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Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

> It is important to be able to swim in a jacket and trousers.

This explains why I never made it to the Olympics. I bet Phelps practices in a tuxedo.

I'd argue knowing how to swim with clothes is more important than without, if you have to pick one. Though I'm guilty myself of not living up to this, I also think everyone capable of swimming should also regularly jump into the water with various levels of clothes on, in various temperatures, just to have the skill fresh if needed. (Even if you never fall into the water, you never know when you will witness e.g. a child do.)

Swimming lessons (here at least, but I'd hope it's universal) include swimming in clothes. Not quite jackets, though.

where are you from? I've never heard of swimming lessons with clothes here in France, so I'm curious where it is common.

Here in the UK, 'water safety 2 award' [1] includes swimming in clothes.

So if parents send a kid to swimming lessons for a few years, they'll end up doing it some time around age 10. (There are several different sequences of swimming awards, so it's no the second thing you learn despite the 2 in the name)

[1] https://www.swimming.org/learntoswim/swim-england-water-safe...

10? How old do British kids start with swimming lessons? In Netherland, most children tend to start swimming lessons somewhere between the age of 4 and 6, and get their A and B swimming diplomas (both of which include swimming with clothes, as well the 4 basic strokes, diving, swimming underwater, etc) between the ages of 5 and 9 (depending on talent).

Swimming lessons in the UK are mostly extracurricular, so they start whenever the parents feel like it. There are parent-and-baby swimming lessons for 3-month-olds, for those that want it.

The government also provides school swimming lessons, aiming to teach all students to swim 25 meters by age 11 - so some kids start swimming quite a bit later.

The document I actually saw said the swimming-with-clothes course is aimed at 7-14-year-olds which I simplified down to 'around age 10'

> Swimming lessons in the UK are mostly extracurricular, so they start whenever the parents feel like it. There are parent-and-baby swimming lessons for 3-month-olds, for those that want it.

Same here, but those parent-and-baby lessons are more about getting used to water, and not the structured lessons that lead to a diploma. And while regular lessons start when parents feel like it, nearly all parents feel like it between age 4 and 6. There's some discussion whether or not it's better to start early (I think it depends on the child), but starting at 7 would be considered late.

My son is 8, and, partially due to Covid lockdowns, partially due to a lack of talent, still doesn't have his A diploma, and he's the biggest kid of his group.

I think it must depend upon the Local Authority.

I had school swimming lessons from the ages of 7 to 11, including swimming with clothes, how to rescue someone and even making "floats" by tying knots in shirts/trousers and then filling them with air and tying them off.

We took our kids for swimming lessons from around 3 or 4 from memory. My niece has been taking her son swimming from being just a few months old.

Netherland. All children are expected to at least get their 'A' and 'B' swimming diplomas, and both include swimming with clothes.

I'm surprised France doesn't have that. It sounds like an important survival skill to me.

Thank you. I learned to swim with the primary school I was going to, but learning to swim with clothes isn't be part of the official curriculum (as far as I can understand the words of the official website: https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2011/28/mene1115402c.htm).

On a pure speculation level, I guess it'd be down to the reasons the two governments mandated the teaching of swimming: for France it's more of a public health/fitness cause (maybe even as a funnel for professional/olympic swimmers), but with no intention to teach swimming as a survival skills, or at least not to the point of including the swim while clothed exercise.

Australia's the same - if you're a pool regular child looking to get the certificates (lifesaver, bronze medallion, etc) you'll be swimming in clothes, diving for weights, towing others by their chin to the poolside, treading water, etc. at age 12 or so.

Out of the pool you're in the ocean daily as a kid, this is where we were before and after school [1], body boarding in a wet suit.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaDV34_jgs

Part of one of my merit badges back in my youthful boy scouting days was being able to demonstrate how to turn a pair of pants (jeans iirc) into a temporary life jacket.

Seems like a good mechanic to understand for worst case scenarios if a person is on/near water with any frequency https://www.artofmanliness.com/skills/outdoor-survival/how-t...

I did a swimming lesson and we had to wear clothes (pyjamas).

Raw sewage was commonly dumped into any available body of water. Which was why he recommended avoiding ponds at all costs.

This sort of thing was why every large homeowner brewed their own beer - the alcohol from the fermentation neutralized some? enough? who cares, drink more? of the pathogens. Reading books from the Victorian (and earlier) eras gives me the impression that everyone back then was suffering from chronic, low level infections their entire lives.

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