And I thought I was hooked on scuba.....

Just watched an IMAX Dolphins DVD. The dolphinologist is swimming around with Flipper and his friedns off Andros Island.

I was AMAZED at the grace of swimming under water. Now, obviously, an awful lot of that grace must be created in the editing room but still it looked very cool to be swimming freely 4 or 5 feet under water.

Stupid question but...how do you do this?

The swimmers in the movie were just in bathing suits or wetsuits - no weights. They were doing all sorts of twists and turns while cavorting with the dolphins.

Now I can swim underwater from one end of the pool to the other but that is just barely below the surface. How do you get down and manuevar at some depth?

A sort of related question - I have never been a good swimmer, in part because I defined "swimming" as a crawl stroke with breathing and I simply could never learn that. I can sidestroke all day or float around on my back and that has finally made me more comfortable in the water but I still consider myself a non-swimmer. How could I go about improving my basic swimming skills? Adult lessons seem few and far between. I suppose I could ask around at the dive shops but I think a lot of divers are just sort of natural swimmers and would not know how to teach it to an old dog.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

You live in Chicago, right? Try your local university's (such as UIC) athletic facilities. I'm sure members of the public can join and these places usually have tons of "learn-to-swim" classes. Or they could refer you to a swimming instructor for private lessons. Good luck in your search.

I felt the same way when I saw the "Dolphins" video here:
http://www.ddnetpix.com/papa/

...the girl diving with the dolphins is using a scooter. Very cool.

I'd give about anything for an opportunity to do this!

Interesting thought...........you got me.

Happy Diving

Supernal:

You live in Chicago, right? Try your local university's (such as UIC) athletic facilities. I'm sure members of the public can join and these places usually have tons of "learn-to-swim" classes. Or they could refer you to a swimming instructor for private lessons. Good luck in your search.

Click to expand...

aye to that..

i enrolled myself in a ten-session learn-to-swim program...im on my 5th session now...and i started from scratch (as in not knowing how to get to the other end of the 25-meter pool)...now i can do 50M with some effort...but now i can do it at least.