Do you know how to swim?
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Despite living in a country surrounded by water, no, I can’t swim. I don’t go in water I can’t stand in
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Have you tried emptying your lungs? It sounds crazy, but you actually don't have to completely fill your lungs with air, just enough so that you can last a good while underwater and so that you're no longer buoyant. It takes some practice, and you might panic a little bit at first, but once you get used to that, it just becomes second nature.
The only times I hold as much air as possible are when I'm trying apneas (holding my breath as long as possible), but I stay near the surface for that and I remain inmobile. (Also, make sure there's more people with you and that you're signing that you're fine)
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Username checks out(?
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Nope, I had no school option, and no lake or river around home where I could learn. I went with my parents to the seaside a few days every year, but my dad didn't teach me. When I had kids of my own, it was on the "must" list: teach to ride bike, make sure they can swim.
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Yes - after I nearly drowned in the ocean as a child, I was promptly enrolled in swimming lessons.
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Trusting the float on the back makes sense to be a hard one. It's counterintuitive, the water comes over your face when you start, and you can't hold on to anything. Might be worth getting a personal coach for a session just for that if you haven't already. Someone supporting you might help with the anxiety as long as they're encouraging and not pushy.
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Yes. In sweden every child has been taught to swim for almost 100 years.
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My school gave us swimming lessons but they were not very accommodating to me, I came out of them not knowing how to swim. When I lived with my brother, I taught myself to more or less be able to swim in his pool. It's just very tiring.
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Here in Denmark it is through school.
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Me, too. I've got some extra buoyancy on account of being fat.
While servicing my sailing yacht I dropped a part of the furler in the water while docked. A new piece was stupidly expensive and would take two weeks to get, while I was cruising on a schedule.
So I dropped the anchor and climbed down the chain to look for it. At the end my wife found it. We probably spent a good three hours diving and feeling around in the soft mud for it.
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Yep.
Part of schooling in NZ.
A lot of kids also get extra lessons, because well it's NZ.
note: the furthest from the coast you can get in NZ is 119.44 km (74.22mi)
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Yes. Am Dutch
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Here in Germany we learn that in school in 3rd or 4th grade (ca 9-10 years of age).
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... unless there are not enough teachers, or not enough public pools, or...
The indoor pool I learned swimming closed a decade ago and since then there is no public indoor pool in the city anymore.
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Wow, you have some very old kids
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For some reason I don't remember ever doing such a course. I never got a "Seepferdchen". I learned to swim on my own at some point or with help from my parents.
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I couldn't swim until I was maybe 10 or 11 and it was awful. Thankfully my parents moved and my school mandated lessons - but I wasn't confident until maybe my late teens/early twenties?
I think kids should learn as early as possible and it makes me a bit sad that my niece and nephew haven't learned yet (and are unlikely to as their schools don't teach them and my sibling doesn't seem interested in getting them lessons or teaching them). We live on an island with a lot of water inland - it's more important than other stuff like riding a bike!
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Yeah, sort of. I can do 2km, but pretty slowly.
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Yeah. Because in Australia they take swimming and water safety very seriously. I don't think I know a single person who can't swim at least a little.
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Glad you found the piece. Had to look what that item was. In a word. OUCH
