Great read.
To the OP, some people just never get near a swimming pool. Another reason could be that someone who could swim played to much with someone who couldn't and attempted to "dunk" them in the pool, thus making them hate water even more.
Learn how to swim - Do not end up like Joe Delaney. He died during one of the summers that I taught swimming at the local pool.
MotionMan
The concept of not learning to swim is absurd to me. I think it should be required to pass a swim test in gym class at some point.
Growing up around lakes and rivers in the Midwest, and the oceans when I've lived on the coasts, I just don't understand how some people have never been in a position where they've needed to swim...even if only in the pool at a rec center.
Schools have pools?
You realize there's nowhere to go in there, right? Thus no swimming required. I've read about teaching infants to swim by just putting them in the water and letting the instincts take over. But like other instincts, I suspect you lose them when you don't have an opportunity to use them for awhile.Thats debatable. Put a infant in water and it just might start dog paddling as well. After all, we all spent 9 months in a space filled with liquid. I dont see how we as humans dont have the instinct to swim.
All you have to do is flail your arms around. I mean it helps if you do it in a coordinated fashion, but you aren't going to drown as long as you keep flailing.
It seems like it would just be common sense anyway.
We had a pool at my highschool. We had to take 2 semesters of swimming in order to graduate.
It really sucked because they didn't heat the pool.
Learn how to swim - Do not end up like Joe Delaney. He died during one of the summers that I taught swimming at the local pool.
MotionMan
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Leonard Pope saves boy's life
ESPN.com news services
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Leonard Pope, whose nickname is "Champ," lived up to the moniker last weekend when he saved a 6-year-old boy from drowning in a swimming pool.
I wasn't waiting on anyone else ... to try to pull him out. I just felt because I have kids of my own I would want someone to do that for my kids, also.
-- Leonard Pope
The Chiefs' backup tight end on Saturday saved the son of a longtime friend from drowning in his hometown of Americus, Ga.
"My heart dropped. It could have been any child ... I just knew I had to do something," Pope said in an interview with "ESPN First Take" on Tuesday. "I wasn't waiting on anyone else ... to try to pull him out. I just felt because I have kids of my own I would want someone to do that for my kids, also."
According to his bio on the Chiefs' website, Pope has two young daughters.
The boy's mother, Anne Moore, told the Americus Times Recorder that Pope was the only person at the party who knew how to swim. Pope said he learned how to swim when he was 9 or 10 years old.
"He saved my son's life, and I am so thankful that he was there for me and my child," she told the newspaper.
Pope jumped into the pool -- wearing all of his clothes, "cell phone, wallet and everything" -- and pulled her son, Bryson, from the water.
"I was coming out of the house, I heard Anne cry. She was like 'get, get him, he's drowning!' I couldn't see Bryson. All I could see was his fingertips at the top of the water and I couldn't see his head," Pope said.
The NFL's lockout turned out to be good fortune for Moore and her son.
"The fact that he is normally at camp and could have been in Kansas City just proved to me that he was placed here to save my son from drowning, and I thank God that he was here," she told the newspaper. "He truly lived up to his nickname 'Champ' because he was truly a champion for me and my son this past weekend."
The Chiefs are an organization that has dealt with a similar tragedy. It was 28 years ago this month that star running back Joe Delaney drowned while trying to save three children from drowning in a Louisiana pond. Two of the children died.
If you've ever taken a small dog and held it just above the surface of a pool, it instinctively begins the dog paddle motion. Humans don't have this instinct.
Consider it similar to the footage of Iraqi/Afghani soldiers trying to do jumping jacks for the first time.
Meh. when I was in basic we had 4 people in my company that had to take swimming lessons. They were all black. I think it was much more relevant that they were inner city.
Ive often wondered who the hell would join the USN when they didn't know how to swim.
Yeah, cause, I mean, who doesn't have their very own pool?everyone who owns a pool should be required to take lessions so they can at least do teh doggie paddle or side stroke
everyone who owns a pool should be required to take lessions so they can at least do teh doggie paddle or side stroke
Yeah, cause, I mean, who doesn't have their very own pool?
same way it seems preposterous someone doesn't know how to read
I don't know how to swim, and it was my primary source of embarrassment growing up.
When I was very young, I had a very traumatic event where I almost drowned, I can still feel the water filling up my nose and going down my throat. The odd thing is, I love being ON the water, but not in it. The feeling of not having terra firma underneath me is an uncomfortable one.
Now that I am older, I have been thinking more and more of taking private 1:1 swim lessons. I have always told myself that once I am proficient with swimming, I will reward myself with SCUBA lessons. I have also been thinking of taking a trip to Hawaii by myself to learn how to swim, among other things, with an instructor of course in a pool.
I don't have the tremendous fear of water so much now days, it has just become something I have not dealt with, but will.
Almost everyone has a phobia, mine is of the aquatic kind. A thread regarding everyone's phobias would be interesting.