I came late to swimming. I'll never be 'good' at it but am now quite happy in any depth of water and can play and have fun, with care. We did those awful group lessons at school where all the non-sport kids (like me, at the time) ended up basically being embarrassed and uncomfortable. Totally demoralising.
Weekend group lessons when I was a kid (maybe 10-12 years old, I can't really remember) didn't get me far, I could uncoordinatedly thrash my way across a width, just, and after staggeringly little progress we all gave up and resigned ourselves to being a mostly non-swimming family.
But then, when I went away on holiday to Magaluf with the young future Lady T at around 21 years old (I can't really remember how old I was TBH), I finally cracked it. Lady T basically told me to slow down, relax, and try a more graceful coordinated movement instead of thrashing arms and legs around... and that was it, off I went, happily swimming lengths within a few days. It made me incredibly happy, but also quite pissed off that the organised lessons hadn't managed to even realise to try getting such a simple message through. Instead of trying to teach 3 or 4 different strokes, just getting one right was enough to build confidence, begin having fun, get comfortable in the water.
As for floating... well, I think that most people can float but there are degrees of what may be called 'floating' and it takes some time and practice. I used to just sink like a stone too until I realised that it's not quite as simple as it seems - it is possible for me now but it takes a bit of calm effort. As daft as it may sound, the realisation that I wasn't going to float 'on' the surface, but under it, with just a bit poking out (
) of the water, made a huge mental difference. Takes effort (a little bit core muscle effort too) - if you want to float with your nose/mouth out of the water it's not a passive activity
I don't know if it'll help you, but it took me quite some time to get comfortable enough to try floating without feeling panic-y if/when I slipped under more, but it finally came -
probably years after I could swim 'lengths'. When I finally thought about it and realised that the first step is to get the lungs nice and full of air, my chest becomes like the 'barrel' that'll float. Then, kind of push away a little, lay back and mentally relax, but keep my lungs full and puff my chest out and up - but don't worry about letting the head go back - use the air in the chest to keep afloat. OK, but then my legs sink downwards and take me with them, right... but not if I use my core, tummy and back muscles to keep my pelvis up near the surface - not trying to thrust my junk out of the water, but just to stop my legs from slipping under me. Then gentle tension in the upper legs to hold them outwards. Doesn't really matter too much about the lower legs so much for me, a very slow and gentle kick or motion is enough to keep them up. Gently use arms to move yourself around just a touch. And of course, my head is mostly under water but the important breathy-bits are either out, or vey close to the surface and can easily pop up if I move my neck. Trying to 'sit up' will not work.
It's maybe not so much floating as just slowly, very slowly, swimming nowhere in particular. It's also far, far easier in the salty sea - but, waves and stuff.
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