How many jellies don't know how to swim and what are some of the reasons you've never learned how?

I didn’t learn how to swim until I was like 16. I just wasn’t around water or pools all that often as a kid, and then it took me a few years to get used to the idea once we moved to a house that had a swimming pool.
I know several adults that don’t know how to swim, though. Once you know how to do it, it is almost baffling that anyone couldn’t. It’s pretty natural once you realize how it works.

I can keep myself afloat and move around and everything, but not in an efficient manner, and definitely not in the “right” way. I won’t go underwater without using one hand to pinch my nose shut either.

It’s not for a lack of trying; my parents enrolled me in swimming lessons year after year as a kid and I never would move onto the next level. The reason is ridiculously simple: the water was just too friggin’ cold. I’m really skinny and water below like 88 degrees gets me all shivery and turns my lips blue in a matter of minutes. I just couldn’t get into it in that state. Isn’t that a silly reason?

I learned how to swim at navy bootcamp lol. And I still can’t swim that well. I can do certain strokes, but I still can’t do the basic one. I never learned because I was never taught, and instead my family taught us that water is dangerous and to stay away from it.

Since we spent summers on a lake, our parents made sure that we were quickly enrolled in Red Cross swimming schools that were age- and experience-appropriate, until we all passed Junior Lifesaver certificates. I became a pretty good swimmer as a result.

Since then, I’ve learned “drownproofing” techniques, so that I can swim (if I have to) with “arms only”, “feet only” and even for short distances with hands tied behind my back and feet tied, too. (If you had my sisters, you’d understand why this is a necessary survival skill to learn.)

I made sure my kids were taught early, too. My daughter has even swum across the lake we lived at: a mile across, and then back again after a short rest. (I followed in a chase boat “just in case”, and to keep other boats away from her.) She’s done that twice.

My father hates being in the water and though my mum loved swimming while she was growing up, she has vitiligo which makes it hard for her to be out in the sun. We have a shared swimming pool for those living in my complex, but I could only stand in the shallow end since I never learned how to actually swim. Now that I am older and actually want to learn, I don’t have access to a pool. I thought about taking a class at my university, but I don’t want to do it alone and I want to be taught by someone I trust.

A few weeks ago, a friend offered to be my instructor. She moved recently into a home with a pool in the backyard. I think I’m finally mentally prepared to get back in the water.

Because it’s pretty crummy going to places like Hawaii unable to swim.

At 8 yrs old not knowing how to swim and bowing to the peer pressures of my younger cousins I jumped off the diving board and remember sinking like a rock to the bottom of the pool. Thankfully an alert lifeguard fished me off the bottom and I taught myself how to swim that very afternoon….in the shallow end of course!

I can kinda swim but I can’t tread water so if I stop I’m screwed.

I can swim enough to probably prevent myself from drowning in most situations, but I’m a bad enough swimmer than in high school I was put in the ‘beginners’ group (and I haven’t progressed since then).
I could swim pretty well as a little kid, but after we got rid of our pool (an above-ground one that ended up ruined after a hurricane) I just didn’t swim anymore, and I guess I lost any know-how I’d picked up.

I cannot swim.

I don’t like water go in my ears and up my nose, and I can’t see a damn thing without my glasses. Those three simple things have always prevented me from putting any real effort into learning.

I can swim, but Mr. tedibear cannot. His mom put him in a YMCA swimming program at age 4. The first thing they taught was how to float. He sank like a rock. When the instructor finally noticed that he hadn’t come back up, they fished him out and he was sputtering water and really mad. Told his mom he wouldn’t go back, and he didn’t. And she never enrolled his younger brother either. It scares me that he can’t swim because he likes to go fishing sometimes. If I can ever get into bathing suit shape, I need to teach him.

Never learned how, at least not much. There was an experience a few Summers back which showed me that I can swim if I absolutely have to. But my skills are laughable at best.
Too scared of deep water, and that last incident didn’t help. XD

<raises hand> I’m not at all happy in water, except at my water aerobics class strangely enough, although then I’m with lots of other ladies and the water is only below my chest level (and I’m tiny at only 5 foot 3 inches tall). I’ve tried lessons, my husband even came with me to my classes, and even though I managed to float if someone was holding onto me, I get very scared if on my own and just sink.

I almost drowned as a child, I fell and hit my head on the bottom of the pool and if my Uncle hadn’t seen it happen and got me out so fast I wouldn’t be here now. As I said, I can manage to stand in the water to exercise with my aerobic group (which helps with my arthritis) and I so wish that I could swim, but I’m just too scared to let go. Hubby has been asking me again recently if I want to try classes again, how sweet is he? Maybe someday, eh?