I learned at the Dolphin Club and YMCA, Anderson, IN.
When I was wee my family lived in Bakersfield, and at the time hardly anyone had AC or a pool. The ideal way to survive a Bakersfield summer is to take swimming lessons every morning and spend the rest of the day in the air-conditioned library. That’s what we did anyway! The only person I knew with a pool was my grandmother (who had a Doughboy), and we would go over there at least once a week.
Same for me. You have to try really hard to avoid learning to swim during primary school (elementary school) in Australia. If I remember correctly, it was about two weeks of lessons every year. The only Australians I know who can’t swim are people who immigrated as adults.
When I was very young (~4 years old), my father tried to teach me to dog paddle to the edge, because we lived in an apartment complex with a pool and no fence. My mother was terrified that I’d get away from her and end up dead in the pool. As I recounted in the non-swimmer thread, I almost drowned at 7 years old, so I couldn’t swim at all then, either.
I distinctly remember trying to teach myself to do a sort of crawl stroke at a public pool when I was 8 years old. I was frustrated, because the water felt different in the pool, like it was less dense. (This might have made sense if I was comparing it to the ocean, but I was convinced that pool water density differed from pool to pool, which is not the case, of course.)
I had my first swim lessons that summer at 8-1/2 years old. I remember thinking that I already knew how to swim, because of that half dog paddle/half crawl stroke I’d taught myself. However, we seemed to spend the whole class learning how to float. :dubious:
The next summer, I started taking the Red Cross swim lessons, and I took them every summer for the following four years. I was stuck at “Beginner” for the first two years. (One comment that always got noted on my card was that I “needed to work on my stamina.”) About that time (~10-11 years old) I remember going to the local public pool. There was a diving board, and you couldn’t go in the deep end unless you could swim across the width of the pool. That was a bit of a struggle for me, but I was highly motivated to be able to jump off the diving board, so I managed to do it.
My third summer taking Red Cross swim lessons (11-1/2 years old), I got through “Advanced Beginner” and “Intermediate Swimmer.” My fourth summer, I was much stronger, and passed the “Swimmer” course. At that point, I considered myself a pretty good swimmer.
I took the Boy Scout Swimming merit badge the next year, and the Lifesaving merit badge the following year after that. Then in 10th grade, we moved, and my new high school had a swim team. I joined a local swim club starting at the beginning of the year in hopes of making the team. At that point, I was swimming laps for 2 hours, 6 days a week.
When swim season started, I made the team, and we swam for an hour in the morning (alternated with weight sessions), and 2-1/2 hours in the afternoon. We swam between 6-8,000 yards a day. (I wished I could find that Red Cross instructor who said I needed to work on my stamina. :)) By the end of a year of this, I was basically an expert swimmer. When we took the swimming unit for my P.E. class in school, the teacher (our swim coach) used us to demonstrate everything. Two years later, I got my letter on the Varsity swim team and made it as far as the Sectional finals in the 100-yard Freestyle.
That same year, I took the Red Cross Advanced Lifesaving course, and the following year in college I took the Water Safety Instructor course.
I failed the introductory swimming class when I was about 6 or so.
I took it again the next year and was asked to be on the swim team. Guess there was a little improvement. I ended up being on the swim team for a couple years and did ok, usually came in 2nd or 3rd at meets but would score an occasional win. I rocked at fly and breast.
These days I still swim. In fact, I think I am the only person about my age or older I know who can still do the fly reasonably well.
Slee
How old are you?
I can still do the fly pretty well, but not for much more than a pool length (25 yards).
I didn’t learn until junior high or high school, from a friend. Well, he sort of taught me. Basically, I learned to float, then just started paddling around on my own. Still not a good swimmer. The wife has never learned to swim, due to her late mother’s morbid fear of water. (Her morbid fears included dogs, bicycles and boats, among other things, leading to rather a restricted childhood for the wife.) She’ll go into the sea at the beach but is still too paranoid about actually learning to swim.
I don’t remember learning how to swim.
Growing up on the lakes, I just always knew how. I took a few general lessons at summer camp one year, but so did everybody else there. I still love the water. My swim form kind of sucks, but I’m not too bad at it.
Always knew how to swim, grew up on Long Island Sound, I spent all my summer days down at the beach. Aced my swim test when I went to camp when I was 10. I guess I was taught to swim by my older sisters and cousins, we all knew how to swim.
Me too. I never remember not knowing how to swim so I must have been very young? I came in third in the swimming races every summer. I was taught by my parents and other children at the beach. I once swam across the Niantic river and back on a dare. I used to dive off the train bridge with my friends and off the old swinging bridge. It was easy when I spent all summer on the water.
I learned how to dive from my father at age 5 in a Howard Johnson’s indoor pool. We were visiting grandparents in Upstate NY. I still remember how scared I was on that first attempt. After I dove the first time I was hooked on diving.
My brothers and I all learnt in our school pool from a young age - they would have swimming sessions throughout the summer and you could also book the pool privately in the evenings.
We also went to out-of-school lessons from 6-7 yrs at the local high school.
I’m teaching my 2 y/old to swim at the moment - we go most weekends to the local pool, just to get her used to the water.
I remember hanging on to my dad at the Y when I was maybe 4 or 5. I was probably paddling around at that time. We then moved to a community with a lake, so I took all the swim lessons they had to offer, spent many days at the beach in the water and swam competitively for a couple of years (I never did very well). My 7 y.o. girls are taking lessons now at a local pool. I’m thinking of joining the club and doing some laps myself.
I think learning to swim started with me holding my head under water in the bathtub while taking a bath. Then I went to a local lake quite frequently during summer vacations, where I hand-walked face down to look at the bottom. Gradually I went out further, dog-paddling; then I learned a crawl and to jump and dive off a wooden float.