For the most part, it is. Anybody with a normally functioning body can learn basic survival swimming skills. It is a fact that the majority of people float to some degree anyway. For the few that do not, (myself included) you have to learn to get comfortable swimming underwater where you will be better supported and use less energy. Survival skills are limited to learning to tread water and basic paddling. If you move your arms or legs in any direction repeatedly you’ll move in that direction. For most people the same motions are sufficient to keep them afloat. It’s 100% mental for those who panic, spaz out and sink. So Yes, if you are physically normal person, there really is no excuse for not being able to manage those very basic and instinctual skills. Nobody wants to drown for og’s sake. The survival instinct is pretty strong, babies instinctively paddle and hold their breaths for example.
Sorry. :dubious: Nevertheless, I think it more likely that you are doing something wrong rather than being some statistical anomaly. The most common thing that people do wrong is trying to look forward and/or sit up rather than arching your back and looking straight up.
The other thing people often do is to throw themselves backwards, which causes them to go underwater. If their face also goes under water briefly, they start to panic and sit up, which drops their body even further.
If instead a person arches their back and gently leans back with a lungful of air, I have never seen a person not be able to float on their back.
Take a look at the pictures I linked to earlier in thread. Perhaps you are erroneously thinking that your body should be horizontal?
Nope. Body position perfect (according to the instructors), full breath (and I’m a singer - a full breath for me is a LOT of air), legs drop like a rock, drag the rest of me with them. As noted, now that I have a bit more body fat, I can come closer, but still not a stable float that can be maintained.
Some years ago, I watched an episode of Magnum, PI, where he is lost at sea, and has to float and/or tread water for 48 hours before being rescued. To me, this is incomprehensible - I would last perhaps half an hour before going under. My wife, on the other hand, can lie back in the water at any time and rest as much as she needs to.
No, not really. My body shape has unfortunately changed since I first learned to swim, and I have not found it any easier or harder to swim over the years.
I think it mainly comes down to learning and perfecting the requisite skills. I swim laps 2-3 times a week, and I’m often amused by these very fit people who swim like a motorboat with the propeller lifted almost entirely out of the water. They’re burning a tremendous amount of energy as they swim along at a microscopic pace, finally stopping to rest halfway across the pool. Meanwhile, I’m expending much less energy just swimming along, lap after lap.
All of this stuff like body type and center of gravity is just a distraction, IMHO. It might make a difference for competitive swimmers, but not for the average person learning to swim. It’s like saying that only people with certain body types can learn to ride a bicycle.
My body type, for example, is not at all ideal for swimming. I have a relatively short torso and relatively long legs. The best swimmers in the world have these proportions exactly reversed. I was therefore never going to make it to the Olympics, or even past the regionals in my state. Nevertheless, because I have excellent technique, I’m a very capable swimmer.
In that case, you might consider adding a bit of a sculling action with your hands.
I remember that episode quite well. I’m certain I could stay afloat for many, many hours, perhaps even days. What would ultimately do me in would likely be lack of water or exposure, if I were even in such a situation. I can keep swimming as long as an average person could keep walking, that is indefinitely.
On the other hand, that movie Open Water scared the crap out of me. :eek:
That’s why no one has ever drowned in the ocean.
It’s 100% mental for those who panic and spaz out in the presence of a non-venomous spider or snake.
It’s 100% mental for those who panic and spaz out when they try to get on an airplane.
It’s 100% mental for those who panic and spaz out when they are in an enclosed space.
It’s 100% mental for those who panic and spaz out when asked to speak in public.
Should they be ashamed of themselves, too, or is it only those of us with a deep water phobia who need to suck up and deal with our fears?
Trust me, I do not like not being able to swim. It wasn’t a big deal when I was living in Pennsylvania, but now I live in a country that’s 95% coastline and I know I’m missing out on a lot of summer fun. I stay well clear of the drop-off in pools, I only swim in “natural” water one place in this entire country because I know where the drop-off is there and there’s a clear mark well before I get there, I don’t go out in small boats with friends and family (I’ve tried that with a lifejacket on, and it’s just not worth it). I’m missing out on a lot. I have tried and tried, and I haven’t given up yet, but so far I still can’t go out in deep water so I live with the restrictions it puts on my life. I don’t appreciate hearing “it’s only mental” as though that were the magic wand that will solve the problem :mad:
You’re entirely right. But only panicking and spazing out when trying to swim has the potential to kill you/and or others. No you should not feel *ashamed *if you can’t swim, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn how to swim.
snip.
Frankly, yes.
Phobias are irrational, but I do not believe that *any *phobia is beyond overcoming through slow, calculated, repeated, baby steps. There is no excuse for a grown person to act like that at any time as far as I’m concerned. If you fear something that strongly then you ought to do your best to overcome it; at least to the degree that you could handle yourself in an emergency.
I empathize that for you, and many other people, deep water or any water for that matter is scary; but becoming a liability to yourself as well as others in an emergency situation out of an irrational fear is not something to be proud of.
Nope. Not allowed, according to the instructors.
I have a friend from Hawaii and when I found out she couldn’t swim it sounded bizarre, but she reported a similar problem. I got her some ear plugs and nose clips, but it didn’t seem to help. What is odd, is that she had an in ground pool built at her house. She likes to float in it, when she is tanning.
I had punctured ear drums when I was a kid, I got severe ear infections every time I got my head wet. I never learned to swim.
When I got older , I got swim flippers and ear plugs so I could snorkel. I can snorkel in the ocean for hours. But if a shark stole my fins ,I would have to walk back along the bottom.
Well, seems there is a fundamental (and almost “fundamentalist” 
) disagreement.
But I see a problem here with basic premises: WHAT is the ability to learn to swim: something innate, “basic and instinctual” even for babies and puppies, OR, something that may require a concerted, persistent effort to force yourself through toil and tears to acquire even at the most rudimentary level because it behooves you to do so?
Because, I can buy the latter as a matter of it being worth the price to pay for the benefit (so long as we respect the freedom of individuals to make their own utility calculation). But I’m put off at the insistence on bundling it with the former.
Telling someone that X activity should come naturally will only create great discouragement and frustration when it turns out it doesn’t(); and really, then laying on top of that implied or explicit impugnations of their character *for it… you really think that helps?
(*Or when, as per some examples above from **robby **and Brother Cadfael, some unhelpful teacher decides that the way that may work for you is not “the right way”)
Agree pretty well. I could probably treat water - I have done it, and I can dog paddle a bit. You live in an area where there may be much more cause to swim than where I live, so it becomes a higher priority.
I know how to deal with the real dangers of this place - a bush block in southeastern Victoria. I know how to deal with bushfires (within reason, not like we had 18 months ago!), and the four deadly snake species we have in the backyard. I would not consider any child walking in the bush here without really good training on how to watch for snakes, where not to go no matter what, and the minimal footwear essential in hot weather. Given the snakes occasionally come onto the back porch - that is far more likely to save their lives than swimming.
All the skills, including swimming, would be the best!
I have actually fallen asleep floating on my back in a pool. The only way I will ever drown is in heavy seas, or very cold water, or a shark takes a big bite out of me, or an electric eel shocks me, or piranhas attack in masse, or an evil villain holds my head under water. Or something like one of those things.
Same in the UK. It’s part of the Primary (ages 5-8) school curriculum.
Everyone should learn to swim. And even if you don’t know how, you should not pass on your ignorance to your children. Get them in swimming lessons.
Agreed. That’s a big problem with people who never learn to swim.
In reporting after the deaths of the kids in Louisiana, NPR mentioned the factor that race played. Because of segregation in the past, many African-Americans did not have a public swimming pool available, so they never learned to swim. People who can’t swim tend to have a justified fear of water, and they pass this fear onto their children, perpetuating the cycle.
My step-grandson has a mother who can’t swim, and she is absolutely terrified of the water. She was actually against her son taking swimming lessons, and it was a real hassle for my stepson to convince her that swimming lessons would be a good idea.
We have gone back-and-forth ad infinitum in this thread about whether or not swimming is instinctive and how hard it is to learn. Nevertheless, it is a skill that can be learned by anybody. If you have had an inflexible instructor in the past that insists that you must be motionless when performing a back float, for example, get a different instructor. Don’t just give up.
(Though I have to say, BrotherCadfael, if your instructors were indeed so inflexible, they probably saw something in your body position that you were doing wrong. Again, I have never encountered a person who had the correct body position actually sink.)
I’ve learned to swim, ride a bicycle, ski, and ice skate in my life. All of these skills are comparable in difficulty to get the basics down, IMHO. Personally, I’ve very good at the first two, and lousy at the latter two skills. Out of all these skills, though, only the inability to swim has the chance to directly lead to the death of you or someone you love.
I mean, what must it be like to stand by helplessly and watch someone you love drown? 
My Mother In Law can’t swim. One thing she did for her four children is make them take swimming lessons as kids. My Wife is a great swimmer.
I, like others here am a sinker. Oh, I can tread water just fine. And swim fine. I don’t float though. I’m another long legged guy that has his legs pull him down. If I don’t use my arms or kick, I end up vertical with my face under the water. For myself body position doen’t have anything to do with it. If I don’t actively tread water, my legs simply sink which puts me in a vertical position with my mouth under water.
Just yesterday some guy here slipped down a steep slope and into a creek and drowned. In a creek. Because he couldn’t swim and one assumes he either was injured by the fall or panicked. I’m sure he didn’t plan on going anywhere near the water. If you don’t learn to swim, people will make fun of your obituary.