is it as embarrassing as i’m imagining it to be?

Would almost be starting from scratch as the best i can do is splashing about in a pool, holding my breath underwater and a dodgy looking breast-stroke that makes me neck ache for days after due to holding my head up above the water constantly!

i’m not scared of being in the water but definitely feel uncomfortable when out of my depth and will rush to the side to hold onto something.

it would be a goal for 2011 as at the moment i’m concentrating on loosing weight and increasing my general fitness by riding/gentle gym work and a change of diet for the better. lost a stone so far but still got some to go.

Why not start now? well as embarrassing as it is to admit… i really dont feel comfortable being topless in public so a swimming pool or beach is a nightmare.. however in the past when i’ve been thinner i was able to take t-shirt off at the beach and get over my complex… so by continuing to work hard at the moment i hope that confidence will come back again 🙂

sorry its a bit of a serious thread, here’s a picture representing me in the water.. worried expression and all:

Never too old. My mum taught many a pensioner to get going, some of them got pretty good. Go to a class, everyone’s rubbish and just wants to learn.

There are plenty of private swimming academies nowadays who do 1-2-1 lessons in hotel/country house swimming pools if you want a more intimate environment.

Don’t feel embarrassed about your body – when you look around a pool there are very, very few Mr Universe physiques! I’m overweight have have more body hair than a yeti.

And go for it!

Never too old, indeed.

I decided that i needed to learn after going on holiday for the umpteenth time with mates and doing my hardest to stay away from the pool/sea, even in ridiculous temperatures.
I’m not very comfortable in water, but decided enough was enough.

I enrolled on a council run course in Cambridge – was only something like £50 for 10 or 12 sessions.
I enjoyed it so much I went from the beginner’s 1 class to the Beginner’s 2 class and then onto the improvers class after that to work more on different strokes and improving on your technique.

I still don’t have front crawl nailed down too well, but I am fine doing breast stroke or even back stroke (if the pool is quiet) and we even had time to fit in some some fun sessions like diving….

DO IT!! You’ll wonder what all the fuss was about!!

I don’t like taking my shirt off in public, apart from pasty white and fat, my back is covered in scars that look like I’ve been stabbed several times! Thing is, i think of as being a bit like being naked in front of someone for the first time. There’s curiosity at first, and sometimes people ask about the scars, which I’m not embarrassed about but they tend to be (which is always funny) then you just get on with doing what you’re doing. If its a beginners class then most people will be focusing on the swimming rather than what other people look like!

Swimming is one of those things that everyone assumes that everyone can do. I always thought I was a good swimmer until we went on holiday and my wife (who is quite overweight and very unfit) was leaving me well behind when swimming round the reef, but then, swimming for me was not a leisure activity, its what you do when you fall out of a boat! If you want to swim properly, its like mountain biking. Any fool can get on a bike and pedal it, but having the right technique to do it well makes it more enjoyable and if its more enjoyable you do it more and get fitter. win win!

Sorry for the long post, just trying to encourage you to get in there and swim! (and yeah, i get the achy neck thing, can’t figure out how everyone else doesn’t!)

As MM says, do it once and you’ll feel a whole lot better about yourself. Guaranteed.

If you can get down on a lunchtime, pools often seem quiet. I’m a crap swimmer, but a bit of regular practice has helped enormously outside of any lessons.

I intend to do some to get my technique straightened out at some point.

Phil,

Get in the water buddy. I work part time in the local, council run, leisure centre as a life guard and see all types of body shapes. The ones that look out of place are the buff ones (they generally are poor swimmers to boot) so I wouldn’t let that get to you. The centre I work in offers adult lessons of an evening when the pool is fairly empty. The teachers generally have 4-6 in a class of mixed ability and will have most swimming a full length (25M) of the large pool in a matter of weeks. You don’t need to be fit to swim technique is the key and once you have that your onto a winner. Good luck.

I found sore neck with breast stroke was from looking forwards too much, rather than looking downwards. I found the more confident I got in the water, the less I needed to look where i was going and now spend more time looking at the bottom of the pool.

I hated that feeling of water going up my nose, so always concentrate on blowing out through my nose while swimming. I figure if there’s air coming out, there can’t be water going in.

I struggle without goggles on. If you feel likewise, spend £10-15 on some decent goggles.

have a look around your local area and see if there are any conference centers, they often have pools, gyms, etc which are rarely used, cheap to be a member of and the pools are typically not very long and the same (shallow) depth all the way along.

Can’t help with the lessons but when I went to the pool at 0700 this morning for an hour I saw all shapes and sizes and there is no way I’d judge someone in a pool. You want to see me in my swim suit … euwww I try to forget when I get in the pool as the water helps me float 😉

go for it it’s amazing how much better you will feel

I think you might find learning as an adult quite rewarding, swimming is so technique based that you’ll find you improve really quickly as you learn.

You can always wear a rash vest if you’re a bit self conscious.

HAR HAR!

When you see my moobs at the next sexy party you will feel much betterer.

Sore neck probably from
a)Fear of putting head in the water, so head too high
b)Legs too low in the water, so head too high.

The cat in the picture has head up breastroke rightish – mouth only needs to be just above the water level to breathe in.

You can also swim head down / ‘proper’ breastroke, where your head goes right into the water, which is great in pools, but it is worth knowing how to swim head up for proper outdoor swimming, when you want to at least sometimes have your head up to spot where the heck you are, spot boats etc. (and sometimes head up is nicer if the water is cold).

Joe

Phil, no one really likes what they look like in a cossie anyway. Good luck with the swimming lessons.

OO men in swimming cossie’s now I have a really hideous image…..

cheers for the supportive replies everyone… was ready to arrive back to find “man up” type comments!

what i’m thinking is i’ve just started a membership at a small gym that doesnt have a pool, so i hope to continue there until late spring, fingers crossed by then i’ll be feeling fitter and more confident anyway, then its time to join up to a bigger gym with a pool and sauna (good for the back) or if the gym is no longer needed and as i hopefully start riding even more i’ll look for a swimming lesson type deal somewhere.

good to know there’s other adults out there learning… whenever i’ve been to a pool in the past there’s lots of people doing lengths in the marked off lanes and im stuck with the kids not really doing much!

any thoughts on aquarobics? or am i jsut being silly now haha

Phil, no one really likes what they look like in a cossie pair of speedos anyway.

Errmmmm…

Phil, I’m in the process of sorting out my front crawl. It’s gone from something close to drowning, to something nearing actual swimming. Soon as can organise myself I’m going to get a proper swimming lesson or two. Was chatting with someone else about the same subject just this weekend. Reckon there’s loads more people in the same boat as you.

front crawl?! are you mad?! you might as well drown yourself in a puddle as it’ll be much less traumatic than trying to do something as advanced as the front crawl!

see….even without water you’re pretty much simuating your own death 😯

I learnt when i was 23. Never too old, I’ll never reach olympic standard but i might not drown!

Bit daunting to begin with, my class was immediatedly after the kids class, those wee yins were good 🙂

Invisible pools are all the rage with cats these days.

Cats are frickin’ idiots.

why are you bailing out of learning now? the swimming will help tone you up a bit. why wait until late spring? go to a public pool, observe from the balcony, count how many people are in worse shape than you, then get some lessons sorted. you may even find the teacher isn’t in great shape.

the first thing I learnt to do was hold my breath for a veeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry long time.

they sure are! i wouldnt trust one to save me if i was drowning…..

still trying to learn to ride my bike iDave! plus only jsut started the gym, and its the season to burn some money on slope time snowboarding… will have the free time and money to do it in spring 🙂

not bailing out, just waiting until i can sensibly manage it and have some time to practice what i’ve learnt.

be proud of me dave, i’ve lost over a stone on a diet thats taken influence from yours 🙂

Phil; don’t feel any shame in joining a learn to swim class. Don’t.

Go for it mate. See it as a challenge, like learning another language or something.

Good luck with learning to swim!

I used to hate going topless when I was a teenager so I can identify with how you feel.

phil – I developed a fear of water which meant that it was becoming awkward when taking my kids swimming. I even had a problem with showering!

I booked lessons at Bracknell Sports Centre and the instructor was brilliant – no pointing and laughing whatsoever. I eventually graduated to the ‘training pool’ and managed a length without going into panic mode. That was serious progress.

Nevertheless, I decided that once my kids were older, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near a swimming pool. I really dislike swimming and would rather be out in the fresh air.

But I confronted my fear and that felt good.

Hope this helps. 🙂

i do love confronting fears… its a definite plan, just gotta wait til spring has sprung 🙂 and i’ve got over paying for snowboarding holiday and a session with jedi in feb

just passed my level asa assistant teacers level 1 level 2 in may then ill be a swimming teacher yeah cant wait,i allready teach at the local swimming club as a volunteer,who payed for the first course and will pay for the level 2 course(£690)i have started swimming again after i teach,with the older kids after about 15 yrs away form training swimming it was really hard work at first but getting easyer again and better than been in the gym.

Definitely invest in a pull buoy to teach yourself crawl, is a float you put between ure legs so you just concentrate on the top half of your body and your breathing. Make sure your wearing goggles as well and you’ll have crawl sorted in no time. ‘Total Immersion’ by Terry Mclaughlin is a fantastic book to teach yourself technique and how to postion your body correctly. Have gone from almost a non-swimmer to swimming 3 miles for ‘charidy’ this year and I swim about 1.5 per week. Oh yes and my body has lengthened by 1 3/4 inches, I grew taller!

As others have noted good goggles make swimming much more pleasant.
Our pool did a thing called the stroke improvement clinic, which was basically free lessons by trainee instructors.

lots of adult lessons at my pool – they only cater to beginners.
i had a lot of lessons as a kid and have recently getting back into it; $was swimming 1/2 mile a day before getting knocked off my bike; slowly working back up to it.

swimming is great exercise and i find it really calming. as said above there will be all sorts at the pool. a guy this week had long trousers and sleeves on!

get some goggles and get some lessons.

🙂

Got back into swimming 2 years back after sitting watch my kids swimming with the local club, thought I would be as well swimming instead of sitting!
Was the club open 400 tonight swam it in 6:11:something not great but an improvement on last years time although was beaten by my lad who swam it in 5:26:76.
Well worth getting some proper lessons more for the technique, nothing better than a nice swimming technique and don’t worry about size as the more fat you have the more buoyant you will be.

Nothing to be embarrassed about…it’s a good thing to be able to do…you don’t need to be Olympic standard, just good enough to feel confident that you won’t drown and CAN do it…nothing to be stressed about.

At the opposite end of the scale my daughter is 2.5 (not entirely appropriate but stick with me) – we go ‘swimming’ a couple of times a week – she loves it but she is only now just learning to keep her head above the water – she swims about 2 feet but she loves jumping in and just larking about – I’m using the principle of having fun and playing to get her to suddenly just ‘do’ it…she is starting to make moves but still can’t swim. She doesn’t use armbands and just goes for it – can’t touch the bottom but will just leap in and thrash about (I only leave her doing this for 3-4 seconds as I’m not always convinced it is ‘controlled’)

If you can make yourself think as a 2.5 year old does about swimming then you will realise that you don’t need to be able to swim 50 lengths in record time – just have fun and try a wee bit more on each visit…your stroke will improve with practice so don’t worry at all about going in and only doing a bit.

The swimming lessons that go on seem to have various age groups so it isn’t just you and certainly isn’t an issue for the adults who are learning.

I reckon you’ll have it mastered in no time if you just keep giving it a wee bit more each visit.

Just enjoy it and it will all float into place.

If youre worried about being out of your depth, take a good breath, keep your arms in the water, sculling for stability and try to sink. You really have to work at it.

Just get on with it. No-one is interested in looking at you, they’re there to learn to swim too.

My wife can barely swim, her parents never took her (didn’t swim either) and consequently she is practically phobic. Even in waist deep water, she’s worried she’ll slip over or something. She did take some lessons but is so afraid of the water she soon packed in. Sadly, it means she can’t come with me and the girls every weekend, and is missing out on so much of the fun we have.

Not wanting to start an argument here (and not getting into a merits vs demerits of Baby swimming, etc.,) but… I think it should practically be compulsory to learn to swim as kids. If you don’t at that age you are almost always intimidated when you come to learn later. I can sympathise with parents who don’t swim and therefore can’t take their kids, and lessons are expensive, but families where one or both parents can swim and still don’t take their children make me feel so sorry for the kids.