Asklemmy

Yeah, I was swimming as a child and eventually took lessons later on. It’s like second nature now, not knowing how to swim seems like not knowing how to walk to me. I can’t imagine what it’s like. I never swam competitively or for exercise, just for recreation.

Yes, but the sea is fucking cold as fuck so I don't. We were required to learn in primary school including the correct way to jump off a boat wearing a life jacket. And how to get a person in distress back to shore.

I knew someone who learned as an adult by reading a book about the mechanics of swimming and then getting into a pool and swimming.

Yes, because I grew up in an area where private pools were very common.

yes, and i even got enrolled (unwillingly) into water polo courses by my older sisters. understandably, the coach hated me because i was overweight and a slow swimmer.

there was a bit of inappropriate verbal harassment from the older members of the water polo team. after that, i got self-conscious and eventually stopped swimming.

maybe i'll try swimming again.

Yep, did survival skills when I was a kid. Treading on water with neck high for 15 minutes, diving in with PJs and plimsoles, and controlling our breath at the bottom of the pool, taking off our shoes and tying knots in our pyjamas to use as floatation devices. It was pretty intense for a bunch of 10 year olds to do, but yep we did it.

Yeah, sort of. I can do 2km, but pretty slowly.

Yep.

Part of schooling in NZ.

A lot of kids also get extra lessons, because well it's NZ.

note: the furthest from the coast you can get in NZ is 119.44 km (74.22mi)

My school gave us swimming lessons but they were not very accommodating to me, I came out of them not knowing how to swim. When I lived with my brother, I taught myself to more or less be able to swim in his pool. It's just very tiring.

Yes - after I nearly drowned in the ocean as a child, I was promptly enrolled in swimming lessons.

Yes, and I learned to float to swim further

I lived on an island in the North Pacific for years. I worked on the ocean in a floating house and working on aluminum catwalks a few feet above the water all day.

If course I don't know how to swim. If I don't have a floater coat on, I'm fucked. If I do, I bob and hope for rescue. But have your lines in place if you're out in weather because the ocean does not give a fuck. In the North Pacific, your lifespan is the water is measured in "well fuck"s.

I lived near a lake as a child. I could hold my breath for so long. I dove a lot. Never learned to swim.

Swim lessons were expensive and we were poor. Swimming is essentially a pastime of the privileged and we were not. Same with skiing. Same with hockey and football.

Meh.

i learned to swim by puking so hard that the puke leaving my mouth propelled me through the water