Till you’ve taught swimmers your comments are inappropriate. I don’t know what happened to you but it sounds like you had a bad instructor. Used properly bullying can be fine and appropriate.
I was teaching some kids how to swim and one child (perhaps 8…it’s been awhile) was clamped on to the side of the pool and wouldn’t let go. I was politely coaxing him to swim to me whereupon he would leap the intervening distance and clamp on to me. I put him back on the side of the pool, moved further away and tried again. Again he leaped the intervening distance without swimming. I did this a few times and was shocked at just how far this kid could fly over the water. Finally I got far enough away that it was humanly impossible for him to jump the distance and he knew it and refused my kind, polite ministrations to swim. My instructor waded over to me and asked what the hell the problem was (almost those exact words). This guy was a 50+ year old former marine and he was still as hard as a rock and every bit a drill seargeant. I explained that the young man wouldn’t swim to me. My instructor shoved me out of the way (again literally although not very hard), pointed to the kid and said, “YOU! Swim to me NOW!” in a very stern, loud and not to be ignored voice. The kid’s eyes widened, he let go of the side of the pool, put his face in the water and motored straight to the instructor. Once the kid got there he was grinning from ear-to-ear. He had learned he could swim and not die. After that his swim lesson began in earnest and he was a regular fish.
There is NO WAY this kid was ever in danger of finding himself in a bodybag in those circumstances. He was in three feet of water, maybe ten feet of separation to us and had a half-dozen lifeguards and a senior instructor mere feet away and a hospital directly across the football field to the school. He could hardly have been in safer circumstances while swimming. All the instructor’s bullying did was convince the kid he was more afraid of disobeying the instructor than of swimming. Once he found that the water wasn’t something to be afraid of he was great and loved it.
-------Quick Rescue Lesson-------
As I mentioned earlier you should avoid getting in the water with a drowning person if at all possible. If it is unavoidable let someone trained do the rescue. However, should you find yourself in a circumstance that YOU must do this follow these simple guidelines. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A PROPER COURSE!! Don’t sue me if you both drown! Still, this is relatively simple to remember and may make the difference.
[ul]
[li] Stop several feet from the victim…WELL out of their reach…and try to talk them down to calm them. If they try to swimm to you keep your distance. If they are too fast and may catch you (for bad swimmers panicky people can move pretty quickly in the water) dive underwater to escape them…guaranteed they will not follow you then.[/li][li] If the person refuses to calm down dive underwater and apprach the victim from below. Drowing people will most definitely not follow you underwater to get you. Grab their legs or waist and spin them till their back is to you. Slide-up their body, mainting a firm grip, and slide your arm under their shoulder, across their chest and grab the opposite shoulder. Hopefully they’ve calmed down as you should now be doing the floating for them with their body lying on top of yours. If they aren’t calm talk, yell, scream or whatever till they do. Now it should hopefully be an easy sidestroke back to shore.[/li][li] If the person manages to clamp on to you somehow and you’re both in danger of drowning don’t fight them…they’re in freak mode and you’ll probably be the one hurt or dead. If at all possible do whatever you can to go back underwater WITH the drowning victim if necessary. Drowing people won’t tolerate that and will almost certainly let go of you to get back to the surface.[/li][li] If you’re still committed to saving them after all of this you may now consider slapping/punching them. Even if you don’t knock them out you may shock them enough for you to effect the rescue.[/li][li] As crappy as it sounds remember that one person dead isn’t as bad as two people. DO NOT continue to risk your life if the victim seems impossible to save. Get away and try and be comfortable in the knowledge that you tried your best.[/li][/ul]
Thanks, Whack-a-Mole. Here I was, thinking how fortunate I am to be a good swimmer, and I hadn’t realized that I didn’t know much about rescuing someone who isn’t.
To those who are afraid of the water - have you tried swimming in water that’s only waist deep? It only has to be deeper than your arm is long to swim in.
So is it everyone’s contention that all humans CAN swim (or at least float) but it is their own fears (which physically overtake their bodies) that prevent them from effectively staying above water?
Former water polo player and free diving freak chiming in.
Second all what Whack has said, especially the bullying part. My first day of water polo training, although we were all expert swimmers age 12-13 was hellfire and damnation. Water polo training is the same as basic swim training for attack and rescue divers, apply that to twelve year old boys and you’ll see some pretty freaked out kids. In any case… what it did do to us all is that it taught us the extreme capacity the human body has to deal with the challenges of water as long as you force yourself to STAY CALM even under the most grueling circumstances. The pedagogical reasoning is that you need to be tough since it’s a tough environment. True enough it’s a rough sport and if you’re not totally at ease in the water you can get badly hurt, even drown. This leads me to the point I wanted to make.
A couple of people in the thread said they do not float even with a lung full of air. This is impossible. The human body without air in the lungs has slightly less buoyancy than water, but only slightly. This means that when you exhale and relax you sink very slowly (panic will lead to thrashing, which usually speeds up the sinking). The average adult lung holds about 4 to 4.5 liters of air. This is enough to make the body float independent of subcutaneous fat level - which increases buoyancy, and of muscle mass - which decreases buoyancy. This is easily found out in the following manner. Dive to the bottom of a pool with your lungs full of air (do it at the shallow end if not a very proficient swimmer). Crawl up into a ball. Stay calm and relax while holding your knees in with your arms. Wait patiently. Within a second you start floating to the surface. Wait calmly until you feel your back bob out of the water, which you will feel clearly. By doing this repeatedly until it is comfortable and you trust yourself to float you will increase your calm in the water.
In water polo or diving training the trick has to be done at the deep end of the Olympic pool (410 cm/approx. 13’ ) in the following manner. Swim to the bottom and proceed as above, When your back bobs out of the water; exhale and let yourself sink. It takes 40 to 50 seconds in both directions. The sinking part is the most difficult, after a while you learn to exhale in portions since this helps you rid the blood stream of more carbon dioxide and prolongs the period you can stay without air. In later stages of training we were required to do this after treading water with the swim trunk line visible for 4 minutes, and when we had sunk we had to swim to the surface and back down on empty lungs only allowed to re-emerge for air on the second trip up. It took me month of training a couple of times a week to learn to trust my lungs enough to do that.
Wow, I can do the impossible.
Perhaps I should put it on my resume.
Really, if I do the thing you just suggested, I don’t float to the surface, I stay submerged. Perhaps it is that I have very low lung capacity, combined with body makeup (I have a ridiculously short torso) and body fat percentage & distribution - I do not float.
I don’t panic and thrash - sinking is very calming, actually - I do not tense up, I just sink. (I’m the person who thinks that pool bouys are instruments of torture and had a masters swim coach explain that I needed to kick with them because they weren’t holding my legs up at all.) As I said before, I’m comfortable in water, I pool swim at least once a week, I do open water swimming and I’m fine - I just don’t float.
No, that is not everybody’s contention. Certainly not mine. I am not afraid of swimming or water. I just can’t do it well. I am very uncoordinated. I could never get the four limbs and the head turning synchronized, despite lessons. And I would tire out very quickly.
I do enjoy just floating around on my back, but that doesn’t count as swimming.
Despite what the excellent swimmers have stated in this thread, I don’t think bullying is the right way. I’ve heard people said they learned to swim when their fathers threw them in the water and it was sink or swim. I read the comments here. It works on occasion on the r ight people. But in my case I was threatened by a failing grade and still did not make the attempt. And no matter what bullying technique would have been used, I would not have done it then. When I was in the Army and had to swim the width of the pool, I still did not know how to swim; but I knew there was a saving pole at the ready, and I made the attempt. I thrashed about half way before I had to find the safety of the pole.
If my instruct or would have gotten into the pool with me in high school, eased me into the situation, been gentle, and showed me how it’s done, I probably would have been more relaxed and would have learned to swim 20 years earlier. No. I don’t believe bullying is the right way.
I’ve seen these videos, but those were very young children who probably have not learned to fear water. And water must be respected, no matter how good a swimmer you are. Swimming is probably natural, as most animals can swim. Land life did emerge from the water. So, if you got acquainted with water at a very early age, you’d probably be all right. The problem is that if you did not and try to learn when you know what fear is, then you must overcome your fear. Dying is natural and programmed, too, but most of us are afraid to die.
Untill you’ve been humiliated, verbally abused, and pushed backward into the deep end at age 6, causing you to panic, take in water and nearly drown, you don’t have enough information on which to base your opinion.
I’ll match my anecdotal evidence with your’s any day. Maybe bullying works for you…your pupil’s mileage may vary.
I’m still not inviting you to the next pool party.
While to the untrained eye this may look like bullying, it sounds like a perfect use of the COMMAND VOICE, whose purpose is not to strike fear, but to snatch one’s attention away from inner fears and overcome their self-absorbtion. If someone has learned how to obey at any time previous to this moment, they generally obey a COMMAND VOICE. It is a no-kidding-do-it-now voice, useful in war and swim school. Kinda like the screaming or slapping you mention later. There is no implied or inferred threat involved, just a mental jolt, but the command jolts them AND feeds the brain an action to carry out.
There are other examples of bullying here, though.
Thanks for the tips on approaching a swimmer in trouble. I’ve been taught them, but would probably make those same mistakes given the situation.
Actually I think it is everyone’s contention. We’re not talking about being a picture perfect swimmer here. Only that someone is able to be tossed into deep water and be able to make themselves float however ungainly they might appear doing it. The ability to do that (just float and breathe) is hardwired into all of us. As barbitu8 pointed out most animals can swim…even ones you wouldn’t think could (such as horses and they do quite well…I know because I’ve swam with them which was a real trip).
Panic is what kills most of the time. If you look at a drowning person you wonder why it doesn’t occur to them that they are already swimming! They can thrash about for minutes with their head out of the water and what ultimately gets them is fatigue being in overdrive like that. FTR falling into frigid water our extremely stormy water (or otherwise extreme circumstances) adds a whole bunch of new problems. Nevertheless if you have ANY chance of escaping those situations it’ll be by keeping a cool head and not panicking.
I am by no means suggesting that bullying is the only teaching method and I already stipulated that it doesn’t work well or at all on adults but pretty well on kids. Try to bully an adult (say teenager on up) who’s afraid of the water and they’re likely to tell you in detail how far they’re going to shove the rescure pole up your arse if you keep on like that. Different people respond better to different teaching styles. A good instructor will find what motivates different people and use that.
As to tossing your kid in the pool that is a BAD way to teach swimming. You’re more likely to embed a deep fear of water into that person.
The kid I (or rather my instructor) bullied into swimming wasn’t there for his first experience with water. Prior to that we had gone through blowing bubbles, floating and other simple routines to engender a comfort level with the water. The ‘swim to me’ bit was the kid’s first experience with his feet off the bottom and no one holding him or having a floaty and he was scared but not terribly so because he already had at least some comfort level with the water. He only had to swim a few feet and he just needed a little prodding to get moving which in this case was a sharp command to get on with it. Worked great in his case.
Sparc:
I dunno about everyone being able to float. I had a roommate in college who was a bodybuilder. He was huge and had an exceedingly low body fat level (fare below the point of being healthy but that’s another issue). I watched him take a deep breath and jump in a pool. He sank to the bottom like a rock and stayed there even though he did not move at all (i.e. swim to keep himself down).
On the flipside I’ve seen fat people try to swim underwater and they couldn’t no matter how hard they tried. Swimming as hard as they could downward they stayed put on the surface (kinda funy to watch as they move a few inches underwater and then pop right back up to the surface).
I hear you on the Water Polo bit. Freakin brutal and I only played a bit in high school…nothing approaching the level of training you seem to have gone through (although I thought our training was quite tough…looks like I had it easy).
-------Note on Rescue Info-------
I forgot to mention that if you have to get in the water to rescue someone the IDEAL choice is to bring a floatation device along with you that you can throw to the victim when you get close. If you ever watched Baywatch you’ll have seen the orange floatation buoys they have strapped to them. Those are ideal for a variety of reason but just about anything will do as long as it floats and you can carry it out with you relatively easily.
I cannot imagine being unable to swim. I think I learned at age 2. It really isn’t that hard (easy for me to say), and everyone who values their life should learn.
As a lifeguard, I have a few things to add to Whack’s pointers. A simple mnemonic is “Reach, throw, then go”- first try with arm, leg, oar, shepherd’s crook, super long dildo, then try tossing a ring or some other device, and if that fails, then swim to them. Bring a floatation device if possible, one of those noodles should work pretty well- you can use it to reach to the victim. Keep the float between you and the victim. If the victim tries to grab you, use a kick block or straight arm to the chest while ducking underwater. If the vic does get you around the neck, ‘suck, tuck, and duck’- take a breath, turn your hide to the side, and push up on their elbows to get away. Try and approach from the victim’s rear, reassure them and get them to calm down. Grab them using the cross chest carry described above by Whack, or if you have a strong kick and want more control over the victim, grab each armpit. If they are still panicky and drowning you, tell them to calm down, then dunk them underwater briefly (by now, they should’ve gotten some air). This will remind them of the alternative to being rescued. Pull them up, reassure them, and tell them to calm down. If they are still freaking, try another dunk. Usually this isn’t necessary, most people start to relax when the rescuer starts to bring them in. I’ve never heard of clocking someone, but I guess it would work. Remember, if you don’t think you can swim out and back in with another person, don’t try to. But most decent swimmers should have no problem, especially if using a float.
Maybe in this day and age that would be a bad move what with lawsuits and all (you just know someone in this country would sue their rescuer for assault).
However, I got this tip from my older (6 year older) brother when he was taking his lifeguard class. One of the other students was playing the victim and my bother had to go rescue him. The other student apparently really got into his role as victim and was thrashing wildly about and doing all he could to thwart my brother. After a bit of monkeying around my brother finally got pissed and popped him one. Not real hard but hard enough to get his attention. The guy, stunned, calmed down on the spot and my brother finished the ‘rescue’. When back to the side of the pool the ‘victim’ complained bitterly to the instructor that my brother just hit him. The instructor basically said good for my brother…you do what’s necessary to get the victim to safety and clearly my brother’s method worked.
Any of you pros familiar of the Navy survival back stroke?
When I was in boot camp learing it was mandatory to graduate. I tried. I was very calm, completely trusting of the instructors, and followed their instructions exactly. And sank. If I picked up the pace a little I could stay afloat, but that was ‘swimming’, and didn’t qualify. Frustrated me and the instructors. Finally one of them jumped in the water with me and asked (ordered, actually) me to take a deep breath and simply relax. I relaxed. I sank. There I was, my butt bumping the bottom, calmly looking up (and smiling) at the instructor 12 feet above. It was funny, and we all had a good laugh, but it kinda put them on the spot.
They finally qualified me, but reluctantly.
Impossible? Hardly. Sparc, I don’t know what to tell you. I sink, man. Lungs full of air, as relaxed as a sleeping kitten, I sink. I have a lot of bone for my body size. A couple of people have said that that might have something to do with it. I dunno. I also used to, before smoking took it’s effect, have a large lung capacity.
BTW; I used to snorkle. A lot. I sink a little more slowly in salty water.
Peace,
mangeorge
I can’t counter what you guys say. If you sink you sink. I’m astonished though. It was a pillar of our water polo exercise drill and or coaches hammered the point home so hard that I never questioned it. Even the big boys in the A-team would float like cork, albeit the more muscular they were the slower they would rise. Granted that water polo players tend to have fairly big lungs, and team selection was through people on the swim team that were thought to be physically ‘promising’. I should add that the club was pretty elitist and harsh, being many time champions of the Swedish national cup with several of the Olympic national team players on the roster, so I would guess that results with the training was more the focus than the facts about the general behavior of human bodies in water.
Maybe it is as mangeorge says that bone structure and the ration of bone to soft tissue would have something to do with it.
BTW smoking will have little effect on buoyancy for at least a good thirty years since it reduces the actual volume lung capacity very little in such a time span (after that it might even cause emphysema and then on the other hand…). It will however have dramatic effects on the capacity to oxygenate and hence make swimming more difficult for the reason of shortening the breath, which will have definite negative effect on buoyancy. After almost eighteen years of heavy smoking I still have a lung volume close to 6.5 liters, not to much use anymore though.
That pretty much say’s it all, Sparc. I doubt very much your coaches would’ve ever encountered anyone like me. Process of elimination, eh?
I can just picture it. "Float, dammit, float you blah blah blah…
Peace,
mangeorge
The very first thing you must learn to do is breathe in the water. Then practice that breathing until it becomes second nature to you. Then you can start to learn the strokes and at this point, with your history, what I would recommend is that you learn the strokes using a snorkel mask so you don’t have to think about breathing at all, you just learn to move your body.
Then, once you are good at the breathing, and good at the swimming, you can learn to do them together. You SHOULD learn, so that you don’t ever drown. It’s a very important skill to know.
But, once you have learned it, you can do what I do: swim with a snorkel mask any time I swim. It makes it much easier and more pleasant than dealing with the breathing.
Shesh! You’re probably right mangeorge. Reading that evokes memories of our assistant coach barking orders punctuated by sharp, rebuking shrills from his whistle. When one of us flaked on him or were perceived to be acting lazy… let’s say you just learnt that it was better to press on until you puked from exhaustion. Not that I would ever have been a great player, but the military style training sure contributed to that I didn’t seek out a new club when I moved back to France a few years later.
