Drowning Tragedies

[K9karen]

Longer strokes are better than doggy paddle - have you tried floating on your back? That might be good to practice, always in a shallow enough area so that you can stand if you start to panic. Were you closer, I'd volunteer to teach you to swim, a lot of it has to do with breathing, relaxing and not panicking - and I bet it would feel nice on your back to just float in the water.

Funny, eh, that I CAN swim on my back, just not the other way around. I sink like a lead balloon. It's embarrasing. That's why my tootsies must be touching the bottom. I open my eyes under water, no fear of getting my face wet, etc. Mental block??

[Karen]

You probably tense up, and that's why you sink! Good to know you can at least swim on your back, that does count as swimming! I never advanced to more complex strokes of swimming because I refused to breathe when they wanted me to - I don't think they had any clue of an asthmatic kid's aversion to anything blocking breathe when needed, and the fact that summer time is always the worst time for my allergies. I'll breathe when *I* need to breathe, thanks! I am fine underwater as well, can swim for a long time any way, just let me breathe at my own pace!

[Catlady711]

I never met anyone in MI that could not swim. Because of all the great lakes, it's actually required in MI to take and pass swimming class before you graduate high school (or at least it was when I was in HS). If you don't learn how to swim before high school, you don't graduate until you do learn how to swim.

Must be dependant on individual schools or counties. I know several people, various ages, who went to various MI H.S. and none of them had to learn to swim to graduate.

[Sirrahsim]

I can tread water and hang out in the deep end just fine but I have never learned to do the different strokes properly.