Comment by scandinavegan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scandinavegan | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, that sounds very similar.

One thing I didn't mention was that when my daughter finally started swimming, she would swim underwater until she ran out of air and then stand up. The traditional school would never have allowed this, as you were supposed to breaststroke with your head above water at all times. Since she started to swim some distance underwater, it wasn't that much of a stretch for her to stay at the surface to swim longer distances.

The transition from dolphin to swimming underwater to swimming at the surface was very quick and seamless. Perhaps she was still helped by being drilled in the traditional school's proper technique, but I think we could have used the new school's methods from the start.

Yeah, that all sounds very similar. Once I figured out how to move in water, I tended to do what your daughter does, swim under the water and surface for air. I still like swimming that way.

It's interesting that people I know who went through a very formal swimming program as youths and then think of swimming as exercise and laps, tend to struggle with below-the-surface activities, like diving for items.

I remember my brother had a whole slew of underwater games we used to play like "tea time", "hold your breath at the bottom the longest", "headstand", "underwater flips", "drag your friend while they're underwater while you run in a race", "pull a gallon of dirt off the bottom", "upside-down Buddha" and so on including some pretty intense and dangerous-ish horseplay. There's probably a more comprehensive list somewhere as he didn't invent all of these but learned them elsewhere. Looking back I realize that we learned breath control, buoyancy control, how to handle strange orientations and direction underwater, diving, getting accustomed to handling stale air or out of air situations. But it all happened naturally through play.

Growing up, the only other kids I knew who could do the same kind of things also learned in similar informal ways built around play.

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