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Comment by Raed667 | Hacker News Reader

I have lived my entire life never more than a 10 minute drive to a beach.

I can barely float. But once you reach a certain age the social stigma of it will prevent you from even trying, I have been looking to learn but most places I found are oriented towards very young kids and nothing for the 20-something people that need to catch-up

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I used to teach swimming, I had a class where an 81 year old woman sign up for the 8 week course, while she didn't have the mobility to do front or breast stroke she became very comfortable floating on her back and doing very slow widths of the pool, its never too late. I also have a work colleague in his late 50's who only learned to swim four years ago and completed an Ironman last year. I would recommend signing up for course of 1:1 weekly lessons with a certified coach, and practicing between the lessons, you'll be amazed what 16 hours over 8 weeks would do for you.

Thank you for this. As a 50-something, I've swam my entire life but never mastered the breast stroke that seems to be required for "serious" swimming. Instead I backfloat, paddle, and swim underwater. It's always seemed to work well-enough. I've even got a SCUBA certification. But I always wanted to learn better technique. I thought that there wasn't a lot of options for older folks.

I don't do breaststroke either, find it too hard on my back even though I regularly do up 3KM open water swims front crawl. Do whats comfortable and enjoy it

I highly recommend learning to swim. It's an experience you don't get anywhere else. Just like learning programming though, it's frustrating to start.

I know one guy who couldn't swim, took lessons, and now does scuba diving - which, by the way, is something people should try at least once, it's like floating into another world.

> But once you reach a certain age the social stigma of it will prevent you from even trying,

Are you sure about that? There are a lot of people who worry about going to the gym , concerned that everyone else will be staring at them. No one [except for the very rare hole] is bothered about what you're doing, they are just getting in with their workout. I'd expect swimming to be the same.

Our local pool has various sessions for beginners, both young and old. Normally the pool is separated into three lane sections, fast, medium, and splashing around.

Any 'stigma' you do perceive isn't worth bothering about - it's their problem and not yours.

The stigma is internal I know.

But usually beach time is with friends and acquaintances, people that know how to swim and don't understand at all my experience.

I would think if you said, "I don't know how to swim, so I'm going to learn," good friends and acquaintances would be massively supportive?

Yes of course, but that puts me under the spot and everyone becomes an improvised teacher. Its just a combination of social pressure and stress with a stressful situation.

My guess is to make it more sterile and professional by learning alone with a coach.

My 27 year-old girlfriend just took a swim class at the YMCA. In her class of 7, one other person was older than her while the rest were in their teens. She's way more comfortable in the water now and can swim the length of the pool and back which would have been impossible before.

Don't let anxiety hold you back from learning this!

...everyone becomes an improvised teacher.

Swimming isn't actually hard. It's easier than a lot of things that people teach themselves to do. If multiple people offer to help you, pick out the person who seems pretty chill about things and follow her advice.

But those are not the ones that will be around you when you're in a class learning. You can learn in a class with people you've never seen before and you'll never see again, and when it's over, the problem is solved. Nobody needs to know that you went to classes, you don't have to tell anybody.

The only "difficulty" is that you have to not care what complete strangers think about you trying to learn. Your actual friends and acquaintances won't know anything.

Check out Tim Ferris who learned as an adult: https://tim.blog/2008/08/13/total-immersion-how-i-learned-to...

Is there no swimming pool (with a shallow part and not too many people) around where you can learn on your own?

youtube got you covered. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=learn+to+swim

but don't learn to swim in the sea. and do look up on rip currents once you go swim at the beach.

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