Why cant you swim?

[Pietje010]

Around the world there are a lot of people how can’t swim. Why can’t you swim? And why not? This isn’t a joke…but a topic I’m really curious about, especially the why and where that is.

It’s a survival skill you need to be master. But it’s a forgotten one and even more important than making fire. I can swim, actually I’m a very good swimmer. I have to because I live in The Netherlands, a very water rich country and have leaned it from I was a baby. So why can’t you?

 

[Boats]

You want to hear something that might strike you as remarkable? I knew people who joined the United States Navy that didn't know how to swim. I don't know how one manages such a decision, but it would seem inescapable to me that a service regularly out on the open ocean just might embroil one in a swimming situation that could turn out lethal. I got dunked once when a "liberty boat" in Tonga nearly capsized on us 100 yards from any land or other craft. No problem, I can swim.

Joining the Navy without knowing how to swim before one gets there ought to get a person a general discharge for being an idiot.

Hell, anyone who has seen someone drown in a movie or on the news, seen reports of flooding in the Red River Valley, Mississippi River Valley, New Orleans, and even today in Pennsylvania and New York State etc., can't escape that knowing how to swim might be a good idea.

 

[pict]

A close friend of mine can't swim. He goes to the beach every year, wades out, walks back, etc. I ask him why he can't swim, he says he's afraid of the water. Why is he afraid of the water? Because he can't swim. Once you're caught in that panic cycle you're stuck in swimmies for life. Mac

 

[longbow50]

It has always amazed me that many people can't swim and have no desire to learn.

When I was very young, I got thrown into the deep end of the pool, plenty of adults around and it was sink or swim. I sank the first time. The second time, I could swim.

 

[java]

Around the world there are a lot of people how can’t swim. Why can’t you swim? And why not? This isn’t a joke…but a topic I’m really curious about, especially the why and where that is.

It’s a survival skill you need to be master. But it’s a forgotten one and even more important than making fire. I can swim, actually I’m a very good swimmer. I have to because I live in The Netherlands, a very water rich country and have leaned it from I was a baby. So why can’t you?

I'm on the opposite scale as you but just as geographically challenged. I live in the desert and water on Rogers Dry Lake only gets a couple of inches deep in the abyssal trenches during the "monsoon" season.

Actually I am a certified Rescue diver. Swimming IS a survival skill that needs to be taught at a young age and practiced for life. Too many young children whose parents never felt the need to equip them in this area fall in pools or lakes and drown when simple drown-proofing, treading water, or swimming skills would help. Trying to resuscitate a friend's three year old after pulling him from their pool and then watching as no amount of manitol could ease the intracranial swelling that slowly crushed his cerebellar functioning out was way too hard but sadly I see children brought into the ER at least once a year with the same result.

There really is NO excuse for not learning and for not teaching others at as young an age as possible and for not using personal flotation devices when engaging in many water sports.


J

 

[Rat Finkenstein]

I am by no means a strong and fast swimmer, but I can swim.
I can't imagine not being able to swim. Maybe if you were raised in the middle of a desert in a third world country it could be understandable, but there is so much water on earth, you have to figure on getting in over your head at some point.

 

[mjdiedrich]

I've got four kids. Every one of them is or has taken swim lessons until they can swim and tread water. My second oldest was pissed at me and my wife because she can swim but not tread water and we made her still take swim lessons. She now can tread water so I've got two swimmers and two who continue to take swim lessons until they can (they're 6).

 

[Pan Tau]

You want to hear something that might strike you as remarkable? I knew people who joined the United States Navy that didn't know how to swim.

They are the best soldiers for the Navy - because they defend their ships like true madmen

Over here there are swimming courses for babies (well it is more to accomodate them to the water - not actual swimming), small children, older children, grown ups etc - and they are cheap because they are offered by the "Wasserwacht" - part of the German Red Cross or other "non-profit-organisations". So if you did not learn it from your parents there is opportunity to learn it later (until you drown before being able to make the course...). Even medical aspects of swimming make it really valuable - overweight persons can move in the water without severing their knees, tendons etc - and do not forget - you do not sweat in the water...
Swimming is a very valuable skill - and not teaching it to your children is close to a crime if you ask me.

Andreas

 

[mr.trooper]

Nobody ever taught me how to swim. I just jumped in one day and started swimming.

I dont know what you slouches problems are.

 

[bulgron]

I was a miserable failure in the Red Cross swimming lessons that I took as a very young child. Finally, my mother out of exasperation threw me into a summer AAU swimming team when I was about 8.

I went on to become a competitive swimmer. I could do just about any event, but I specialized in distance races. The ones I liked the most were the mile races in our Minnesota lakes during the summer time.

After a while, we got pretty good at swimming. It got so that when me and my friends went to a lake, we'd head for the boat launch instead of the actual beach. See, if you stepped into the water at the beach, you had to stay behind the ropes and bouys so the lifeguards could keep an eye on you. But if you got in the water at the boat launch, the lifeguards had no jurisdiction and you could swim wherever you wanted in the lake. We'd swim across lakes that were 2 or 3 miles wide, hang out, then swim back just in time to make afternoon swim practice at the local high school -- which would run another 5,000 to 10,000 yards.

Yeah, I can swim.

As for my kids, they've been in swimming lessons since they were 18 months old. And we just started our oldest (age 7) in the pre-competitive program at a local swimming team. She doesn't have to compete, but until I'm convinced she can swim, and I mean swim for real, she's doing the workouts damn it. Swimming lessons are all well and good, but there's nothing like doing thousands of yards a day to really teach you how to swim.

My wife was a synchronized swimmer in college, btw. And she shares my attitudes relative to the water.

 

[hwyhobo]

I think swimming is one of the skills many people do not learn when they were supposed to (as boys), and then they sort of "never get to it", but one day those skills come in handy, like:

- bicycle riding
- motorcycle riding
- driving with a stick shift
- cyclone fence jumping
- rope climbing
- tree climbing

What else did I forget?

 

[mjdiedrich]

My wife was a synchronized swimmer in college, btw. And she shares my attitudes relative to the water.

Bulgron: My 9 year old just got into synchronized swimming this past spring and loves it. We tried to get her onto a swim team but "swimming laps was boring". So we looked into other swimming sports. We found a local synchronized swim team and shw really took to it!

 

[C. STORR]

I went to high school in Alaska - I don't know if it's still a requirement, but back then (1988) a person couldn't get their diploma until they took at least a quarter of Swimming as a Physical Education elective, AND passed the class by proving they could swim across the deep end and back. I assume that's due to the massive amount of coastline that Alaska has, and it's one of the best requirements, in my opinion, that an education system has imposed on K-12 education...

 

[Lone Hunter]

Swim lessons in a pool were just a start at my home. We boat, waterski, canoe and so on. I made my kids swim in cool, cloudy, green, wavy water in the bays and Lake Ontario .

At the YMCA they learned to swim in warm, clear,flat water where in one or two strokes they could grab a side of the pool or stand up.

Nothing like the water they were likely to find themselves in trouble in.

 

[dantzk8]

I think swimming is one of the skills many people do not learn when they were supposed to (as boys), and then they sort of "never get to it", but one day those skills come in handy, like:

- bicycle riding
- motorcycle riding
- driving with a stick shift
- cyclone fence jumping
- rope climbing
- tree climbing

What else did I forget?

Walking, running.

dantzk.

 

[bexteck]

My high school didn't have a pool, so swimming class wasn't really an option. I do think schools should require students to learn basic cpr and first aid as a part of health class.

I am a red cross lifeguard instructor, so I have seen quite a few people in the water, and it always amazes me to see people who can't tread water or even come close to doing a crawl stroke. Even some of the students that enroll in my lifeguard classes have trouble with the basic strokes. One person didn't even want to put his head in the water when he swam!

I wonder if any of this has to do with the fact that most people in the US are overweight, and the majority of young people spend more time in front of their video games than they do outside.

 

[tarmix101]

I think swimming is one of the skills many people do not learn when they were supposed to (as boys), and then they sort of "never get to it", but one day those skills come in handy, like:

- bicycle riding
- motorcycle riding
- driving with a stick shift
- cyclone fence jumping
- rope climbing
- tree climbing

What else did I forget?

Fort building of course

I had a friend in High School that couldn't swim. Apparently she was subject to a cousin drowning in her early years (5-6-7) I can't remember. Other than that....I see very little reason not to learn other than maybe geographic (living in the dessert).

 

[bulgron]

Bulgron: My 9 year old just got into synchronized swimming this past spring and loves it. We tried to get her onto a swim team but "swimming laps was boring". So we looked into other swimming sports. We found a local synchronized swim team and shw really took to it!

Heh heh. Well, expect her to be able to hold her breath like there's no coming up for air ever again. I've never seen anyone who could stay underwater longer than my wife.

In fact, we met in a scuba diving class. When you first take diving, they make you swim a ways on top of the water and then swim some more underwater, just to show you're comfortable doing it. Well, on the surface swim I couldn't help but notice that she was keeping up with me. So when it came time for the underwater swim, I buddied up with her just to see how she did.

The deal was, you had to make it 3/4 of the way down the pool underwater.

So it's our turn and we take off. We get to the 3/4 mark, look at each, shrug, keep going. Then we get to the far end of the pool, look at each other, shrug, turn around and head back. Then we get back to the starting point, look at each other, shrug, turn around, and head on back down the pool.

I finally came up for air halfway down on the third length. She made it a few strokes farther than I did.

Funny thing was, the instructors almost failed us. Of the three there on deck, two weren't paying attention so all they saw was us coming up halfway down the pool. So we didn't make the distance, right? Fortunately, the third instructor was watching all of this and laughing his ass off, so we were golden.

Of course, come time for the open water dives, all of this came back to haunt us. The first thing you do for your open water is some free diving -- you use a snorkle and no air tanks. So they take the class out into the ocean (Monterey Bay) to do our free dives and they stop everyone in about 10 or 20 feet of water. Except for me and my future wife, that is. Us, they grab by our vests and keep dragging out into the bay, farther and farther until we're in about 45 or 50 feet of water.

"OK smartass," they tell me, "go to the bottom and bring me back a shell."

So I did.

They did not expect this. So then they turn to my future wife and they tell her to go to the bottom and bring back a hermit crab. Ha ha ha, no way is she going to pull that one off.

But she did.

After that, I just had to marry her, you see. Just had to.

Sorry for running on like this, but the story still makes me laugh.

 

[flipe8]

My wife's family is from a small island on the Bay of Fundy just above the state of Maine. The only real vocation is in fisheries and countless fishers cannot swim there. The main reason is that there isn't really anywhere to learn for many of them. You're not inclined to take it up as a pasttime in year-round frigid waters. Stranger still, most don't wear any sort of life preserver as they'd rather drown quickly than freeze to death in the event of a capsize. I'm not saying it makes sense, but it's from the horses' mouth. Things are changing with the newer generation, though.

 

[x39]

flipe8- which island? Campobello? Grand Manan? That's right in my area, but I live in Maine. I've known scads of commercial fishermen that were incapable of swimming. Quite remarkable.