When did you learn to swim? How? Where?

[chepar]

There are pictures of my dad and I at the beach - I suppose I was about 2 1/2 years old, and he was attempting to teach me how to float on my back - but I really have little recollection of that.

I started formal swimming lessons at about 3 years of age.

I took swim lessons year 'round from then until I was about 11 or 12.

 

[mtdivegirl]

According to my parents my dad threw me in a pool at six months old, diaper in tow, and i just sort of started swimming. I never took formal lessons but I remember swimming in elementary school as part of our recess. As I got older I started doing different swim related things and found myself being a junior lifeguard for a few years at the beach and local pools.
Sometimes I wish I would have learned formally, because old habits die hard and I still have trouble breathing out my nose...im sorry but its just not natural to breathe out your nose under water .

 

[MSilvia]

I started swimming lessons when I was six or so, but was terrified of leaving the shallow end until I borrowed a pair of swim goggles. As soon as I could see underwater, it was like I was born again.

The next time I went, I had my eyes open while swimming along the bottom (blurry was good enough), and surfaced right next to the diving board. Pretty soon, one of my favorite games was throwing a bunch of coins into the pool and seeing which of us could retrieve the most of them before surfacing.

 

[KC_Scubabunny]

My swimming is a bit odd but maybe that is because it goes with my family!

When I was 2 1/2 my parent lived in southern california but went to visit my great grandfather in Central Oregon for vacation. My great grandfather was an avid fisherman and had taught my dad fly fishing at a very young age. My dad was anxious to get my mom involved in the sport so they took me to the Metoleous (sp) River just outside of Sisters, OR to watch my great grandfather and parents do some fly fishing. Well evidently fly fishing isn't that exciting to a toddler (who would have guessed!) so I was wondering up and down the river getting into trouble. My great grandfather had a keen idea to tie a rope around my waist and the other end around a tree to give me a play area but keep me out of harms way. Well evidently I managed to work that rope loose from the tree at some point because I ended up floating down the river clothes, rope and all. I have been back to the Metoleous many times since then and since it is snow fed directly from the Three Sisters Mountains, it is about 40 degrees all the time. My parents said that I kept my head up like a natural and bobbed down the river until they could get ahold of the rope and pull me out. I told every stranger that we ran into the rest of the trip and for a month after we got home that on my vacation "I went swimming with a rope." I am sure that was sufficiently embarassing for my parents.

I have never had any natural fear of water since. I water-skied and surfed by the time I was 7 or 8. Unfortunately my family moved to Kansas so the city swimming pool was as much water as I saw for many years. My only regret is that I have never had formal swimming lessons. My technique is something close to horrible. I would like to take some actual swimming lessons because I think I would enjoy swimming for exercise but I ever have gotten the breathing rhthym down and end up holding my breath too long.

KC_Scubabunny

 

[SCUBAKristey]

I also have no recollection of WHEN I began swimming in the ocean. Being a Navy Brat- we were always seaside at the beach! I can remember though- When I was 8 we moved to Seattle. I had not really been in a swimming pool much and the deep end scared the daylights out of me. My parents left me swimming with my sister Lisa, who promptly tugged me out to the deep end and LEFT ME THERE! I had to swim out of it myself. She did it to me another three or four times, until it stopped terrifying me- at which point it was no longer fun for her anymore! (Pretty funny, since I was more than used to being in the Pacific with the waves rolling over my head, and my feet nowhere NEAR to touching the sand.) It's also her "fault" I dive now! She'd been bugging me for a few years to get certified so she could have a good buddy. (She's now a DM candidate!!!)

 

[JDostal]

I was about five or six, and I took classes offered at the high school pool in my hometown where I grew up. There were three courses, each one lasting at least several weeks (I don't remember exactly how long). In the first one you learned backfloat, dead man's float, dog paddle...simple stuff. In the next one you learned more advanced strokes, and in the last one...you learned something more, just not sure what =) I don't know who ran the courses at all...I know if you kept up with them though you could take the lifeguard courses (which I never did). I just wanted to learn how to swim up and down the stream that ran through my backyard =)

 

[annabelle]

I was very young, about 3. I grow up in LA (Lower Alabama) and water was everywhere. I was water skiing at 5. Still love the water and always will!

 

[java]

By my mother at age 5 in a small above ground pool.
Took many swimming courses afterwards in the Y followed by any lifegaurd course I could. Was a lifeguard for years before I got into SCUBA

 

[jrtonkin]

Dunno when I actually learned to swim; sometime very early in life... According to my mother, I went through a phase when I was around 3 or 4 where I refused to go swimming any more. The implication being that not only was I swimming before that, but was doing so on a regular enough basis that stopping was a noticeable change.

Then again, with each set of grandparents having cottages, parents who sailed and canoed, an uncle who kayaked, etc. It's not really surprising that I ended up nearly amphibious.

Didn't actually get scuba-certified until my mid-twenties though. Partly time-and-money, partly just didn't get around to it, but mostly probably because of a (percieved) lack of places to go around here.

Oh well, one of these days I'll make it down to where the water's warm, and the fish are something other than greenish-brown and ugly. Until then, I'll have to work on getting the experience to get down to the deeper/more-interesting wrecks up here.

Jamie

 

[Soggy]

I was in the water and able to float by myself before I could walk. My parents got me in the water soon after I was born. As for when I could "swim" (crawl, backstroke, etc), I can't say. Probably by age three or four.