General Chat

Highly amused by last nights lack tv. The RNLI were teaching the experienced sea swimming reporter how to do the relax and float thing.

It seems the way to do it is to get yourself into the right shape, fall in backwards and you will pop up completely flat and floating :-S Then you have to workk out if your shoes have foam ( I think he said) and that will keep your feet up :-S :-S :-S :-S

Personally that is not the end I want kept up, nor is the ‘end’ I have a problem with. ;-)

Kath :-D :-D

But now my secret must be out.

JL I could breaststroke but haven’t swum since at least I had my knee done. I’m not sure I even knew you shouldn’t breaststroke with a fake knee, as I call it. Shame, as I preferred it the crawl. Stately as a Galleon comes to mind.

Breaststroke is the only swimming I could do - because I could keep my head out of water at the same time (obviously not a proper version of the breaststroke). Then when I had my knees replaced I was told that I shouldn't do the breaststroke any more because it would put strain on the knees. That was the end of any swimming on my part but it was no trouble as I'd already given up swimming by then
:-D

Kath. x

Our school didn't teach swimming.

I was perhaps in my early twenties when a colleague and I decided to learn. Our teacher did teach us to float but she couldn't ram home the breaststroke to me - yet my colleague learned it quickly. I wonder if my brain is twisted??? ;-) :-D


My children and grandchildren had lessons while at school, my daughter from the age of three when she started kinder. It made it all the more harder when I got a call from her school saying that she'd had an accident in the pool but she was OK. I went straight to school and found out that it would not have made the slightest difference how good a swimmer she was (and both of them were) because someone had jumped from the side of the pool straight onto the top of her head! It made it worse when I discovered that the pool attendant hadn't seen anything but the teacher had to jump in fully clothed to drag her out! (My hero!)

And you think your kids are safe at school!

:-D :-D Go Ahead.

I had swimming lessons as a child which taught me nothing and then later as an adult, which did. Neither classes did anything about teaching how to float.

A friend I made here thought that as she had school swimming lessons that all schools did that and can’t believe I didn’t. My brothers could swim, maybe they had school lessons - but then they went to a boys school in another town.

And can you do breastroke?

If the answer is yes, grrrrrr :-D

Hi JL
I know what to do but can’t make it work for me. As I said I can’t tread water either.

Because I can’t float I had a bit of a panic in the Dead Sea as I didn’t trust that it would hold me up. Lovely once I’d got the hang of that one.

Names, what I ought to have written is that if, if, when you are lying still in your back on water, you have a slight panic for some reason, you only need to move arms OR legs like flippers to get back into that lying still and flat again. But you have to relax so I understand why someone would not be able to do so.

Eventually (after a few tries) I found I could raise my hips slightly and straighten my body again to gain my equilibrium and get back to the still, flat position …. yet for some reason, which annoys the hell out of me, I could never master breaststroke which everyone tells me is so easy! :-|

You don't relax in the sea in Australia if you get into difficulties as there are usually sharks to help you solve the problem, permanently! :-D :-D

Sorry JL it’ s not a panic thing - I just can’t do either. :-\

It is something I learned pretty early on when I was having swimming lessons and at a time when I could do several lengths of the pool swimming backstroke and crawl and then need a rest. I know it's well beyond my capabilities now.

In the pool it is the easiest thing to do - if you feel as though you have a slight panic, just lie still and straight and use your hands or feet as flippers - you'll get by using one one set of limbs.

I know I could NOT do it in the sea, but I should think others more competent than me could do it easily.

I have never been able to master breast stroke for some reason - so concentrated on backstroke and crawl ... but the sea is another matter and it would have to be still and calm and I'd have to swim parallel to the shore as I'd be out of my depth and my comfort zone very quickly!

Trying to find out if one can do it may not be a good idea.

The ancient art of walking on water seems to have vanished.

The one time I fell in the water, I was 6, and it was out of a canoe, or to be more precise, the canoe flipped over, leaving me underneath.
Dad was with me, he swam out, I was left undereath, hanging onto the seat.
I managed to shout 'I've lost my plimpsoll', so dad went to find it (priorities!) :-S

When he found the plimpsoll, he came back, and told me to let go of the seat, so he could flip the canoe back. I insisted I would drown.
He looked underneath, my knees were bent up.
'Unbend your kees and put your feet down' he said.
Very nervously, I unbent my knees - and I could touch the seabed! :-D :-D :-D

Dad wasn't trying to get rid of me, after all! :-D

It is good advice - but only if being in the water was intentional!
Relaxing with every orifice full of mucky water can't be easy.

:-D :-D :-D

Kath. x

I’m sorry she drowned but just know she is listening to me ;-)

It seems good advice, but I wouldn't relax either.

Audiologists frequently remind me not to get water in my ears, but in reality I know that would be the least of my worries if I was in danger of drowning.

:-D :-D :-D

I can float on my back but if I was to fall off a boat I don't think I could relax.

Kath. x