Can You Swim?

[Birdjaguar]

I learned as a child growing up along the Chesapeake Bay. Our neighbors also had a big in ground pool. I also took lessons. As a side note, back in the 1960s UNC, required all freshman to pass a swimming test. I love swimming, especially in the ocean.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ocean not a big fan. Salt and it's cold here.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

My dad taught me some things when I was really young, I had a couple years of group lessons in school, and also have a natural affinity for it. I feel very comfortable in water and can swim well in most any conditions. I just hate swimming with other people and wear a shirt every time I do so.

 

[rah]

Most parents taught their kids to swim early back in the 60's where we lived. And if they didn't, it was a requirement for high school PE where we had a semester swimming. No suites though. Very traumatic for some. They did let the girls wear suits though.

 

[tjs282]

No suites though. Very traumatic for some.

Was there any even-close-to-rational justification presented for this, or were your Phys.Ed. teachers just perverts?

 

[Zardnaar]

Underwear or shorts?

 

[rah]

The rational actually made sense back then. The school officials figured that the boys wouldn't maintain their suits and would just throw them into their lockers wet along with their dry gym issue. And mildew would result. (at least that was what happened every time they tried to institute that) The girls would actually take care of them.
It was a common practice back then and only a few really shy kids ever complained. I could just imagine the crapstorm it would generate today.

The shower rooms were all just one large open area so it really wasn't that different. Looking back it does seem a bit weird but it didn't seem so then.

We didn't own our gym issues. They swapped out a clean outfit every week.

 

[Ferocitus]

Who had swimming pools?

snips

Old haunts down the coast. We used to cycle down the eroded road. Almost 10ks of coastline to swim at.

You have 10km of coast near you? How adorable! Do you have to cut holes in the ice in summer?

Many Australian schools have swimming pools, many use local public pools. Swimming lessons were compulsory in primary school when I was a kid.

We even have a Public Swimming pool that is named after an Aussie PM who drowned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre

For fraidy-cats who are scared of sharks, some beaches have swimming pools next to the sea.
Here's the one at Bondi. (You might have heard of Bondi Beach - it's the suburb where most New Zealanders register for the dole when they come to Australia.)

 

[CKS]

I don't remember learning to swim. Apparently my parents took me to swim lessons as a baby. When I was a little kid, we lived by the ocean for 6 years, and my entire childhood we spend summers by a (freezing cold) lake. My brother and I spent lots of time in the water, and we took lessons for a while to learn a bunch of formal strokes. When I went to college, there was a swimming test. If you didn't pass, you had to take swimming as one of your PE classes. The athletic department timed you, and if you were fairly fast they tried to get you to join the swim team.

I don't really like swimming in the pool, though - it is boring. I rather like to snorkel, but it is something I only really do when I visit my parents, at the same freezing cold lake from my childhood. If I don't have a mask on my face, though, I don't put my face in the water.

My kids both know how to swim. My daughter likes it a lot, and my son just likes to play in the water. He only really swims because we won't let him water-ski unless he demonstrates pretty good swimming proficiency.

 

[Zkribbler]

We had a pool when I was 3rd-6th grade. I learned to swim in it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I've always been a good swimmer, but I don't do it often because I hate chlorinated, swimming-pool water. I love swimming in fresh water and in the ocean, but living in a city in the Northeast, neither is very convenient. The river that runs through the city was swimmable as recently as the 1940s-1950s, and there were public beaches up and down it. But by the time I was a kid in the 1970s, the river was so polluted you needed a tetanus booster if you went in. The harbor was even worse. The river's been cleaned up a lot in the last 20 years, but the beaches are long gone, and even though people sail and row on the river all the time, I'm not sure swimming in it would be a great idea. I think swallowing some river water wouldn't be life-threatening anymore, but it would be unpleasant, at best.

A remember reading a while back about refugees drowning in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe because they couldn't swim. The reason they couldn't swim was because the wildlife in their part of Africa made swimming too dangerous. Your village might be near a river, but get anywhere near a hippo or an alligator, and you're a goner. So I suppose there are places where swimming for recreation just makes you look insane.

 

[Lexicus]

I was a competitive swimmer for nine years. Wasn't that good or anything but still know the strokes and went to Charlotte NC every spring for our team's biggest meet. I've been looking into joining an adult swim team but it's expensive.

 

[rah]

I wish I swam more. It's good exercise. (which I need to do more of these days)

 

[Lexicus]

I wish I swam more. It's good exercise. (which I need to do more of these days)

same yo. I get a lot of lower-body exercise but my upper body has gone flabby af

 

[Farm Boy]

Poorly, but yes. Pools are sorta boring and the ocean is revolting, so I don't think I'm missing out on anything in particular.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I got swimming lessons as a kid and got taken to pools pretty regularly. I don't swim in the ocean though as I'm too afraid of sharks. The most I'll do is get in about waste deep and only with other people around. Unfortunately, the Pacific is a lot colder than the Gulf or even the Atlantic to an extent so I don't get into the water much here.

 

[Truthy]

As a side note, back in the 1960s UNC, required all freshman to pass a swimming test.

That seems pretty odd. Why? Were there other fitness tests (running a mile, doing some pull-ups, etc)?

 

[Farm Boy]

From what I understand the boomers got P.E. out of the requirements in higher education. Used to be that whole fit body fit mind thing in theory, but it was easier to cut it as a requirement than figure out how to work in erratas.

 

[AmazonQueen]

That seems pretty odd. Why? Were there other fitness tests (running a mile, doing some pull-ups, etc)?

Theres an incident in Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut where a diplomat loses his job because 30 odd years before his physical was conducted incorrectly.

 

[Snerk]

Without fins I'm not a great swimmer. I know the basics but I'm not particularly graceful. But it's enough because if you fall into the ocean hereabouts then you won't last very long anyway if there's nobody to pick you up.