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Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
I learnt to swim aged 47 after I almost drowned
There are many ways to humiliate yourself in the water, but being pulled out of a stretch of placid sea by a 14-year-old was probably my low point. 'Delayed drowning' has long been my standard answer when asked what my default swimming stroke is. Technically, I can swim, but I'm about as adept at it as Alan Shearer would be at playing Lady Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company. So thank heavens for the boat captain's son, who hauled this 90kg writer out of the water after I overestimated my abilities on a Red Sea yacht tour. According to research from easyJet holidays, I'm not alone in being out of my depth: a study conducted by the brand this year found that one in six British adults cannot swim, and a third say they are not confident in the water. With over 100 public pools having closed and their diving boards removed in the past two decades, many adults have been left without access, support or confidence when it comes to getting in the water. Childhood trauma Personally, I've disliked swimming ever since my schooldays. Readers of a certain age will remember the drill: we lined up in our pyjamas at the pool's edge, then were forced to dive in to retrieve a black brick from the deep end. My tactic of shoving the brick down my trunks as I struggled back to the surface earned me the pleasure of making the plunge three more times as punishment. And we did this, again and again, for a full hour. As far as Sisyphean tasks go, this remains the ultimate for me. I have never, before or since this bout of aqua-sadism, felt the urge to rescue a brick from water. Suffice it to say, I've done my best to avoid swimming ever since. The Jordanian humiliation, coupled with decades of simmering jealousy at how my friends, and, more recently, my fiancée, can effortlessly leap from diving boards and navigate even fairly choppy seas without fear, eventually got to me. While many of my more youthful pleasures, cigarettes, fried bread, clubbing, are fading, something needed to replace them. I didn't want to 'wild swim', a concept so smug and superior it makes Richard Hammond seem endearing by comparison. I just wanted to look less like a prat and more like a competent middle-aged bloke. I can learn to rewire plug sockets later. Leisure centre lessons I don't care much for leisure centres or gyms. To me, they're verruca contagion zones. But the pool where my lessons took place in south London was a surprise. The changing rooms weren't knee-deep in pubic hair and empty Lynx bottles. There were hairdryers. The locks actually worked. And the one sopping wet towel abandoned on the floor was swiftly removed by a cleaner whose face was so fierce I suspected he used the pool chlorine as mouthwash each night. I decided not to recount my past watery woe to Rodrigo, my instructor for the next six weeks, a gentleman who, I think, could sense my palpable discomfort in this alien environment. 'You need to think about the basics as BLABT', Rodrigo told me after asking me to swim a length so he could see my technique. 'Technique' was a somewhat grandiose term for my pathetic splashing. I stayed afloat and managed the length, but I must have looked fairly awful to Rodrigo. It certainly felt humiliating as I doggy-paddled down the pool. Desperate for advice, I listened as Rodrigo explained his mysterious acronym. 'BLABT stands for body position, leg and arm movement, breathing, and timing, those are the key elements you need to learn,' he said. 'At the moment, you're kicking far too much. Let the water do the work. Don't windmill your arms. So many swimmers think it's all about brute force, ploughing through the water. It's not. You can actually be much lazier and still be a better swimmer.' Learning to breathe This was Handel's Water Music to my ears. But I also suspected it couldn't possibly be this easy. I didn't know where to start with my insatiable desire to question pretty much everything he had just told me. I began with the most pressing: 'Rodrigo', I said, 'how can I do any of this when I can't even breathe with my face in the water?' To my bewilderment, it turned out to be effortless. Rodrigo taught me, in a matter of seconds, how to softly blow bubbles out of my mouth while my face was submerged. It worked instantly. I have no idea about the biology involved, but if you pretend you're gently blowing on a mug of hot tea while in the water, nothing gets up your nose. 'Breathing is all about manipulating how we take in and let out air while we're in the water,' Rodrigo elaborated. 'Exhale while your face is underwater, inhale when it's out.' I hadn't expected it at all, but by the end of that first lesson, my confidence in the water had improved markedly. Learning to crawl In my day, the only buoyancy aids we had were those bits of foam that looked a bit like gravestones. Modern swim school attendees, by contrast, are offered brightly coloured, bendy foam tubes. Tucking one under my arms, Rodrigo explained that the noodle would force my body into a narrower position, keeping me face down with a straight back and legs. It's called the 'supine position', apparently. It all reinforces Rodrigo's mantra: with swimming, the less frantic energy you expend, the better swimmer you become. 'With the noodle, you're showing your body and mind how to extend the arm while remaining buoyant,' he explained, striding alongside the pool edge. 'You have to learn to work with water. Every action has a reaction, so take it slow and steady at first.' The hardest part for me was combining all the elements to execute a proper front crawl: rotating my shoulders without excessive force, timing every third stroke to come up for air, and pausing for a split second between exhaling underwater and inhaling. Rodrigo explained that pause gives the brain a micro-moment to adjust to what the body needs to do next. Perhaps my most surprising discovery was how helpful the human shoulder is to a swimmer. Leaning the side of my head against my shoulder when taking a breath is strangely relaxing – a tiny nap before plunging back into the water, fully replenished with oxygen. If you're wondering, the exact formula is: drop the arm, turn the chin and come up while the other arm stays overhead. Turning the chin rather than lifting the whole head is revelatory, though for the first few weeks my brain struggled to coordinate every element of a proper stroke all at once. Lane swimming I learnt all the basics in one lesson, but I needed four more for the elements to fully cement in my brain – and for my brain and body to finally cooperate. This wasn't frustrating. Far from it. By the fifth lesson, I was ploughing up and down the pool, swimming around 200 metres each time in something very close to a proper front crawl. I had claimed the far-left slow-hand lane of the Vauxhall Better Health pool as my doggedly won territory. One day, I'll move up the hierarchy into the fast lane. It's good to live in hope. With Rodrigo's patience and occasional high-fives, I am now the proud owner of a 47-year-old body that no longer needs the assistance of 14-year-old Jordanians to get me out of trouble. I owe it all to Rodrigo, a burly, endlessly patient and calm man. He never once entered the water during my six one-to-one lessons – but he didn't need to. With the right instructor, a mere ten minutes of education is enough to start mastering the water. Rob received lessons at the Vauxhall Better Health pool via easyJet holidays Swim School, which is offering 1,000 adults free swimming lessons until 14 September. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Solve the daily Crossword
Telegraph
a day ago
- General
- Telegraph
I learnt to swim aged 47 after I almost drowned
There are many ways to humiliate yourself in the water, but being pulled out of a stretch of placid sea by a 14-year-old was probably my low point. 'Delayed drowning' has long been my standard answer when asked what my default swimming stroke is. Technically, I can swim, but I'm about as adept at it as Alan Shearer would be at playing Lady Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company. So thank heavens for the boat captain's son, who hauled this 90kg writer out of the water after I overestimated my abilities on a Red Sea yacht tour. According to research from easyJet holidays, I'm not alone in being out of my depth: a study conducted by the brand this year found that one in six British adults cannot swim, and a third say they are not confident in the water. With over 100 public pools having closed and their diving boards removed in the past two decades, many adults have been left without access, support or confidence when it comes to getting in the water. Childhood trauma Personally, I've disliked swimming ever since my schooldays. Readers of a certain age will remember the drill: we lined up in our pyjamas at the pool's edge, then were forced to dive in to retrieve a black brick from the deep end. My tactic of shoving the brick down my trunks as I struggled back to the surface earned me the pleasure of making the plunge three more times as punishment. And we did this, again and again, for a full hour. As far as Sisyphean tasks go, this remains the ultimate for me. I have never, before or since this bout of aqua-sadism, felt the urge to rescue a brick from water. Suffice it to say, I've done my best to avoid swimming ever since. The Jordanian humiliation, coupled with decades of simmering jealousy at how my friends, and, more recently, my fiancée, can effortlessly leap from diving boards and navigate even fairly choppy seas without fear, eventually got to me. While many of my more youthful pleasures, cigarettes, fried bread, clubbing, are fading, something needed to replace them. I didn't want to ' wild swim ', a concept so smug and superior it makes Richard Hammond seem endearing by comparison. I just wanted to look less like a prat and more like a competent middle-aged bloke. I can learn to rewire plug sockets later. Leisure centre lessons I don't care much for leisure centres or gyms. To me, they're verruca contagion zones. But the pool where my lessons took place in south London was a surprise. The changing rooms weren't knee-deep in pubic hair and empty Lynx bottles. There were hairdryers. The locks actually worked. And the one sopping wet towel abandoned on the floor was swiftly removed by a cleaner whose face was so fierce I suspected he used the pool chlorine as mouthwash each night. I decided not to recount my past watery woe to Rodrigo, my instructor for the next six weeks, a gentleman who, I think, could sense my palpable discomfort in this alien environment. 'You need to think about the basics as BLABT', Rodrigo told me after asking me to swim a length so he could see my technique. 'Technique' was a somewhat grandiose term for my pathetic splashing. I stayed afloat and managed the length, but I must have looked fairly awful to Rodrigo. It certainly felt humiliating as I doggy-paddled down the pool. Desperate for advice, I listened as Rodrigo explained his mysterious acronym. 'BLABT stands for body position, leg and arm movement, breathing, and timing, those are the key elements you need to learn,' he said. 'At the moment, you're kicking far too much. Let the water do the work. Don't windmill your arms. So many swimmers think it's all about brute force, ploughing through the water. It's not. You can actually be much lazier and still be a better swimmer.' Learning to breathe This was Handel's Water Music to my ears. But I also suspected it couldn't possibly be this easy. I didn't know where to start with my insatiable desire to question pretty much everything he had just told me. I began with the most pressing: 'Rodrigo', I said, 'how can I do any of this when I can't even breathe with my face in the water?' To my bewilderment, it turned out to be effortless. Rodrigo taught me, in a matter of seconds, how to softly blow bubbles out of my mouth while my face was submerged. It worked instantly. I have no idea about the biology involved, but if you pretend you're gently blowing on a mug of hot tea while in the water, nothing gets up your nose. 'Breathing is all about manipulating how we take in and let out air while we're in the water,' Rodrigo elaborated. 'Exhale while your face is underwater, inhale when it's out.' I hadn't expected it at all, but by the end of that first lesson, my confidence in the water had improved markedly. Learning to crawl In my day, the only buoyancy aids we had were those bits of foam that looked a bit like gravestones. Modern swim school attendees, by contrast, are offered brightly coloured, bendy foam tubes. Tucking one under my arms, Rodrigo explained that the noodle would force my body into a narrower position, keeping me face down with a straight back and legs. It's called the 'supine position', apparently. It all reinforces Rodrigo's mantra: with swimming, the less frantic energy you expend, the better swimmer you become. 'With the noodle, you're showing your body and mind how to extend the arm while remaining buoyant,' he explained, striding alongside the pool edge. 'You have to learn to work with water. Every action has a reaction, so take it slow and steady at first.' The hardest part for me was combining all the elements to execute a proper front crawl: rotating my shoulders without excessive force, timing every third stroke to come up for air, and pausing for a split second between exhaling underwater and inhaling. Rodrigo explained that pause gives the brain a micro-moment to adjust to what the body needs to do next. Perhaps my most surprising discovery was how helpful the human shoulder is to a swimmer. Leaning the side of my head against my shoulder when taking a breath is strangely relaxing – a tiny nap before plunging back into the water, fully replenished with oxygen. If you're wondering, the exact formula is: drop the arm, turn the chin and come up while the other arm stays overhead. Turning the chin rather than lifting the whole head is revelatory, though for the first few weeks my brain struggled to coordinate every element of a proper stroke all at once. Lane swimming I learnt all the basics in one lesson, but I needed four more for the elements to fully cement in my brain – and for my brain and body to finally cooperate. This wasn't frustrating. Far from it. By the fifth lesson, I was ploughing up and down the pool, swimming around 200 metres each time in something very close to a proper front crawl. I had claimed the far-left slow-hand lane of the Vauxhall Better Health pool as my doggedly won territory. One day, I'll move up the hierarchy into the fast lane. It's good to live in hope. With Rodrigo's patience and occasional high-fives, I am now the proud owner of a 47-year-old body that no longer needs the assistance of 14-year-old Jordanians to get me out of trouble. I owe it all to Rodrigo, a burly, endlessly patient and calm man. He never once entered the water during my six one-to-one lessons – but he didn't need to. With the right instructor, a mere ten minutes of education is enough to start mastering the water. Rob received lessons at the Vauxhall Better Health pool via easyJet holidays Swim School, which is offering 1,000 adults free swimming lessons until 14 September.
Khaleej Times
a day ago
- General
- Khaleej Times
'I am responsible': How Sharjah Ruler pays off loans, gives jobs to struggling residents
When a Sharjah citizen called a media programme and complained, she got a response and reassurance from none other than the emirate's ruler himself. Calling into a media programme, the woman brought up an issue of some fathers not paying their dues. 'There is an issue I want to raise regarding the regulation of those struggling with debts,' she said in Arabic. 'While we respect this rule, the problem is that some separated fathers have used it as an excuse to avoid paying their children's expenses.' Responding to the woman's comments, Sharjah Ruler and Supreme Council Member Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi said he would personally take responsibility when people were struggling. 'There is something called the rule, and there is something called the spirit of the rule,' he said. 'For example, there are cases brought to a lawyer where a father is ordered to pay certain expenses. The court enforces the payment, sometimes even involving the police. But what if the father truly doesn't have the money or no longer works? In such cases, the father can appeal to the court to give him time, so it can be verified whether he has the ability to pay from his income. If it turns out he genuinely cannot cover the expenses, then I take responsibility for ensuring the payment is made.' Over the years, the Sharjah Ruler has taken an active part in easing the lives of those living in the city. A keen listener of the Sharjah's Direct Line show on radio, he has often stepped into solve problems faced by citizens and residents. One such case involved a resident who said she could not afford to enrol her disabled son in school as she didn't have a job and no one to support them. Immediately after, Dr Sheikh Sultan called on the line and undertook all costs related to the boy's education and treatment. In 2021, he stopped a bank from auctioning off a citizen's home over his inability to pay off his housing loan. In another instance, he helped a woman get a job.
Arab News
2 days ago
- General
- Arab News
Saudi project clears 915 mines in Yemen
RIYADH: Members of Saudi Arabia's Project Masam removed 915 explosive devices from various regions of Yemen last week. The total included 880 unexploded ordnances, 14 improvised explosive devices, 13 anti-tank mines and eight anti-personnel mines, according to a Saudi Press Agency report. Ousama Al-Gosaibi, the initiative's managing director, said that 510,527 mines have been cleared since the project began in 2018. The explosives were planted indiscriminately and posed a threat to civilians, including children, women and the elderly. The demining operations took place in Marib, Aden, Jouf, Shabwa, Taiz, Hodeidah, Lahij, Sanaa, Al-Bayda, Al-Dhale and Saada. The project trains local demining engineers and provides them with modern equipment. It also offers support to Yemenis injured by the devices. Teams are tasked with clearing villages, roads and schools to facilitate the safe movement of civilians and delivery of humanitarian aid.
The National
2 days ago
- The National
Gaza teenager blinded by gunfire while seeking aid
Fifteen-year-old Taha El Maqadma, who wants to be an engineer, lost his sight when he was blinded by Israeli gunfire while trying to collect humanitarian aid
