When And Where Did You Learn To Swim?
By M.-L.
@MALUSE (69413)
Germany
October 5, 2021 9:40am CST
I learnt to swim when I was six years old. The local open-air swimming pool in our town in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) had a special contraption for this stuck into the rim of the pool. Imagine the two metal poles holding a lifeboat on board a ship, it looked a bit like that. I had a firm band round my chest, about 15 cm broad closed at the back, with a rope clasped in ending in an eye so that it could move along the tight wire between the tops of the two poles which were about five metres apart. The instructor was standing outside telling me what to do. When I had learnt the basics, I went to a summer camp on an island in the Baltic sea where I learnt to swim freely in salt water and to enjoy waves.
My mother and I left the GDR when I was eleven years old and moved to a town in Lower Saxony on the river Weser, one of the three German rivers flowing into the North Sea. We were about 50 km south of the coast and lived with the tides. We went swimming when the tide was high and the surface of the water calm for about half an hour. When the water is flowing in or out, the currents are too strong for most people.
We lived in a house with a garden bordering the river. When the tide was high, I and my friends would swing in the boughs of a weeping willow Tarzan-style and then ass-bomb into the water.
When I was 20 years old, I discovered the Mediterranean Sea. I hadn’t imagined that water could be so warm, so clean, but also so stagnant - no currents, no movement. I felt I wasn’t getting anywhere however much I moved my arms and legs. I bought fins, goggles and a snorkel and discovered a new way of swimming which is more floating and only occasionally moving the arms and legs and looking down at the fish than actively swimming.
After my swimming lessons at the age of six I haven’t learnt anything else. I can only do breast stroke and this not very well. Somehow my right foot doesn’t want to stay under water. Because of this and/or because my left leg is stronger, I always swim slightly to the right if I don’t watch where I’m heading. But who cares? I don’t have to arrive at a certain destination, do I?!
29 people like this
24 responses
@much2say (53959)
• Los Angeles, California
5 Oct 21
I learned to swim at age 14 . . . I took a few weeks of swim lessons during summer. I could get from one end of the pool to the other - and dive off the edge of the pool. However I never mastered treading water and I never truly learned underwater swimming. Til this day, I can float and move just fine . . . I just can't stay in one spot and I have no clue how to swim under the water.
8 people like this
@much2say (53959)
• Los Angeles, California
12 Oct 21
@MALUSE I've seen people swim to the bottom of the pool . . . or swim in the sea with the fishes (underwater like with scuba diving). Those are skills I just never learned. I tend to hold my breath while swimming (I cannot relax), so everyone says I'm like a balloon and remain floating because of that.
3 people like this
@Marilynda1225 (79708)
• United States
5 Oct 21
I love to swim and learned when I was about 7 or 8 years old.
6 people like this
@louievill (28851)
• Philippines
5 Oct 21
I learned to swim when I was 9 or ten years old, my late father became president of Y's Men's club Manila so we went to the YMCA pool often. There was a swimming instructor there, I can still remember his name was Reggie and he offered my father swimming lessons for me and my younger brother ( don't remember if it was free or if my parents paid him)
I never enjoyed swimming that much, I always thought of it as a necessity for survival, I enjoyed it only because it was part of summer vacations and a way of cooling down when temperatures in our country goes way up. I'm more of a mountain than a water person.
4 people like this
@JimBo452020 (42629)
• United Kingdom
5 Oct 21
Do you aim left and drift to the right
I learned to swim before I was 5 years old.
Montrose Beach North Sea.
Grandfather taught me I'm as much as he took me oh his shoulders to where the water was up to his neck
And threw me in
Sink or swim
I did not sink
5 people like this
@xFiacre (12595)
• Ireland
6 Sep 22
@jimbo452020 Ladies always list to either the left or right when they try to swim in a straight line. I think this is because their “flotation devices” may be ever so slightly asymmetrical.
@sprite1950 (30453)
• Corsham, England
15 Oct 21
I learned at school in an outdoor pool when I was 12 and the water was icy cold. If you didn't get in they would push you with a long pole. They opened the pool in May regardless of the weather. In those days pools were not heated. Horrible experience but I did learn to swim.
2 people like this
@sprite1950 (30453)
• Corsham, England
16 Oct 21
@MALUSE I probably thought if I learned quickly they would let me out of the water! I'm glad I'm able to now as it is an important skill.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (156056)
• United States
6 Oct 21
I learned to swim in high school. It was a required class; and you had to swim the length of the pool to graduate. That was scary stuff for me; but I made it!
3 people like this
@zhangxueying (2945)
• China
9 Oct 21
dare not study. I'm afraid of choking water,So I can't swim
2 people like this
@Inlemay (17714)
• South Africa
15 Jan 22
I was taught to swim at age 4 - my elder brother had drowned a few years earlier and my father insisted that all the children WOULD swim properly as soon as possible - luckily we all loved the water - the remaining 5 children that is, and we have taught our own children and grandchildren to swim at age 4 now as well.
1 person likes this
@1creekgirl (40515)
• United States
5 Oct 21
Loved your post! I never learned to swim...too late now!.. and really don't want to.
2 people like this
@Danielclark691 (1066)
•
30 Oct 21
I learned to swim in a pool. I imagine most people did, though some could have learnt in the sea.
2 people like this
@Shellyjane (462)
• United Kingdom
7 Nov 21
We had about a week of swimming lessons in School but that was very basic, I learned to swim on holiday properly in Majorca, however I think not learning as a child was detrimental as I have never been a strong swimmer.
2 people like this
@merrybelle2021 (1389)
• Philippines
6 Oct 21
I learned something about the Mediterranean Sea.
I can propel myself from one end of the pool to another with my legs, no strokes, eyes down but open, but only on the shallow parts like 2 to 4 ft.
There are people here who like night swimming at the beach. I don't know how they see/find each other.
2 people like this
