But I want to comment on a great article I read this morning and an incident that happened earlier this week involving the DigiSon. And maybe somebody will read this, and they will go out and learn to swim, and potential tragedy will be averted.
Swimming suffers from a lack of diversity. A recent study showed that roughly 70% of African American and 60% of Latino children have little or no swimming ability, numbers reflecting their parents' lack of skill.
But [Conrad] Cooper's kidney-shaped saltwater pool — lined by bamboo and palm trees — is typically full of diversity: blacks and Latinos from the Crenshaw area, devout Jews from Mid-City, and Asian families from the San Fernando Valley. Famous actors and musicians bring their kids here. So do plumbers.
LA Times writer Kurt Streeter writes a lovely article about going to Cooper to overcome his fear of the water and - at the age of 45 - learn to swim. Streeter has a two-year-old son, Ashe, to whom he wants to teach swimming and not have him grow up with his father's fear. Conrad Cooper is known as the "Swim Whisperer" and offers classes for adults as well as children.
I have an 11-year-old son. This past week, we went swimming at Baby Falls, a natural swimming hole along the Tellico River here in Tennessee. Baby Falls is about 10 feet high and drops you into a pool of about 20 feet in depth. No worry about rocks but the water at the base is churning from the falls, which can be disorienting. My son did not want to go over the falls and stayed above it, playing along the side of the river in nice rock pools. But boys being boys, while goofing around with another kid, he strayed too far towards the middle of the river - and the current picked him up and dumped him over the falls.
And down he went . . . then came to the surface, swam to the shore, and that was that. No crying, no screaming, no panic - he just handled it the way for which he had been prepared by two things: swimming lessons since he was a baby (starting at the Mommy and Me classes at the Australian Swim School that used to be in Santa Ana) and my mother drilling him with the admonition that the real killer in unforeseen circumstances, whether it is being swept over a waterfall or being in a car accident, is panic.
I am surprised by the number of adults I meet who cannot swim, especially those who grew up in Southern California with its strong beach culture. I grew up in the Bronx, and before I even started school, my mother took me and my siblings to the YMHA (no typo, that stands for Young Men's Hebrew Association, a counterpart to the YMCA) on the Grand Concourse, where a huge woman named Toby was the instructor, and known for her ability to teach kids to swim. Later at Camp Marydell in Nyack, NY, I honed my techniques and even earned Red Cross badges in lifesaving. During the winter months, a favorite outing on a Saturday was to trudge through the snow to Fordham University, who had an open swim at its indoor pool; I can still recall the steamy warmth and chlorine smell of it, and the thick bathing cap they made us wear.
I am sure I have met more adults who cannot swim because I believe there are those who identify as being able to swim, but really cannot. I am talking about those who can dog paddle or tread water, but have never done so for any length of time. You know who you are - sure, you might jump into the deep end, but quickly - and somewhat frantically - make your way to the side of the pool that's never further than about 15 feet and grab that ledge as soon as you can. And then spend most of the time lounging in the shallow end. The few times you attempt to stroke, you keep your head above the water and run out of breath within five strokes. Which is fine for the few times out of the year when you find yourself at a pool, usually on vacation, and at a hotel or resort. The outing to Baby Falls? Well, you just wouldn't go - and that is likely a good thing because I think if the same thing happened to you as did to my son, the outcome would be different . . . and tragic.
Kudos to Kurt Streeter for taking the plunge (pun intended) and showing people that yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and it is never too late to learn a skill that can be passed on to your children and your grandchildren.
And what about that great way of swimming I mentioned at the beginning of this post? My friend, Jason, is a triathlete who hates the swimming part, especially since it would drain him of his reserves that he needed for the running and biking segments. My problem was breathing - I learned to do the crawl in the traditional manner that required a lot of arm and leg work, and the breaths I grabbed between strokes are not enough now in the middle age to make it to the end of the pool. The solution for us both is Total Immersion swimming. I won't go into a detailed explanation, but will say that this technique, developed by coach Terry Laughlin, uses simple physics and common sense to swim in a streamlined fashion. Hello, I am 51 years old and overweight by quite a bit. I used his technique and tried this experiment - I swam 25 meters (the length of the pool at my local YMCA), paused for less than 5 seconds, swam back, and then forced myself to breath using only my nose to see if I could recover without having to gasp for air at the end of 50 meters . . . and I could. Laugh if you will, but compared to where I was less than two months ago, that is a BIG accomplishment! And even better - I enjoyed doing it. It gets my "zen" on.
And this video was the one who convinced me to buy the book and order the DVD for Total Immersion - because I want to do this (with underwater speakers pumping in the technomusic, yeah!):
I am proud of my son for keeping his cool. I am sure that he had a moment of panic when he realized he was going over the waterfall, but he overcame it and allowed his training to kick in. And shrugged it off.
Oh, and . . . went over the falls again.
LA Times writer Kurt Streeter writes a lovely article about going to Cooper to overcome his fear of the water and - at the age of 45 - learn to swim. Streeter has a two-year-old son, Ashe, to whom he wants to teach swimming and not have him grow up with his father's fear. Conrad Cooper is known as the "Swim Whisperer" and offers classes for adults as well as children.
I have an 11-year-old son. This past week, we went swimming at Baby Falls, a natural swimming hole along the Tellico River here in Tennessee. Baby Falls is about 10 feet high and drops you into a pool of about 20 feet in depth. No worry about rocks but the water at the base is churning from the falls, which can be disorienting. My son did not want to go over the falls and stayed above it, playing along the side of the river in nice rock pools. But boys being boys, while goofing around with another kid, he strayed too far towards the middle of the river - and the current picked him up and dumped him over the falls.
And down he went . . . then came to the surface, swam to the shore, and that was that. No crying, no screaming, no panic - he just handled it the way for which he had been prepared by two things: swimming lessons since he was a baby (starting at the Mommy and Me classes at the Australian Swim School that used to be in Santa Ana) and my mother drilling him with the admonition that the real killer in unforeseen circumstances, whether it is being swept over a waterfall or being in a car accident, is panic.
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| A friend's teen goes over Baby Falls |
I am sure I have met more adults who cannot swim because I believe there are those who identify as being able to swim, but really cannot. I am talking about those who can dog paddle or tread water, but have never done so for any length of time. You know who you are - sure, you might jump into the deep end, but quickly - and somewhat frantically - make your way to the side of the pool that's never further than about 15 feet and grab that ledge as soon as you can. And then spend most of the time lounging in the shallow end. The few times you attempt to stroke, you keep your head above the water and run out of breath within five strokes. Which is fine for the few times out of the year when you find yourself at a pool, usually on vacation, and at a hotel or resort. The outing to Baby Falls? Well, you just wouldn't go - and that is likely a good thing because I think if the same thing happened to you as did to my son, the outcome would be different . . . and tragic.
Kudos to Kurt Streeter for taking the plunge (pun intended) and showing people that yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and it is never too late to learn a skill that can be passed on to your children and your grandchildren.
And what about that great way of swimming I mentioned at the beginning of this post? My friend, Jason, is a triathlete who hates the swimming part, especially since it would drain him of his reserves that he needed for the running and biking segments. My problem was breathing - I learned to do the crawl in the traditional manner that required a lot of arm and leg work, and the breaths I grabbed between strokes are not enough now in the middle age to make it to the end of the pool. The solution for us both is Total Immersion swimming. I won't go into a detailed explanation, but will say that this technique, developed by coach Terry Laughlin, uses simple physics and common sense to swim in a streamlined fashion. Hello, I am 51 years old and overweight by quite a bit. I used his technique and tried this experiment - I swam 25 meters (the length of the pool at my local YMCA), paused for less than 5 seconds, swam back, and then forced myself to breath using only my nose to see if I could recover without having to gasp for air at the end of 50 meters . . . and I could. Laugh if you will, but compared to where I was less than two months ago, that is a BIG accomplishment! And even better - I enjoyed doing it. It gets my "zen" on.
And this video was the one who convinced me to buy the book and order the DVD for Total Immersion - because I want to do this (with underwater speakers pumping in the technomusic, yeah!):
I am proud of my son for keeping his cool. I am sure that he had a moment of panic when he realized he was going over the waterfall, but he overcame it and allowed his training to kick in. And shrugged it off.
Oh, and . . . went over the falls again.
2 comments:
OK, sell me on this. It looks to me from that video like the guy is not breathing at all. That would scare the hell out of me. What would be the advantage of a swimming technique where you don't breathe?
Anita, watch the underwater shots. You will see that he turns not just his head, but rolls his entire body to the side, which brings his face to the air to take a breath. Plus, swimming this way - where you are basically using an elongation of your body, propulsion from your hips, and taking advantage of your glide - requires less effort than the usual way, so you can take smaller breaths or do bilateral breathing more easily. Yesterday, I did a light swim - 1/2 mile - using only this method. I am not doing it perfectly yet, but it is "clicking" and I am simply amazed that I can swim a lap (50 meters) at an easy pace and not be out of breath when I reach the end.
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