The only thing I know how to do is float and stay on the surface. XD

But that's how it was for me. All my life, I lived in the city. There were no pools (public pools are gross) and when I was a child, Orchard Beach was extremely dirty and that was the only beach around us.

And I wasn't gonna swim in that =O To this day, I still don't.

I'm nineteen, and for all my liufe I lived a five minute walk away from the beach, however I never learned how to swim. >.< Despite swiming lessons every summer from the ages of 5-12. I was always upset because I'd still be in kiddy floating classes, and my twin would be jumping off the high dive (when we were twelve). Eventually I was able to convince the mother unit that she was just wasting her money, so she took me out. My sis however ended up on our high school swim team and was good enough so that when colleges recruited her she was able to say, "listen, I'm a package deal, I come with an extra person. bring her in on a scholarship to, or you don't get me." It helped that I was smart in high school...but yea...


So anyway, in a much more patient and calm manner than said childhood swimming lessons, my sister is reteaching me how to swim in my aunt's pool this summer. and I have to say, within three or four times of her teaching me, I managed to jump off the diving board and swim the length of the pool to get to the three feet. She's a good teacher, and I've stopped panicking as much. :)

I got a distance badge for doing 500 metres, then did 1km and then 2km in my own time outside of swimming lessons.

But that was when I was ten... :p

I can still swim, but I can't do front crawl because I have some sort of breathing-not-working/water-up-nose malfunctions.

Nope, surprising considering that my dad is basically a fish. x.x

I can swim well enough to keep my head above water.

At the primary school I went to, we had free classes with school when we were in years four and five, that's ages 8ish to 10ish.

I can sorta swim >>; Like... I won't drown if I'm in deep water, but I prefer a pool as opposed to a lake. Usually, if I get tired of treading water (I'm really not all that good at it lol), I just flip onto my back and float until I can either swim to the edge, or back to water where I can touch ground. Being short really doesn't help, either.

Yes, I can definitely swim. I got lessons when I was little and my family spends at least two weeks at the beach every year, plus we have family members who live on a riverside and neighbors with pools and all that jazz...I can't do anything fancy, but I feel very much at home in the water.

Goodness, yes. I've been swimming since I was six, I think. Taken into account that I have spen all my summers by the sea, it is not really particularly surpising.

I can totally swim, even though I very rarely go to the pool because I hate getting tans. I just taught myself one day, first by floating, and then by doing a backstroke. I can swim underwater, but I'm not apparently good at doing that butterfly stroke/breast stroke/ olympic swimming stroke whatevers. I believe its because I'm 85% fat.

None of my friends seem to be able to swim. Prolly because they don't have a sliver of fat on them.

I honestly don't remember ever being unable to swim. I'm not swim-team good, I don't work at it, but certainly won't drown. I don't even remember being restricted to the shallow end, though I'm sure it must have happened. Most of my best memories are of swimming at the local pool, later on in our own pools... or at the river. (Not a big fan of sea swimming, but rivers are awesome).

I can swim and I swim pretty good. Better now that I took a semester swimming class at my university. I did it to make myself excercise, but I ended up having a lot of fun.

I swam a lot when I was a kid but after that I didn't do much in the water. I claim its where I live. Not too much in the public pool wise in town, although we have one of the most beautiful lakes there is (yes I'm biased) the water stays a chilly 35 degrees Fahrenheit give or take year round which makes it kind of cold to swim unless its the middle of summer.

I don't float... like literally I will sink so I had to learn to swim.

I'm with Mousie; I've always known how, as far back as I can remember. I'm pretty sure my parents took me in for some sort of parent/infant session when I was real young (at least that's what they tell me)

My mother has a phobia of the water though, sort of. She'll get in the shallow end, but freaks out if she gets anywhere close to the deep end.

It's because when she was a little girl, her uncle thought it'd be a smart idea to 'teach' her to swim by picking her up and tossing her into a lake. She nearly drowned, and that trauma stuck with her all these years.

I'm in the same boat (or out of it, as the case may be) as Mousie. I've been swimming since I was old enough to walk. I have a memory of being three years old and jumping into water that was over my head but having no fear of it. I mostly swim underwater and on my back, but I can do all of the strokes if I put my mind to it. I also love diving.

I'll swim anywhere, but I have to admit the ocean makes me nervous (I have a shark phobia). I just ordered a swimsuit online; if I get it in time and it fits I'm going to swim in the lake this weekend.

I love swimming. It's the closest I can come to flying.

Like a fish. My grandfather has a cottage by a lake which I've been in since I was an infant. When I actually have a routine, I can swim 1.5 Km (60 laps in the university pool) in slightly over half an hour, though I'm a bit out of shape at the moment. I'll be working to get my time back up and see if I can get to 80 non stop this year.

Laps I do for fitness but I love deep water to jump and dive into. I also love swimming underwater because as Zippy said, it's like flying. I'll swim in rivers and lakes (so long as they are semi clean) and I adore the ocean. For pools I am a bit more picky. If it isn't more than six feet deep it's an over glorified bathtub.

I can swim, but I don't. Yucky water, yucky sun. I don't find anything enjoyable in swimming, but it's good to know how just in case global warming is real and the polar ice caps suddenly melt and flood us all out.

I can't swim, but I can like, tread water and hangout in the deep end of pools and lakes, but I can't go underwater without holding my nose.
xD
It's part of my paranoia thing. Deathly afraid of drowning, you know, the whole shabang.

But I do like to float & wade around pools.
:]

I can swim in pools and still lakes, but the moment I see a wave, I freak. The problem is that I probably can't swim well ENOUGH - enough to keep my chin above water, but I'm too weak to do more xD.

I can float and swim from one point to another (short distances, really), but I could never hold my breath very long underwater. Maybe it's because I'm asthmatic, I dunno...

I did almost drown when I was about four to five years old though. I couldn't swim then, although I did have an inflatable thingus around. Problem was, one of my cousins (who was then only learning how to swim) caught onto it, and next thing I knew I was in the drowning. Mom had to dive into the pool in her jeans to save my drowning ass. Haha!

Well I learned. Got a bunch of badges when I was in school. Then as I got older I stopped going and now I sink like a stone. So no, regretfully, I cannot swim anymore.

I can swim fine but when I was suppose to take my high school swimming exam to graduate, I flaked by asking my doctor to write me a doctor's note. X3

I can swim, just not very well, I look like i'm drowning most of the time, even if I am alright

As a big man I float naturally. And actually swiming...I have basic skills, my boyancy contributing quite a lot.

I'm a pretty good swimmer o-o
I'm just scared of dark water, which is impossible in Maine since all our lakes and such are dark because it's a fish habitat. Plus, we have pine trees....
But I go diving with my only living Grandfather, since he can't hear we use hand signs xD But we find a lot of things.
Last year, last trip to dive we found a Diamond ring, 3 blue glass bottles, and a fake silver necklace, plus some other things I don't remember. It was very exciting.

I can't either. I had an ear problem when I was little, around the time when most kids start taking swimming lessons. I couldn't swim because of it, so I never learned. I can go in now, and I float, as well. I just have to stay in the shallow end of the pool, if I do go in.

Yes, I have swam most of my life. I actually just got home from the pool.

I'm a pretty big swimmer, but only if the waters cold, for some reason. It's very weird. Diving FTW!

I can't swim but I can float. I can't swim because I tried once and came close to drowning so I never learned.

I lived most of my life in Florida. My dad was a surfer. I hate the beach. xD

They took me to swimming lessons, and I told them I needed to go into the bathroom - then I locked myself in. xD

Several hours later when they broke in, they picked me up, took me to the deep side of the pool and threw me in. haha.

This question, however, just makes me think of a refrain from a tool song
LEARN TO SWIM
LEARN TO SWIM
LEARN TO SWIM
LEARN TO SWIM

I'm praying for rain? xD Anyways, yeah - I can swim. But it scares the crap out of me.

I suppose most of you who said that you cannot swim, or not good enough are from the USA? Do you guys like not get standard swimming lessons in primary school? I find that really odd, it prevents a lot of deaths here in the Netherlands because kids here get standard swimming lessons from the age of six via primary school. Of course parents can choose to get their kids on private swimming lessons on an earlier age. Basically every kid can swim like a fish here XD.

So yep I can swim, learned it thus at the age of 6 and onward, got three diplomas (which is quite good) I could also go for my rescue swimming diploma (or whatever you call it) but I had just gotten my third diploma, and there wasn't enough practice time left for me to take those swimming lessons. Luckily I do know how to rescue swim tho XD.

I love swimming though, we've already swam in May here in the Netherlands, in our big... lake XD which is actually more like a small sea? Once it's get over 25 degrees (celcius) whole of the netherlands trecks to the seaside and start swimming XD. And I love to go to pools, even though I don't do it very often.

I've been swimming all my life. xD When I was a few months old, my mom popped me in the water (with her, of course), and I stayed with her and with the little floaty things until I officially learned when I was around...I dunno, four or so. I never swam competitively because I was never interested, but I love it.

(I live in the US. No swimming in elementary school, but then in middle school we had a quarter each year in gym dedicated to swimming. And then we're required to pass one swim test in high school, and that's it. That's only my district, though. I don't know about anyone else.)


@Panda; I thought swimming was something you couldn't forget, ahahah. Guess not...

I can swim- I just don't because I'm not comfortable in a bathing suit. Didn't learn in school though, my parents signed me up for lessons when I was about 6 or 7. In my district, we had one month of swimming in gym class freshman year and nothing else and by that time, they found something else for the kids who didn't know how rather than trying to teach them individually.

I'm on the swim team
but that doesn't make me good.
I only like to swim freestyle
I hate backstroke and breast
fly is just really tiring.

I do prefere just to float most the time.

Honestly, I can't swim. I almost drowned once in a public pool and since have been terrified by the idea of going under again. I took lessons once but they didn't help at all. I failed them. I know what to do to swim but I just can't.

I didn't really know how to swim intill two years ago. I remember my class had a field trip to this beach or something, and I couldn't go out as far as everybody else because I didn't know how to swim. Thats when I decided to practice in my neighbour's pool everyday for the summer. Now, I consider myself an alrighty swimmer, and I'm no longer embarassed of my friends.

I can swim, and pretty good too.

I'm no pro or anything, but I can swim a few laps before im tired.

I'm capable of swimming, but I don't like my thighs enough to wear bathing suits.
So, I sort of avoid it. Then theres that whole almost drowning thing that happened in elementary school. So, I'm not a big fan.

I can swim, I'm just not the best at it. I live fifty yards away from a lake and I haven't went swimming in about a year. I don't mind the water, it's just that it's been really cold here and I don't like swimming in cold water. My mother has this fear of water since her older brothers threw her off of the dock when she was younger.

I can't swim any more!

When I was a kid I had a tumor in my ear and when they finally removed it when I was seven it left a giant cavity where my middle ear used to be. I couldn't go swimming without ear plugs and this like spandex thing that wrapped around my head. I hated it, so I stopped swimming. When I was fourteen they did a second surgery that made the hole even bigger.

I went swimming for the first time in twelve years just three weeks ago when I went to Tikal in Guatemala with my summer school program. Needless to say, I have long since forgotten how to swim.

I can swim..

I can swim quite well. In 3rd grade they made us take a swim class at the YMCA in our town, and you have to take a swim test every year at this pool I use to go to.