If not, why haven’t you learned how?
Yes. My dad tried to tech me but he was not patient enough so he showed me some things and then just left me in the water to go sunbathing himself. But somehow this seemed enough so I kept at it and could swim a bit, then over the years always a little better and so on. Still today my technique is quite bad but I can swim forever, just not as fast as other people.
Yes. In sweden every child has been taught to swim for almost 100 years.
Wow, you have some very old kids 😵😆
Look at Sweden, again dunking dunking on the rest of us without even trying. ;-)
Yes. Am Dutch
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.
As an Aussie I remember meeting foreigners when I was a youngster, and just being totally bewildered that they couldn’t swim. To me, it was as if they had said they never learnt to run, or how to open a door.
My next lesson came when I took a foreign friend who could swim to the beach. I swam out past the breakers and bobbed around wondering where they were… Turns out that not everyone grew up around waves, and they didn’t know you could dive under them. So they were still back by the beach, waist deep, just getting smashed around constantly.
Yeah, this is basically how it goes. It depends what country you grew up in. Canada is the same way, almost everyone who grew up in Canada can swim (not necessarily well, but able to manage). This is partly due to the number of lakes that exist near populated areas so swimming is a common passtime and boating accidents are a fairly high cause of accidental death. There are some countries where it is much more rare.
Nearly everywhere in my country mandates lessons, so yeah
How does that work, is it done through school?
There was some discussion about it here (Canada) last summer
https://globalnews.ca/news/10610765/bc-mandatory-swimming-lessons/
Here in Denmark it is through school.
Nope. Couldn’t afford lessons, no one had a pool and I lived in a predominantly black city. I’d like to one day just for safely but I usually just sink like a rock.
How is living in a predominantly black city relevant?
According to statistics they’re less likely to know how to swim. Less swimmers means they’d have less places to swim.
But according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the fatal drowning rate of African-American children aged five-14 is three times that of white children.
A recent study sponsored by USA Swimming uncovered equally stark statistics.
Just under 70% of African-American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim. Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end. A further 12% said they could swim but had “taught themselves”.
- Source: Why don’t black Americans swim? (bbc.com, Sept. 2010)
There is a relatively unknown (outside of the black community) bias against swimming. Slaves were traumatized to be hydrophobic to prevent escape from slave ships and then there was segregation of pools until relatively recently. This is fortunately fading now, last I checked.
For ~25 years I was too lean to float, so it’s a good thing I could swim.
Yes - after I nearly drowned in the ocean as a child, I was promptly enrolled in swimming lessons.
Yes, I went and learned as an adult, even. I figured the world is 70% water and I really needed to have a chance in case of a surprise encounter with it.
yes but barely. I basically do backstroke and sidestroke. never could get the hang of putting my face in and out of the water. There are a few others I can do where you keep your head out but they are relatively useless so don’t really do them.
I started taking lessons about a year ago. I’m glad I have. At least I feel like I might have a chance if something happens and I end up in deeper water than I can just stand in.
Despite living in a country surrounded by water, no, I can’t swim. I don’t go in water I can’t stand in
I was varsity swim team in high school.
It was what all the freaks, weirdos, and gay boys did for a sport because no one came to watch our swim meets but our families. It gave us a sense of privacy and community at the same time.
I miss it a lot sometimes. I haven’t had access to a pool to do laps in in like twenty years.
It’s my favorite type of exercise.
EDIT: I just had a core memory resurface. We got in trouble in my senior year because we did a team photo where we all dropped our speedos to our ankles and covered our junk with our swim caps that had our high schools name on them.
Yeah, I was swimming as a child and eventually took lessons later on. It’s like second nature now, not knowing how to swim seems like not knowing how to walk to me. I can’t imagine what it’s like. I never swam competitively or for exercise, just for recreation.
Yes, and according to my parents I didn’t learn how to swim, I just instinctively did it, in a similar fashion to how I just started running one day. I don’t remember learning how to swim either it’s just something I’ve always been able to do.
