Hmm. This was my initial theory. Coming from someone who has swum ever since I can come up with a memory, I suppose it’s only natural for me to assume everyone else can do the same thing. I never have to think about “holding my breath” or breathing properly while going in and out of water–it just happens. The moment my nose feels water rising above it, everything just shuts down, until my nose feels air again. And usually I have time to take a big breath before that happens:D
The only time I’ve ever been close to panicking is when I had foolishly swum out to a nonexistent sandbar past the breaker line and then found myself being swept in to shore. But I was more scared of being smashed against the rocks than I was of drowning!
Yup, that is the ticket to staying alive for long periods of time in water deeper than you can stand in. It DOESN"T MATTER how much you weigh or don’t weigh–a lungful of air is going to keep you afloat. You just let it out very slowly (while on your back–distributing your body mass as evenly as possible) and give shallow kicks and arm “flying” to support you when your air runs low, then suck in another lungful immediately. Ad infinitum.
But that won’t be a-happenin’ if, say, you’re in heavy seas or at risk of hypothermia (in the hypothermia case, the LESS movement you make is better) but it will keep you alive in a swimming pool.
Add a floating cocktail bar and I’d say it’d be downright fun.
I’d like to second hobbes’ comments regarding the breast stroke…
I did swimming lessons as a kid, but was always a weak swimmer, wasn’t comfortable out of my depth, and could only do 1 or 2 lengths of front crawl before i’d be knackered.
didn’t swim for years, then took it up again. I learned how to do the breast stroke, at first it feels really awkward and i couldn’t sychronise my arms and legs, but eventually managed to get the hang of it. It is much less tiring.
at a slowish pace, it only requires about as much energy as walking which means i could keep going… it’s great, it means i’m confident to swim well out of my depth, particularly when in the sea.
You ever sit on a bench and watch folks walk by? Maybe you should just stop at the local mall, maybe near the food court and just gaze at the populace.
Then come back and tell me you can’t believe there are adults who can’t swim.
How does one’s appearance affect their ability to swim?
If you’re going for the weight thing you are way off base. We aren’t talking about Olympic 500m swiming here, we’re talking about “Hey, swim to the other end of the pool”.
The stroke I would teach first is the elementary backstroke (not the racing backstroke, but the one that is something like an upside down breaststroke). I think I could do that for hours, slowly, without getting tired. Your nose mostly stays above water and it is not at all tiring.
One thing about Caribbean islanders who can’t swim is that we are much more buoyant in salt water than fresh. I believe that anyone will float in the ocean. The only way to drown is to get carried way out and not be able to get back. Even then, I don’t think you can sink, but you could get a lung full of water and lose the ability to breathe. And then there is hypothermia, but probably not in the Caribbean.
I agree with the elementary back stroke suggestion. I find it much easier than the breast stroke, but I still have the tendency to get a nose full of water. The only place I’ve ever been where I didn’t sink was in the Adriatic (Dubrovnik, Croatia). It was such a great feeling to lie on my back, take a deep breath and just float.
That said, the instant I tried doing something like treading water, I sank. When I was in high school, I never got the hang of it. I used to run distance, and on some practices we ran 10-12 miles. I could do that no problem. But tread water for more than a minute or two…forget it. Obviously the problem is in efficient use of muscles. I’m somehow over-exerting myself and ending up spending my energy anaerobically rather than aerobically, but try as I might I have never, ever been able to tread water in an effortless fashion. It’s not really panic, it’s just…I don’t know. I would love to learn how to tread water without feeling like I’m running a 100m sprint.
i think that everyone could “swim”, that is doggy paddle. but i think that those who can’t swim are really just afraid. the aquaphobia thing reigns true. i had a swimming class in college and while the rest of us were learning olympic strokes, you’d be surprised as to how many people were in the shallow end practicing how to put their heads under.
My husband had to be taught to doggy paddle (instead of ineffectually trying to imitate breast stroke) in a swim class as an adult. Before that, he could not get more than a few meters in water without walking on the bottom, after years of playing in the water. He also never had any fear of water, in fact, I started teaching him swimming so he could pass (just barely, and using elementary back crawl) the swimming test for a SCUBA diving course.
BTW, when I was teaching swimming, the official rationale for teaching crawl first is that it is a very useful stroke which takes a long time to perfect, so the various levels gave an opportunity to slowly bring the stroke up to standard. The easier strokes were introduced one at a time later as they needed less practice.
When I was teaching adults, the idea was to work on what the student wanted to learn, not assume they’d make it through a specific progression. Crawl was usually not a priority until the students were confident moving through the water.
My grandfather, who was born and raised in Florida, was deliberately not taught how to swim. There are always cases of people getting their legs tangled in seaweed and drowning in his area, and his parents didn’t want that to happen to him. So they forbade him to learn to swim.
Don’t bother. The lake has a disgusting stench most of the time and the shores are full of thick clouds of brine flies and “no see’ums”, a tiny biting midge.
As for the bouyancy factor: at age 13 when I had th move my arms & legs just to manage floating on my back in a swimming pool, I was able to float in the GSL with both my feet and head out of the water.
It doesn’t take long to get winded in the water, and even those who are marginal swimmers, or learned when they were younger and know the basics, it quickly becomes a fight…a struggle for endurance for those who can make some attempt.
‘Swim to the other end of the pool’ is impossible for many people because of the terrible physical shape they are in.
(And rescuing them is X times harder).
To keep it on topic, swimming modest and short distances is still challenging, especially for the out of shape and unpracticed but familiar swimmer.
I am an adult who doesn’t know how to swim. When I was eleven, I barely escaped drowning in a freak accident: I was washed off a jetty, dragged through sand, bashed against rocks, and so on.
Ever since, the panic reaction that sets in when I can’t touch my feet to the bottom, or when a current threatens to upset my balance, is pretty overwhelming.
So I don’t swim. At all.
I could probably get over it, but it would take a concerted effort and a dedication of time I just don’t have.
Indeed. The claim that swimming should be “instinctive” or that once you get over the fear it becomes “as natural as walking”(*), seem to be assuming anecdotal observation as indicative of the norm.
It’s learned conduct, pure and simple. Easy for some, hard for others.
The upshot of this thread, Re: Can Camels Swim?, was that virtually every mammal instinctively knows how to swim. The only apparent exceptions? Our relatives the Great Apes: Chimps, Gorillas, and Orangs. There are few if any observations in the wild of apes swimming; none ever seem to have been trained to swim, even when raised in captivity; and in captivity they frequently drown in even small pools of water. So it seems like a lack of innate swimming ability is something we share with our closest relatives. The difference is that humans, unlike apes, are able to learn to swim if taught.
I’m 17, and have no idea how to stay above water, and I took swimming lessons. I can’t do it. I couldn’t do it when I was 12, so I dropped the lessons.
I’m glad I know how to swim but I absolutely agree that for humans it is a skill that is not innate and needs to be learned. I also find the breast stroke much easier than the crawl. I have no opinion if there are adults who could never swim even if they wanted too…I suppose it could be true.
When I was a kid I could float on my back effortlessly which I can’t seem to do now. My feet sink until I am floating in the water at an angle, at times almost vertically. Interestingly it does not seem to impact my swimming ability at all. I guess I am confident and comfortable enough in the water that my reduced buoyancy isn’t an issue. I was wicked skinny as a kid, too, a fact that is definitely NOT true today. So much for the blubber theory.
Cervaise that must have been a horrible experience. It’s no wonder you don’t swim.
Thanks, jack@ss