Making Waves

Lessons Help Adults Fight Water Phobia, Get in the Swim

By Barbara Hey
Special to The Denver Post

Feb. 11 , 2001 - A year ago Karen Levine couldn't swim. She could stay afloat - barely - but, after nearly drowning as a child, was an inveterate swimming-lesson dropout. But after watching her 10-year-old son become a proficient swimmer, she decided to sign up - one more time - for instruction.

There was another incentive as well. Levine, 43, wanted a workout that would be strenuous, yet meditative, and easy on her bones and joints, something she could stick with even after AARP came calling.

Now she swims for more than an hour three times a week, and has reversed a lifelong pattern of thinking, "No, not me, can't do that."

Levine is just one of the millions of adults who escaped childhood without ever graduating from the ranks of nonfloaters. And many - tired of watching from the boat while the rest of the family goes snorkeling or guarding the juice boxes while the kids stay cool in the pool - will decide to give lessons another try. Many rediscover swimming for fitness after the knees give out, to rehabilitate after surgery, to take on a midlife challenge. But there is often internal resistance, the prevailing explanation for why so many have for years stayed on dry land: terror.

Many have water phobias

As many as 128 million adults are afraid of swimming in the ocean, 92 million are fearful of deep pool water and 78 million are afraid to put their faces in the water, according to a study by Melon Dash, president of the Miracle Swimming Institute, a Californiabased swimming school that teaches adults with water phobia.

Most of these men and women go through life feeling slightly embarrassed about this gap in physical education. Worse, still, they feel like hypocrites as they register their children for endless swimming lessons and urge perseverance when challenges arise.

Back in the '60s and '70s, swimming lessons often began with a teacher's push into the deep end. That terror-inducing sink or swim technique is one of the reasons many people are reluctant to take the plunge again.

Instruction has reached a stage of enlightenment. Swimming, many instructors realize, is not just about mechanical skills, but primarily about learning to feel comfortable in water. Many people who have reached adulthood as nonswimmers have a story to tell, a bad water experience that rears its head when water beckons.

The problem, says Dash, is you can't concentrate on learning how to swim if your fight or flight response is on full throttle. "Many of the people I teach have one thought when in the water: 'I am going to die,'- " says Dash.

First they have to be calm in the water, in control and confident that they are not going to drown, she says. Only then will they "stay in their bodies" enough to learn the physical skills.

To get them to that state of relaxation, she begins her seminars by talking to her students - whose median age is 46 - getting them to voice the source of their aversion to water. After making peace with their fear, they get into the pool, and even then they go only as deep as they can handle, even if it means just dangling their toes over the edge of the pool. Dash will only teach in water that's at body-warming temperature, from 92 to 94 degrees, so that students are not distracted by discomfort.

Adults commonly get stuck at several points, says Chris Beckman, director of the Swimboree Swim School in Boulder who utilizes some of Dash's techniques. "The first hurdle is learning to feel at ease enough in the water to be able to let go and float," he says. Equipment can help boost comfort and confidence. "Goggles, mask, snorkel, flippers - I say use whatever makes you feel more in control."

Then there's another common roadblock - resistance to going face down in the water. "Other issues surface, like being afraid that you can't breathe, not wanting to get water in the nose or into the sinuses, panicking about accidentally inhaling underwater, confusion about when to blow out bubbles," says Beckman. That's where technique comes in, and where teaching adults takes a detour.

Adults not fearless as kids are

Unlike kids who jump in fearlessly and unselfconsciously flail around, adults feel uneasy about their lack of skill and are easily frustrated. "First you have to encourage adults to act like kids, be playful, not be afraid of being uncoordinated," says Robin Saltonstall, a swimming instructor and director of 40Plus Fitness at RallySport Health and Fitness Club in Boulder.

While kids can grasp technique readily, adults need movements to be broken down into tiny increments. They must first repeat the same movements lap after lap, and only then combine them into the full stroke, says Saltonstall. That may mean focusing for a whole session on how the hand enters the water, and repeating the movement so often that it eventually becomes ingrained.

Teaching adults requires particular patience and attention, says Mindy Radke-Smith, a personal trainer at the Denver Athletic Club. "The fear issue is huge for most of my clients, and some take a month before they can put their face into the water."

The motivation for taking lessons has much to do with the likelihood of success. If you have a tight time frame (must learn before next month's trip to Hawaii, for example) the pressure may be too much. But if you are relaxed and want to learn for reasons of personal growth - to go swimming with your children, to get fit - then it's easier to proceed.

It also takes some effort to silence the brain, and trust the body. "I first had to understand each stroke intellectually, and then I was able to get a feel for doing them," says Fran Hall, 68, who started lessons with Saltonstall two years ago. Now Hall participates in a master's swimming class three times a week year-round at RallySport's outdoor lap pool.

Athletic all her life, Hall wanted to take on a new challenge and restyle her traditional way of moving through water, with wide strokes, held head erect and hair always dry. "This is the new way of swimming, very scientific, aerodynamic, using the core muscles."

The payoff of learning to swim is huge.

"I feel transformed," say Levine, who just finished her lessons with Saltonstall but still checks in for pep talks and tips on technique. "Now I have the courage to try all those others things I didn't think I could do, like water skiing, ice skating, Latin dancing. I thought I was too old to learn anything new. Now I know I have no limits."

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