Sort of a follow-up to the swimming situation

[oloriel]

The one sensible suggestion she made after last week's class was that, inspite of the fall holidays, we should go to the pool on Fridays since the mom-in-law is also an instructor there and has a key. That way, Felix would have the pool to himself (except for us) and could regain his enjoyment in water.

Felix indeed enjoyed having the whole pool to himself, and even wore his floaters for twenty minutes with no drama at all while I put them on. Most of the time, however, he walked down the stairs until the water went up to his throat, then reached for our hands and let us pull him onwards (he's got very strong arms and pushes himself up easily!), turn around and return to the stairs. He loved that. He also made pull-ups on the railing, tried standing on one leg out of the water, with water up to his knees, water up to his hips and water up to his chest - he really experiments with the sensation of submersion, different pressure levels etc.!

Something I noticed while he was wearing the stupid floaters: Before, when we had held him up with a hand under his armpits and chest or alternatively by his hands (as I say, he pushes himself up very cleverly and with no apparent trouble), he automatically assumed the position you later take when you actually swim, and he kicked out with his legs in a motion that actually let him propel himself forward. With the floaters, his shoulders and head are automatically "held up", but he just hangs in the water and tries to walk the way he'd walk on land. As he can't touch the floor, this is terribly inefficient and visibly frustrating. The other kids in the class have managed to find some sort of technique that allows them to kick themselves forward, but they still can't use their arms, nor do they hang in the water the way you later need to hang when you actually want swim on your own.

When I told Jörg of this observation, he just shrugged and said "Oh well, we all went through that phase", but the thing is, I very clearly remember my first attempts at learning to swim back when I was five or six. (Yes, it's been buried for over two decades, but it's all coming back to me now.) And I remember that what I found terribly hard back then wasn't the motions: It was the correct position that your body had to take in the water first. I recall that my dad tried to explain it to me, but either he didn't find the right words or I just couldn't put them into practice (I had lousy body control as a young child. I'm in truth a rather clumsy person, and only years of practicing judo and karate have made me a grown-up with some basic control over her own limbs). Anyway, I was stuck for at least half a year at knowing all the necessary motions, but without the ability of turning them into, you know, swimming. I only made progress when we were on a holiday and there was a quite narrow pool and my dad said "Look, it's actually so narrow that if you push off on one side, you'll reach the other side with no swimming whatsoever." I figured he was right, but I did the pushing off wrong or with too little force, and it only carried me halfway across. BUT my body was lying in the water exactly the way it had to be for swimming, so when I threatened to come to a stop in the middle of the pool and tried the arm and leg motions I had practiced for so long, they... suddenly worked. And then I'd reached the other end of the pool and climbed out that I'd swum.

Now, Felix is a nimble child, so he may generally find sports easier than his clumsy old mother did. But it still seems to me that if he is intuitively taking the correct position for swimming without floaters, but not with floaters (his shoulders and belly muscles just aren't that strong), maybe those floaters are a terribly bad idea. Comfortable (for parents), perhaps, but not actually useful. Because while he may accept them now and even come to love them since of course they give him more freedom - I loved my floaters as a kid - they look like a surefire way of training him out of the correct posture for swimming. Which he'll later have to re-learn. I know he can't properly learn to swim yet, I know that, but there just needs to be something better.

We actually have one of those kiddy floation vests - my grandmother bought one for one of my cousins, years ago. I guess I'll have to find out whether it's still safe according to today's standards, and whether in fact Felix is already big enough to wear it. In the class, of course, everybody has to wear the same toddler floaters. But once that's over, we're at leisure to do what we want, right?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I remember that I was told that the water wings were meant to keep us save while splashing around and the parents wouldn't have to be with us in the water every single second we were in.
But I had to take them off for swimming lessons because they would hinder us in learning how to swim. I was in a swimming class at the age of 5 and it was fun, but without any hope for success. A year later, after my 6th birthday, it was absolutely easy and no problem at all. I guess it's not the same age for every child and some might learn it much earlier, but I think that my body and coordination was not ready when I was 5 and a year later it worked and everything was easy.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Hm. I wrote a very clever reply ;) and now it's all gone. Hm.

Thing is, we used to wear water wings for splashing around, but weren't allowed to wear them for swimming classes because the teacher thought, it would hinder us in learning how to swim.

And: I took swimming classes twice. The first was terror and no chance of learning how it workes. A year later, everything was dead easy. My body had obviously grown more experienced and coordinated and suddenly it wasn't a problem any more.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It isn't gone, you just forgot to log in so it was screened until I found and unscreened it. There you go!

Yeah, you're probably right; coordination has to develop, and some things are just physically impossible until your body is ready for them. I remember being totally incapable of dribbling a ball in elementary school and hating basketball when we had to play it in grades 5 and 6. Then suddenly it was no problem at all and I had no clue why it had ever been one! And of course, your proportions keep changing in childhood, too.
For the record, I don't think Felix could already learn to swim. I just noticed that if I just hold his chest, he automatically holds his body the right way (he couldn't learn the arm/leg coordination yet, though!), which I found remarkable!

Water wings definitely hinder you when you're supposed to learn proper swimming, since they limit the way you can use your arms! They really just exist to help you float and leave your parents' hands free at the pool. ;)