After you move to Los Angeles, you’ll begin to feel invincible, or at least stronger than you’ve ever felt before. You’ll begin to think about those fears you’ve held for so long and you’ll be willing to try to face them as best as you can.
For me, one of my biggest fears was learning how to swim. At 34 years old, I still wouldn’t go anywhere near water that might reach higher than my neck. But after surviving in Los Angeles for a year and a half I decided that maybe I could do it. I signed up for my first swimming lessons ever at the YMCA. $140 for one 45 minute lesson per week or $70 if you are a YMCA member. I joined the YMCA to get the discount.
At first things went well, I enjoyed my instructor’s technical approach to swimming. He would stand outside of the pool and explain the moves to us. I was a dedicated student, imagining myself one day jumping off a cliff into a lake in a canon ball. In my mind I was fearless. I practiced on our off days. I watched videos online at home.
As the half way mark to our classes approached I realized that we were not progressing. My beginners adult swimming class had about 4-5 people in it per week, most times less than that. For some reason, we were not moving on to practice our techniques in the deeper pool. When I asked my instructor Fernando about it, he said that as a class we weren’t advanced enough and suggested I retake the class.
Not. I’m not doing that. I decided to just see what happened.
During our final class, we FINALLY moved from the shallow training pool to the deeper pool and I was so excited. Even though I knew that it was our final class I somehow felt confident that the transition from 3 feet of water after 7 weeks of practice to 8 feet would be smooth and Fernando would know just how to help me overcome my fear.
He didn’t. I didn’t. I ended up leaving the class after 10 minutes.
He asked us to crawl alongside the pool edge until we reached 8 feet. I was trembling as I did this but I did it. Then he asked us to stand up as tall as we could while holding onto the wall, balancing on our feet against the wall and then let go and fall back into the water.
Yeah right. He may as well have said:
There was no way I was EVER going to just fall back into 8 feet of water and I had never been in 8 feet of water before. How does that make sense?
As I clung to the side of the pool, I asked him to help me get out because I was afraid and he told me that if I wanted to get out I had to climb out by myself. I reached out my hand and asked him for help to get out and he shook his head. He stood 6 inches in front of me with 8 feet of death water behind me and watched as I painstakingly gripped the wall with my feet (with no ladder) and hoisted myself up.
I was livid to say the least. My biggest fear was being in a situation where I needed help to save my life and having the person say No. My fear came true that day.
I don’t recommend taking adult swimming lessons at the YMCA, not only because I was refused assistance when I was needed help, but because I do not believe the classes are designed with adults in mind.
That class should have been called- Foundations of Swimming and it should have been clearly explained that by the end of the 8 weeks you would probably not know how to swim but you would be more comfortable in the water.
I’m looking for other swim lessons to take sometime in the future. There are lots of instructors in Los Angeles. I do enjoy being a member of the YMCA but the adult swimming lessons for beginners aren’t designed to see adults progress.
Aug 6, 2014 at 3:07 pm
Agreed! I took swim lessons at a YMCA in Whittier, Ca and it was exactly the same experience. They had a high school aged boy teaching the class and he had no idea how to work with adults. The first day of class he had everyone jump into the pool putting their full head under water. Yeah, right. It was a real waste. When you find someone in LA who knows how to teach adults, please post. I’d love to know!
Sep 10, 2014 at 1:49 pm
This was a real shame to read. You should never let one bad experience with an instructor taint your imagine of an entire organization. We teach adult beginner swim lessons at my YMCA in Brainerd, MN. We understand that teaching adults is very different than teaching a child to swim. I’m sorry for your experience and hope you give YMCA another chance one day to regain your confidence in the pool as well as teach you swimming skills.
Nov 8, 2014 at 3:12 pm
I worked for the one in brainerd mn and all that is required to teach swim lessons is to be a certified life guard. Just because someone can swim doesn’t mean they can teach!
Mar 3, 2015 at 1:35 am
i learned within 10 mins by pretending to be a jelly fish. thats it, just flap your arms and legs up and down like your getting out of a chair. you shouldnt need to pay a hundred dollars for them to teach you that.
May 9, 2018 at 11:08 pm
By the comment dates, I see this was out a years ago. At any rate, I am so sorry for your experience. Today I wrote an article on Linked In on just this subject. Swimming lesson for adults are not focusing on the 1st more important thing you need to know, how not to lose it (panic) while in (deep) water. To be able to swim means you will not panic in deep water for an extended period of time. It is more about being slow within yourself even in the face of something unexpected that it is about what to do with your arms and legs. When you are calm you can then understand how your body and the water work together. Take walk in the water for example. Most people can be calm when walking in water. This means they naturally adapt walking to work in the environment of buoyancy as opposed to the environment of gravity. When you learn with understanding how this works as the primary goal then you can figure out how the arms, legs and breathing work for you in an easy way. This is putting you in charge of your safety from within you.
Jun 24, 2019 at 4:13 pm
Did you actually swim in the shallow water? Did he have you go underwater and open your eyes, look around in shallower water. That’s the first step. Get used to going under. Get used to opening your eyes. Feel the water around you and then know you can stand up anytime you feel uncomfortable (or need to breathe).
Then hold onto the edge of the pool in shallow water and just kick. Get used to kicking in shallow water.
Next is hold on to a kickboard in shallow water again. Learn to Kick across the pool.
Next is free form float. You will get the urge to float – we all know how to swim, there’s an innate ability in us to do it. Float.
I honestly think that learning to swim underwater first is the best thing. In deep water or shallow water it feels the same.
No one should be giving you limited time in the water and then forcing you in the deep end. It’s dumb and dangerous.