the shore during summer -- jersey has the best beaches in the northeast!

― kanye twitty (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:02 (twenty years ago)

I love swimming, just started going again. Pools are a bit rub really, too many people and all that chlorine, but I used to spend all day every day in the sea from about July - September. Even when I had a broken arm (and that was three separate occasions during my childhood) I would tie a plastic bag over my plaster cast so I could still go in the water.

I heard on the radio the other day how most kids before the age of about 11 are just so confident in their bodies, uncaring of what others think and totally unconscious of 'failing' at anything physical. And it struck me as really true - I'd try anything when I was a kid, the more danger the better (hence all the broken arms I guess ha) and didn't care whether I was any 'good'. But I somehow turned into a cautious and unathletic teen/adult. Sad :(

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:02 (twenty years ago)

Jody, I'll call you! We'll go down the shore! It's incredibly clean and quiet there and never busy -- we'll take our books and things and forget the world.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:05 (twenty years ago)

Any of you swimmers have prescription goggles? I might consider them if I'm going to carry on swimming twice a week - it would be nice to see what I'm doing! (Although I do regain a measure of childlike unselfconsciousness from the fact that I can't see other people, so maybe I'm better off without...)

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:14 (twenty years ago)

Of course I can't swm!

― Nigger With No Money (Nigger With No Money), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:14 (twenty years ago)

i've sort of forgotten how. i haven't swam for about 13 years.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:18 (twenty years ago)

I had a dream the other night that George lucas and Steven Spielberg were begging me to play Indiana Jones in the new film based entirely on my swimming ability.

― chap who would dare to be completely sober on the internet (chap), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 15:21 (twenty years ago)

I love to swim I go 5 times a week.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 21:46 (twenty years ago)

oh man i love swimming

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

http://www.kpcnews.net/special-sections/steuben/images/Rope%20Swing%20small.jpg

It's all about the ROPE SWING!! For my rural summertime stoner youth, the rope swing was the total test of one's meddle... some of the river ropes swings on the Redwood Coast are terrifyingly high, but you had to do it or be branded a 9th grade wussy.

― andy --, Tuesday, 14 February 2006 21:51 (twenty years ago)

I just got back from swimming! It was great, I feel like at least 4 million bucks. And now it's snowing out :) I am, however, now that level of hungry that only swimming can create.

― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Tuesday, 14 February 2006 21:54 (twenty years ago)

I don't even think I know anyone that can't at least sort-of swim.

But everyone learns in school here anyway, so it's pretty hard to avoid learning at least basic skills.

― splates (splates), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 00:31 (twenty years ago)

No. I like air.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 14:22 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

I had my first swimming lesson yesterday! I thought I was gonna sink to the bottom, I was so exhausted after a few strokes. I didn't realize how exhausting and difficult the breast stroke is. YIKES! I did everything wrong: legs and arm coordination, not closing my hands, breathing at the wrong moment, my legs,... I felt a bit of a klutz, really, but then I saw an old geezer having his swimming lesson and then realized it's never too late to learn, right? Maybe he had his tevalidation, but what the hell I took it as a good excuse not to feel guilty about so late with learning swimming. ;-)

― nathalie, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

i am the only sucker who learns to swim here? :-(

― nathalie, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:14 (nineteen years ago)

I always thought that everybody knew how to swim, same as knowing how to bike. It's only recently that I'm realizing that maybe one person out of three doesn't. I guess I learnt in school. We went probably once a month. Hated it then, hating it now.

― baaderonixx, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:28 (nineteen years ago)

What Emsk said upthread. Sea is best - anywhere with big waves that's a bit uncontrolled. Lakes also. Anywhere you can dive in.

― Dr.C, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:34 (nineteen years ago)

I always thought that everybody knew how to swim, same as knowing how to bike

i can't do either! was periodically taught to swim as a child, unlearnt it every time through lack of practice. i can float though.

as for riding a bike...that's different, i just have no idea how to. i mean...i have no idea what muscles to even use, how to even physically prevent myself from just gliding along for a couple of metres before falling to the ground.

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

i can't do either!

You're not alone.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

14 years :(

― blueski, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:39 (nineteen years ago)

Centaurs can't swim.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

never think about people not being able to swim

― RJG, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:43 (nineteen years ago)

I'm always kind of surprised there's anyone who can't swim. I'd always thought it was an essential life skill in case you, like, fall in a lake or something.

Swimming in the ocean is always fantastic but swimming at the bottom of a waterfall = one of the best experiences of my life.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

I swim a lot lately...in a public pool with too many screaming annoying kids.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:48 (nineteen years ago)

My boyfriend can't swim. I don't think he even *wants* to learn, which is sad. Swimming is the only form of exercise that I like. Although I can't go to public swimming pools... one day, when I am rich and famous and have my own pool, I shall swim again...

― emil.y, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

Public pools: 50% wee, 50% verruca virus. Lovely.

― peteR, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:55 (nineteen years ago)

I swim a lot lately...in a public pool with too many screaming annoying kids.

Ronan, I swam in a triathlon last summer. There was a lot of grabbing and aggro at the beginning and in the water, all I could think of was "these fuckers wouldn't last five mins in the Rathmines local." I was like Tarka! I then proceeded to get lost as I couldn't see markers (I am basically blind). Still finished in first group of swimmers even with my (really rather long) diversion!

― kv_nol, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

Well, to say I can't swim is an exaggeration. I don't know how to swim *properly*. I knew my technique was bad, but I didn't know how to correct this as I didn't know what I did wrong (besides the wrong leg kick). I am also extremely afraid of depth (be it in water or on the ground): the depth in the swimming pool really scares me. This is one of the reasons why I keep doing the doggy style (hahahah) even when I try to do breast stroke: I think I won't sink to the bottom. Silly of course cause you won't but I still think I will just sink if I don't keep moving.

My husband refuses to believe it, but apparently the breaststroke is one of the hardest ones to do. Apparently if you master the butterfly technique it's less taxing (?) than the breast stroke Who knew? Not I!

Anyway, we went to swimming class quite a lot in school but I was never any good at it. I love swimming in the *undeep pool¨the best, especially swimming just over the ground. It's so much fun!

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:38 (nineteen years ago)

I am good at swimming but shit at all other physical activity.

― chap, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:40 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, bottom of the pool of course.

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:45 (nineteen years ago)

I'm with you, chap; I'm a pretty good swimmer, but any other sort of sport is kind of a disaster for me, especially if it involves a ball. (I even loathe volleyball thanks to my grade school gym teacher).

― Sara R-C, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:46 (nineteen years ago)

i wish i was in a lake right now, and that it was summer

― rrrobyn, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 19:47 (nineteen years ago)

I can't swim. I never learned cos I had really bad ear infections as a kid, and wasn't allowed to put my head under the water. And by the time you're 9 or 10, it's embarrassing to start. By the time I was 16 or 17 I'd forgotten that swimming exists, since it seems to be something so seldom done (at least as I grew up). I suppose it would be nice, but it feels about as valuable in my life to being able to touch type.

― paulhw, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

I learned when I was fairly little at weekend lessons at the high school pool. One of my earliest career ambitions was to be a swimming teacher - I did not know for several years that it was a weekend job for high school students, not actually a career. It was almost impossible to graduate from my high school without learning anyway (I suppose one could with the proper medical or religious excuse). One swimming class was required for every year of PE and the kids who didn't know and didn't want to learn were forced regardless.

― Maria, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:34 (nineteen years ago)

Oh and I never became a swimming teacher because I quit swim team in middle school and it was the high school swimmers who taught. This never caused me grief though, by that point I wanted to be a novelist instead.

― Maria, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:35 (nineteen years ago)

When I was a child, I thought being a swim teacher was one of the grooviest jobs ever... I still dream of being a novelist.
I love swimming. I don't remember exactly how I learned, but it came very fast after my family had a pool built - sometime when I was 7. Even before I could swim properly, I always enjoyed the water.
Never competitively swam because I always felt too fat and unathletic, too ashamed to be seen in public in a swimsuit after I turned 14. Irony is that my fat probably made me very bouyant!
At the height of my physical fitness, I could swim a mile in 40 minutes -- took a swim course at Cal in the beautiful rooftop pool at Hearst Gym. I think Julia Morgan designed the pool.

― Melinda Mess-injure, Thursday, 22 March 2007 01:40 (nineteen years ago)

I taught swimming for a few years in my teens, but quit when I reached legal drinking age. The lingering stench of chlorine (even after vigorous scrubbing) coupled with green-tinged blond hair were not overly appealing to the opposite sex.

Now I live one street from the ocean so I get to be all salty & sandy every weekend. Hurrah. Winter bites.

― Hard like armour, Thursday, 22 March 2007 02:55 (nineteen years ago)

i can't do either!

You're not alone.

you guys are fucked come End Times.

swimming at the bottom of a waterfall = one of the best experiences of my life.

MMM this is true. we swam in erawan national park in thailand, there are 5 or 6 or 7 waterfalls one above the other and you can stop climbing and swim wherever you like. there were little fish that tried to nibble us. think i prefer the sea though, for the unutterable vastness fucking with my head.

I suppose it would be nice, but it feels about as valuable in my life to being able to touch type.

lol

god everything i said upthread is still so true. i've been wanting to get in the outdoor water for around a month now. hackney lido opens again soon but only for like a fortnight, while all the kids are off school, then closes again until end of april or sometime in may. take me to the river.

― emsk, Sunday, 25 March 2007 00:28 (nineteen years ago)

I say we start up a paypal fund to buy Ned and The Lex training wheels and floaties.

― Beth Parker, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:09 (nineteen years ago)

Possibly out-lex-ing lex: can't swim, can't ride a bike, can't drive a car.

― Bob Six, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:10 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, no worries Bob, you actually tie me there.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:13 (nineteen years ago)

Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water

― caek, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:23 (nineteen years ago)

It has ocurred to me re-reading this thread that my eyesight is now so bad, swimming would be even more diffucult for me than before. Its a pity really because I do love floating about gently in warm water like a good summers day in someone's backyard pool, or at a river. Haven't done so in fnyears though.

― Trayce, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:25 (nineteen years ago)

Public pools though... ew, no thanks. Esp indoors ones. That combo of rank humidity and chlorine and nasty little kids.

― Trayce, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:26 (nineteen years ago)

And their pee.

― Beth Parker, Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:28 (nineteen years ago)

Can't swim, but have spent dozens of hours beside YMCA pools as my kids learned to swim. Now they have all moved away, and who--who-- will save me from drowning?

― M.V., Sunday, 25 March 2007 01:37 (nineteen years ago)

I have found prescription goggles in specsavers. It is a good thing.

― kv_nol, Sunday, 25 March 2007 02:00 (nineteen years ago)

my eyesight is now so bad, swimming would be even more diffucult for me than before.

I'm blind as fuck and it hasn't affected my enjoyment of swimming. I'm even gone scuba diving without prescription vision and been fine.

― chap, Sunday, 25 March 2007 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

lol @ people who can't swim

― Lovelace, Sunday, 25 March 2007 03:11 (nineteen years ago)

I can swim, but not well. We had a pool when we lived in Stanton (1970-75) but I didn't take much advantage of it. My parents wouldn't let us have friends over to swim because they didn't want to be liable for other kids' safety or have to play lifeguard constantly. Our best friends across the street also had a pool, and their parents wouldn't let us come over and swim for the same reasons. That kind of turned me off of swimming for good. :-(

― Rock Hardy, Sunday, 25 March 2007 03:18 (nineteen years ago)

I learned to swim in school, everybody did.. Whole class was off to the community indoors pool and got these pins, like the frog, the champ, in bronze, gold and silver etc. depending on how good you were. Almost everyone had like a small trophy-shield where you could put your pins. It was a big deal to collect the pins. Is it like this in the rest of the world?

― jonperson, Sunday, 25 March 2007 04:36 (nineteen years ago)

I can't swim.

I had lessons for 2 years, when I was 5-6 years old. I've always been pretty underweight, and I'm convinced that has something to do with it. Floating on my back is impossible.

I've nearly drowned 3 times.

1) I was in a hotel pool in the shallow side, and suddenly the floor started slanting down to the deep end, and I couldn't do anything about it for some reason. I suffered in the deep end for about a minute, spending most of my time underwater inbetween ocassional gasps for breath, before my sister rescued me and delivered me to the the side, where I rubbed Star Wars figures onto notebook paper for a while to cool down.

2) forgot.

3) Almost drowned in a friend's backyard pool for some reason, before being saved by his dad. phew.

Dammit!

― Z S, Sunday, 25 March 2007 06:24 (nineteen years ago)

So what are the chances of me barfing in the pool when I have my second lesson? heh. Just kidding. Morning sickness does NOT rule. :-( I also wonder how much I will be able to swim with a big pregnant belly. I'll have to adapt, I guess. :-)

― nathalie, Sunday, 25 March 2007 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

Possibly out-lex-ing lex: can't swim, can't ride a bike, can't drive a car.

oh obviously i can't drive either. can you imagine how dreadful i'd be? i have no means of transporting myself around apart from my legs.

― lex pretend, Sunday, 25 March 2007 08:56 (nineteen years ago)

The good thing is that being a pedestrian has had a massive change for the better in image , thanks to the carbon footprint zeitgeist.

― Bob Six, Sunday, 25 March 2007 09:32 (nineteen years ago)

I grew up next to Lake Superior, so swimming was just a thing that you did. I remember taking one swimmnig class, at the pool in the Paavo Nurmi Center at Suomi College.

― dan m, Sunday, 25 March 2007 09:53 (nineteen years ago)

Can you forget how to swim? It's been 17 years since I last did. I guess, I don't swim as it would mean being virtually naked in public, and that's not something I would enjoy.

I can probably ride a bike, but I haven't in about 20 years.

I'll never learn to drive.

― jel --, Sunday, 25 March 2007 10:02 (nineteen years ago)

I can swim. I also almost drowned three times, but I'm not afraid of the water.
However, most lakes and all ponds pretty much creep me out.
The ocean is the best.
This is so not swimming, but i took a "water aerobics" class a few weeks ago - i was at least twenty years younger than the other seven ladies, but it was so much fun! I broke my ankle several years ago, and the orthopedist has advised water exercise to keep it from becoming arthritic/more fucked up.
But some part of the ceiling fell in at the pool where the water aerobics was held, and now it's closed until next school year. (middle school pool).

― aimurchie, Sunday, 25 March 2007 11:10 (nineteen years ago)

I grew up right on a lake and still can't swim very well, get panicky feeling when my feet can't touch etc.
Lack of swimming destroyed Xerxes' navy and saved Western civilization!
"There were also Greek casualties, but not many; for most of the Greeks could swim, and those who lost their ships, provided they were not killed in the actual fighting, swam over to Salamis. Most of the [Persian] enemy, on the other hand, being unable to swim, were drowned."--Herodotus via Aubrey de Selincourt

― Bnad, Sunday, 25 March 2007 11:14 (nineteen years ago)

swimming is my only sport. learned how when I was abt 4/5 at the "Y" went on to competitive "aquatics" in the AAU and the state-champ high school team. bagged on it college when the twice-a-day practicing just got to be too much. started swimming laps again in my mid-twenties to counteract hedonism and weight gain. five or so years ago when my pool temporarily closed for repairs I started working out on exercise machine and realized how bored I was w/swimming, had been coasting for years. but I still swim a few laps after working out just to chill, and enjoy swimming in the ocean every chance I get.

― m coleman, Sunday, 25 March 2007 11:35 (nineteen years ago)

One of the greatest things that ever happened to me was when Mister Monkey taught me how to snorkel. I love it so much, I want to do it all the time. Although sadly Ireland's not great for the auld snorkelling, and places to go and snorkel are far away and hard to get to and expensive to get to, so we haven't been for about four years.

am the only sucker who learns to swim here? :-(

Nath, my mam didn't learn to swim till she was in her 50s.

― accentmonkey, Sunday, 25 March 2007 14:10 (nineteen years ago)

My husband refuses to believe it, but apparently the breaststroke is one of the hardest ones to do. Apparently if you master the butterfly technique it's less taxing (?) than the breast stroke Who knew? Not I!

breaststroke is the least efficient stroke but the easiest to do if your form is off. butterfly is the most efficient if you have the strength to maintain your form, but if you don't, forget it.

― lfam, Sunday, 25 March 2007 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

i think i had swimming with blue and humpback whales dreams last night

― rrrobyn, Sunday, 25 March 2007 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

i swam competitively from ages five to eighteen. i love to swim, but i rarely do it anymore because i dont belong to any health clubs... anyway, last time i tried swimming for fitness, my semi-chronic joint pain returned from swimming too much in the first place. i am pretty sure that i dont have any cartilage left in my elbows.

i havent been to the beach in over ten years now... i would love to go back.

― t0dd swiss, Sunday, 25 March 2007 16:45 (nineteen years ago)

I can swim. I grew up on an island so had to learn at a fairly early age. I'm pretty sure my technique is crap though. I've never been swimming in a lake but the idea of it really freaks me out. I just don't like the thought of being so close to fish and whatever else may be lurking down there. That said, I love swimming in the ocean. Strange.

― ENBB, Sunday, 25 March 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not the strongest swimmer but I can spend an entire day in the water, esp since I learned to float.

― Michael White, Sunday, 25 March 2007 18:12 (nineteen years ago)

[i]Can you forget how to swim?[i/]

I don't think so. A big part of being able to swim is knowing you can do it and that your body is naturally bouyant. It's all the random thrashing about that makes people sink.

― chap, Sunday, 25 March 2007 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

holy shit i love swimming. also: flipping into water from cliffs :D

that ppl can't swim AND ride bikes AND drive cars is totally baffling because at least two of the three are pretty much the best things to do in the world.

then again, growing up in MN means lakes and lakes mean swimming. i sort of take that for granted.

― river wolf, Sunday, 25 March 2007 18:19 (nineteen years ago)

ENBB, what island did you grow up on?

― Beth Parker, Sunday, 25 March 2007 19:42 (nineteen years ago)

I took my second class. FIrst ten minutes I thought I was on a devolution course: swimming worse than the previous time. But by the end the teacher claimed I had swum better. I am not really sure what to do when I know breast stroke, should I go for the other strokes as well or just stick with this one stroke? My husband recommends just sticking with breast stroke or maybe do crawl as well. What about butterfly? hahahahahahaha AS IF. I do want to continue even though I'm crap at it.

― nathalie, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 08:40 (nineteen years ago)

crawl is easiest i think. unless you're one of these mentalists who refuses to get their hair wet when IN THE WATER but i suspect you're not one of them.

― emsk, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't learn to swim until I was in my 20s. As a kid I almost drowned twice and was shit scared of water as a result. I think Mrs O got sick of swimming alone on holiday so she bought me a dozen swimming lessons and I kind of amazed myself by swimming a fairly passable front crawl after three lessons. I still can't swim butterfly and my breaststroke is a bit wonky but I'm good enough to get by. Being comfortable that you can tread water when your feet can't touch the bottom is a big step.

― onimo, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 08:50 (nineteen years ago)

xpost: WAH? There are people like that? Silly fools.

I don't know if I'll go as far as learning to dive. Eh, no thanks.

― nathalie, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 09:16 (nineteen years ago)

People who swim with their chin held at a forty-five degree angle from the water obviously don't enjoy it and probably shouldn't bother.

― chap, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

crawl is easiest i think.

...apart from the fact that I keep trying to breathe underwater.

― peteR, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 12:12 (nineteen years ago)

usually well-to-do middle-aged women with high barnets who look as though there is something unpleasant under their nose (words coming out of their mouth)? it is SO MUCH FUN to splash around wildly near them pretending you don't see them. dude, you're in the water. if you don't want to get wet, get out of the water.

― emsk, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

also NO NATH LEARN TO DIVE!! it is EXCELLENT fun... every summer i test if i can still do it backwards... so far i still can...

― emsk, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:01 (nineteen years ago)

i have spent entire afternoons getting out of the water, diving in again, getting out of the water, diving in again...

― emsk, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:17 (nineteen years ago)

(it just takes me a really long time to get out of the water)

― emsk, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, usually when I go to the pool I have great and worthy plans to do loads of lengths but just end up going off the diving board all day.

― chap, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:26 (nineteen years ago)

I'm always kind of surprised there's anyone who can't swim. I'd always thought it was an essential life skill in case you, like, fall in a lake or something.

Me, too! Me, too! Probably because for the most part, I grew up near a beach. I learned to swim when I was wee via my dad's old "toss 'er in and she'll swim out method," at least according to my mom. I have a distinct memory of swimming in a pool wearing a mask that was too big for my face and kept letting water in, much to my annoyance. My first job was as a life guard, although my school didn't have any sort of swim team (made extra tragic by the fact that the school was in a beach town - we would have won all the swim meets, I am sure!) so I never swam competitively. It's my preferred brand of exercise these days due to orthopedic issues, but I don't have many places where I can go, except Lake Michigan but that's full of bird poop and probably really, really cold right now.

― Jenny, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

Beth - sorry, I didn't see your question until just now! I grew up on the shore of Long Island but spent summers on Fire Island because my parents worked there.

― ENBB, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 14:13 (nineteen years ago)

Me, too! Me, too! Probably because for the most part, I grew up near a beach.

Hey, so did I. Anything's possible. I'm actually not alone in such a scenario; my good friend Y. was born and raised in Costa Mesa not all that far from the beach but swimming isn't her thing either. We just like to contemplate, I guess!

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 14:20 (nineteen years ago)

I live ten minutes from the coast (by train). I dislike the sea water. Also, the sense that you can't tell where the bottom is (once you swim a bit further into the sea). It's the same in the pool: I really have to *forget* that I'm actually swimming in the deep side of it. Like yesterday. I didn't have as much anxiety.

Just read that for pregnant women it's actually a GREAT idea to swim 30 minutes EVERY SINGLE DAY. WAH? I can't do that. But maybe I should up the amount of times I swim per week? Hmm, very tempted.

― stevienixed, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

Ned, my husband grew up in NC about an hour or so from the beach and he can't swim, either. I just never knew anybody who couldn't (or who was willing to admit it) until I was an adult.

― Jenny, Wednesday, 28 March 2007 14:41 (nineteen years ago)

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