June 27, 2004: Finding Their Stroke
STAFF WRITER
Standing in 4-foot-deep water, goggles strapped to her head, Christie Larkins gets ready to spring into action.
Like an aqua version of Superman, the Simpsonville mom bends her knees, stretches her arms into the water and launches her body off the pool wall. She swims — one breastroke at a time — to her instructor, Beth Rusch. Then, practicing her backstroke, she glides back to the pool's edge.
On this particular evening, Larkins is attending the last of eight 45-minute beginner swimming lessons at the Greenville Life Center Health and Conditioning Club. She seems as comfortable in the pool as a mermaid in the sea. But that wasn't always the case.
Just three months ago, Larkins couldn't float on her back for fear of sinking. Today, she can easily do that and much more. She glows with pride as she describes the skills she never thought she'd learn, particularly at 47 years old.
Larkins says by her second lesson, she had the backstroke down pat.
"It feels great to be able get into the water and enjoy it," she said. "I'm so excited that I have been able to accomplish something that I thought I never would, especially at my age. It's like now, 'I can do this and I have done it.'"
For adults like Larkins, learning to swim is a major milestone. They may be in their 20s or 30s when it happens, or even well into their 40s or beyond. But no matter the age, the rewards are the same.
"They are so proud of themselves and can't wait to come back," says Rusch, aquatic supervisor at the Life Center, which offers adult swimming classes and private lessons.
Most adults who complete the beginner session take an intermediate-level swimming course, Rusch says. Camaraderie is important in the class.
"Support is huge. They cheer each other on."
Anybody can learn to swim at any age, Rusch said. "It's never too late."
However, many adults never develop that ability because they are embarrassed about their fears or about never having learned a skill that's often achieved during childhood or adolescence.
"It's a closeted issue," says Mary Ellen Dash, president of the Miracle Swimming Institute, a California-based swimming school that holds classes nationwide for adults with water phobia.
"They don't know they're in the majority. They think they are the only ones.
"What we mean by swimming is that they are completely confident in deep water," Dash says.
"We have found that there are lots of people who know how to swim in shallow water but who can't prevent themselves from panicking in the deep."
So even some adults who say they know how to swim are afraid of being in deep, open water such as in lakes, oceans or rivers, Dash says.
"They don't know how the water works, and because they don't, they lose control in deep water. They don't know that the water holds them up."
Fear of the water can stem from a past experience — maybe someone they knew drowned or they themselves almost drowned — which may make learning to swim a bit intimidating for some, says Joshua Morris, aquatic director for the Golden Strip Family YMCA, which offers adult swimming classes twice a week.
First rule of thumb?
RELAX.
RELAX.
RELAX.
"It's all mental," Morris says. Much of the first lesson emphasizes the importance of relaxing in the water and understanding the body's reaction to water, he says.
"The best advice I can give somebody is to relax, listen to what the instructor is telling you," Morris says. "If they tense up, they sink. That's just the way your body works. It's naturally buoyant."
While some fear the water, others simply never bothered to learn to swim. Maybe they didn't live near bodies of water or didn't have access to a neighborhood pool. And as time passed, they found the idea of learning harder to fathom.
Larkins, who grew up in woodsy Nashville, says her family didn't start taking beach vacations until her teen years. By that time, she felt that swimming lessons were for little children and that she was too old to learn.
That changed years later after she had children of her own, both of whom know how to swim. Larkins says she simply got tired of feeling left out while on summer vacations.
She sat on the sidelines while her husband and children dived into the pool or swam in a river.
"I thought, if I don't learn now, I'll never be able to get in there and enjoy it with them. So I'd already made my mind up when March and April hit that I was just going to find out where to take lessons and get started."
Thomasena Pollard of Greenville encountered the same feelings whenever she visited a local pool during the summer or attended pool parties with friends. "Everybody would be in the water. They were having fun," says the 45-year-old Greenville resident. "I would sit there with my feet dangling or whatever."
Plus, she kept promising her 11-year-old son, Theo, that she would sign him up for swimming lessons in the summer. "He went to camp, and he always had to play in the shallow part of the lake."
Pollard, who is taking swimming lessons four times a week at Lakeside Park, says she feared getting smothered by the water.
"The first day (of class) I didn't let the water go above my chin. Now I'm doing backstrokes, front strokes. I can tread water. I can float. I'm still learning. I definitely have a long way to go."
But she also has come a long way.
"I'm so excited. I'm more relaxed in the water," Pollard says. "(Swimming) is a wonderful, wonderful form of exercise, and when I get out, I feel so much better."
