I’m generally a brave girl. I don’t squeal at the sight of spiders or anything. But I’ve never been able to swim.
It’s due in part to a couple sort of traumatic experiences, but not seriously traumatic… enough to put me off swimming somewhat but it’s not like I have PTSD and have flashbacks when I smell chlorine.
The real reason I hate swimming is that I’ve never been able to keep water from getting up my nose. And water up the nose is incredibly unpleasant, so I’m always hesitant to try going under with my nose unprotected. I’m fine as long as my nose is plugged, but that gets kind of limiting.
Well, now I’m in school and taking a marine biology class. And I love it. A lot. I didn’t think I would because I’ve always thought fish were kind of boring compared to other animals, but marine biology is really cool. There’s a big bulletin board up in the science building with pictures and info about an annual marine biology trip to Belize and I want to go so badly. I realize that it’s unwise to declare myself a future marine biologist after one class, but I just feel like it’s such a stupid limitation. Like if this is my undiscovered passion, how much would it suck to tell my kids the sad story of how I would be a marine biologist if only I could swim.
Anyway, more to the point… did anyone learn to swim later in life (as in, post childhood)? Does anybody have any tips? I’m also sort of looking for swim classes, but it’s not easy to find classes for both my level and my age group, so I’m trying to teach myself as much as possible. I also also kind of would rather not admit to anybody that I’m trying to learn to swim until I have something to show for it… I don’t want to deal with all the inevitable “haha! you? swimming? You know you have to go in the water to do that, right?” crap if I don’t have to.
I learn to swim when I was 21, just before being drafted for my national service, so it is possible.
Regarding water up your nose - what I did is to take a deep breath before going under the water then breath through my mouth. You may want to practice that a couple of time.
The easiest stroke to learn is the Breast Stroke. I suggest getting a friend to teach you or an instructor. Getting eyes-goggle is a must.
It took me about two weeks to pick it up - I think I am a slow learner - so don’t give up if you don’t get it in a day. The key while in the water is to look ahead and coordinate the movement. What my friend did is to get me to practice different components of the stroke (the kick, then the way the arms move).
Maybe to sum up, get a friend or an instructor. Do public pools in the US have lessons?
Well, it sounds like you can swim but just can’t keep the water out of your nose. In that case, breathe out of your nose to create air bubbles on each nostril just as you go under. Or wear a nose plug. I also can’t stand having water in my nose, which is part of the reason why I don’t like swimming much, especially underwater.
What exactly can’t you do with regard to swimming that you want to do?
Exhaling through your nose may be the key. Anytime I hear about an adult that can’t swim it seems to come back to the “water in the nose” argument. I’ve been swimming since I was small and I don’t remember ever having this problem. But when I come up for air I exhale through my nose just as I surface. I may have developed that habit for just for this reason.
If you do become a marine biologist you will likely need to learn how to SCUBA dive. There you have a mask to block your nose. Diving is great fun, and if you think fish are neat from the surface, just wait until you see them up close and in their own environment!
Getting water in the nose isn’t a problem when swimming normally.
As long as you don’t inhale slightly or turn your head so that the nostrils point upwards a bit, the air in there can’t escape.
Try to get somebody to take a look at your leg stroke at least if do teach yourself, because many people develop a “scissors” movement of their legs (asymmetrically up and down instead of the sideways arc) and you can’t see what happens behind you.
I taught someone to swim in her 20s, so it can be done. Unfortunately I’m in the UK so I can’t offer to help you out in person. IMO, a big factor in my friend’s success was that she was willing to get in there and at least try to do it despite her fear. She was understandably nervous, but persisted and every time we went she was a bit less nervous. We went 1-2 times a week and I think after about 6 weeks she could swim breast-stroke well enough to do a width of the pool unassisted.
In terms of practical tips, apparently women tend to pick up breast-stroke easier than crawl (according to my mum who used to help out at various swimming classes). For personal modesty reasons my friend preferred to wear shorts over her swimming costume and this actually helped as it meant we could stuff a float into the waistband. It’s much better to have a float around you middle than arm bands (as they encourage you to float upright rather than lengthways. It’s also helpful to try to learn arms and legs separately. Hold on to a float out in front of you while practising you legs. If there’s one available, these floats are easy to grip between your legs for practising your arms: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maru-Pull-Buoy/dp/B0011904Y6/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=sports&qid=1234098573&sr=8-4
For you nose, I’ve never had trouble with water going up mine, so there must be some technique, but unfortunately I must be doing it subconsciously. Possibly breathing out through it as I go under water? Since you mentioned wanting to see fish I thought maybe a scuba mask would be a good solution - they cover the nose as well as the eyes, and if your eventual goal is to snorkel/scuba dive to study marine biology you’ll be wearing one for that anyway.
Lastly I just want to say good luck and I really hope you succeed. I’m in the lucky position of having a mother who thinks swimming is really important and made sure my brother and I could do it well. I love it so much and I feel a bit sad for people who aren’t able to. It will be a bit daunting as you get used to it, but it will be worth it, especially with such a great potential goal to work towards.
I learned to swim shortly after I learned to walk and I love water. Zero gee without all the bother of a rocket.
One thing that can really help is to realize that if you just stop moving, you float. The purpose of swimming is not to keep you from sinking, your body does that on it’s own. This works especially well for well rounded girls. Skinny guys can actually float a foot or two below the surface but you can work with that too. Keep a lot of air in your lungs and stay loose. Water in the nose only hurts for a few seconds so just let it happen and move on. You don’t need to keep your mouth and nose above water at all times; only when you’re taking a breath. Relax. Water is friendly.
The typical newbie mistake is to be all tense and nervous. This spins up your heart rate, which makes you need more air, which makes you frantically thrash around trying to keep your head above water. Just take a deep breath, relax, and stop fighting it. You can’t overpower water.
So I suggest you learn to float before you worry about trying to swim. Get some of those extra thick foam soled sandals like Tevas. With those and your natural buoyancy you should be able to float on your back without moving a muscle. Very relaxing. Once you’ve got a handle on that then you can move on to trying to get somewhere. I’d suggest the back stroke since you’ll already be floating on your back. Then the basic dog paddle seems to be the easiest of the face down styles. If you get out of breath just stop and float on your back some more. Have fun with it!
I used to teach adults to swim for the YMCA. Yes, there are plenty of people who never learned to swim until adulthood. Quite a few of our students were parents whose children were now learning to swim.
I recommend that you look for a class, instead of having a friend try to help you learn. That rarely works well, particularly if said friend is does not know anything about teaching swimming. If you’re in school, and they have a pool, they’ll offer a beginning swimming class – call the pool. Otherwise, try any local YMCA or community center with a pool.
Yes, you should exhale slightly through your nose. Eventually you’ll find a “balance point” where you can just keep enough pressure to prevent water from entering the nose. I wouldn’t recommend wearing a mask or noseplugs while learning to swim (or at least, work on getting rid of them as soon as possible) because a mask or plugs can come off, leaving you in panic if you don’t know what to do without them. (Once of the tests in SCUBA certification is removing, replacing, and evacuating your mask underwater, both in pool exercises and open water evaluation.)
I heartily endorse ** Lightray**'s suggestion of taking a class or private lessons with a certified instructor; just because someone knows how to swim doesn’t mean that the know how to teach someone to swim, and a (good) instructor will be supportive and critical only in a constructive manner. I’ve been swimming since I was able to walk, but I found a steep learning curve in trying to explain to others how to do it.
There is no shame in not having learned how to swim in childhood, and it is a valuable skill for anyone to have, even if you don’t become a marine biologist. I also think that Jaglavak’s suggestion to learn how to float first is useful, as it will make you more comfortable in the water and won’t require any instruction for this basic skill.
Unless you’re like me! I do float, actually, I just have so little natural buoyancy that I kind of float right below the surface. A friend tried to show me how to jump into the water without my head going under. I did it, and went right in. She laughed, showed me again, and watched me try again - I did it correctly, I just sank anyway.
Anyway, not to scare the OP, I was actually going to say that I’ve never seen a pool that offers classes that doesn’t have adult classes as well. I would do them now - at what other time will you be the youngest in the class again? (I meant to do that when I turned 18, but now I’m 25 and I’m irrationally afraid of being old again!)
I would personally avoid your university pool and hit the public pool, kids and all, but that’s just because I’m easily intimidated, and a couple of Olympic swimmers attend my school.
I don’t know if it will help you specifically, but I used to be nervous of water.
So I ran a few inches of water into the basin, held my breath, stuck my head in and opened my eyes underwater.
I figured either I would learn water wasn’t so bad or that I would become world-famous by drowning standing above the water. :eek:
I got confidence from this and now swim happily.
If you continue to have trouple with water up the nose, consider using a mask.
I’ve taught a couple of folks past 30 to swim. The common hurdle seems to be getting and keeping the head in the water; the objections include water in the nose, the eyes and even the ears. If you can overcome these, you’re well on your way. Those who can’t typically try to swim with their head partly to mostly out of the water, which rarely leads to success.
I took swim classes as a kid so I could do something else besides doggy paddling.
When I was in class I stuck my face in the water when I was supposed to, but I always had a hard time not getting water in my nose either. So now I do sort of a breaststroke but keep my head up a bit. Suits me fine for when I actually need to swim and not just sit on a raft and drink beer. But I think I can only do that because I actually learned how to swim for real first then modified the stroke to suit my nose/water issues. I am not some fantastic swimmer but I do just fine. And learning the butterfly was fun, but I suck at it now. Same with backstroke, much easier to do inside when you can track your position by looking at ceiling tiles.
I checked Wikipedia for swim strokes and apparently I am not the only one: “Heads-Up Breaststroke: Similar to the breaststroke, but the head stays out of the water. This style is very popular for recreational swimmers and also for rescue swimmers approaching a victim.”
So I think you can learn to swim and still keep your face out of the water. You’re not going for the Olympics, you’ll be fine.
I still can’t swim underwater for longer than I can hold my breath. Eh. I was able to snorkel just fine down in Mexico and the Caribbean but I couldn’t go under with my snorkel like my uncle could. You might want to try to learn with a face mask to swim underwater.
I know in high school we had a pool and had to take swimming for a few weeks. They split us into groups by experience level. I was in the highest in the deep end but there were still girls just learning in the shallow end, and actually more people were in the lower levels than the higher levels.
I’ll come at this problem from a slightly different angle:
Why do you assume that if you want to be a marine biologist you should know how to swim? I have known many marine biologists, having worked in the field and I can assure you that I have never seen anyone using their swimming techniques to do their job. I have seen them:
Use all sizes of boats and ships, from little outboard runanbouts to major vessels
Use microscopes of all types, dissecting, compound, electron
Work with animals in the lab
Work with PCR and other DNA analysis equipment
Use statistical software, graphing software, and lots of other software
Work in the lab to all hours of the night
Apply for grants, scholarships, fellowships
Go to meetings, meetings meetings
Some of them may use SCUBA or Snorkeling to collect specimens. Most often though, this is left to their assistants. Nobody swims to collect things. You cannot see anything underwater without the proper equipment.
You may want to look into snorkeling lessons before you go to Belize. If you can snorkel, you can see the most amazing things. If you try swimming in the ocean, you will see very little. Get used to the fins, mask and snorkel, and be able to use them effectively. If you like snorkeling, you can move up to SCUBA.
Interestingly, I am a very weak swimmer, and cannot do the crawl stroke for more than a length. However, I am an excellent SCUBA diver, have done research diving for marine biologists, and have moved up to the level of rescue diver. The skills involved in swimming and SCUBA do not overlap that much.
I have rescued several 'excellent SCUBA divers" when they’ve had to drop gear or handle themselves in adverse conditions. I’ve had whole classes amazed that I could drag a group of daisy chained divers along to a float against a light current. If you’re going to be in, or even around, the water, you should be comfortable swimming in it.
Also, if you can’t do a crawl or some other stroke for more than a length, you come far from meeting requirements as you have to do a 200m surface swim (4 lengths in a standard length pool). I see they now allow a 300m snorkel swim as an alternative, which seems foolish to me as the piece of equipment divers most often lose (outside of functionless dive knives) is a mask and snorkel.
All good points Stranger - perhaps I exaggerated my swimming (non) ability somewhat. Previous to learning to dive, I was not a great swimmer. I’m much better now. Part of that was due to becoming much more confident in the water. My overhead crawl still sucks though, because I don’t get enough practice in using my arms properly. When I did my initial training swim, the overhead crawl was not required for the entire distance - I alternated back stroke with breast stroke with a very messy crawl
I can assure you, if I were to lose both fins and mask at 50 feet, I’d be fine (I’ve done it in a practice session anyway!) And I’ve also rescued “experienced” divers who did not know how to handle a current. (they were trying to “swim” without using their fins properly)
Anyhow, I’ve known plenty of Marine Biologists that did not know SCUBA either, as well as a fair few that got regularly seasick!
True, that. Relatively little of the research time for most marine biologists is spent under or around water, just as very few aerospace engineers fly aircraft or physicists operate particle colliders. And swimming is a useful skill to learn regardless.
As an aside to the o.p., John Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez, describing from layman’s terms Steinbeck’s excursions with famed marine biologist Ed Ricketts in the Sea of Cortez is a good evaluation in the life of a research field biologist. And while throwing one’s self into a field after exposure of one class may seem precipitous, that’s what college is about; trying out new things and seeing if they fit. Plenty of Nobel laureates got into their fields on essentially a whim in in it found their life’s passion.
- so don’t give up if you don’t get it in a day. The key while in the water is to look ahead and coordinate the movement. What my friend did is to get me to practice different components of the stroke (the kick, then the way the arms move).
or that I would become world-famous by drowning standing above the water. :eek: