My son learning to swim is also the slowest moving child I have. This causes a lot of tension, because I tend to move way too fast most of the time.

I figured he was still young enough to go into the women’s locker room with me, but that’s not how they do things at swim lessons.

First the kids gather for a pre-lesson meeting. They’re assigned a teacher for the day during this meeting, and the head coach briefs each child on what he’ll be working on during the lesson. Then he dismisses the children to get into their suits and take a shower. A huge crowd of little children descends upon the locker room at once. Then they trickle out, one at a time, wet and shivering from their pre-pool shower.

I sit and wait for my son. And wait. And wait. His whole class assembles at poolside. The head coach begins teaching them. Tonight he handed out mats for everyone to practice proper floating position outside of the pool. My son was still in the locker room. Finally, he emerged. . . and went back in to get his googles? towel? I wasn’t sure what until I saw him lug the full swim bag, open, towards the pool. I had the baby with me, so it took me awhile to get to him and help with the bag.

At last he joined his class on the pool deck, and then to the pool. My son was one of the first out of the pool at lesson’s end. After the post lesson meeting, the children are given three minutes to shower and get dressed and out. I sat back for the long haul. My son has been known to take half an hour to get dressed after lessons. I told him to hurry tonight.

He came out midway through the stream of young swimmers, as opposed to his usual dead last. He had his wet underwear in his hands and no shirt on. Bless his heart. He really rushed. I helped in into his shirt and packed away his wet things.

Time to send out for reinforcements. I will take his big brother to the next swim lesson.

Or rather, it doesn’t prove that blacks can’t swim. So if you’re wondering why most don’t swim, you can throw out all the arguments that would point to genetics. The human genome doesn’t make racial distinctions. Sports aptitude is not race related.

Environment would play a much larger role in the swimmer’s development.

I remember watching the awkwardness of growing up at the pool. Girls who started swimming while they were little continuing through the onset of curves and pimples. The horror of wearing a tattered, worn suit during that period. I see young girls at the pool, and it’s as if 4 years hadn’t gone by.

The coaches remember, too. They may not remember the baby boy born while his big siblings swam competitively, but they remember his older sisters who started swimming when they were 3.

The coach approached my 10 year old, who had started swimming 7 years ago. She remembers him, only with different hair. The other coach, the one who caught her when she fell over the railing during a swim practice, remembers her, even though she doesn’t remember him.

I see the little children learn to swim, and I remember. I see the buddy coaches dot the pool, and it all comes rushing back. My oldest daughter buddy coaching her younger siblings. Groups of kids benefiting from each others’ experiences. I think one of the swim teachers must have swum with my big kids, years ago.

Last lesson, I worried that learning to swim would take my pokey 6 year old forever. He passed level 1 tonight. I watched him fearlessly lie on his back, practicing level 2.

Hope springs eternal.

I know I’ve been building it up in my head quite a bit. That magical moment when my 6 year old actually *learns to swim* (cue trumpet fanfare). So I had great anticipation at taking him to his *first swim lesson* yesterday.

But, a: He didn’t learn to swim the first day, and
b: It wasn’t even his first swim lesson.

He’d taken lessons with his sister last year, remember, and there was the one time we made it down to the city pool for lessons this summer.

So, technically speaking, he wasn’t a stranger to the water. And it’s interesting when we get technical, because, while I was afraid I’d waited too long to get him up and swimming, he is still only 6. His big brother learned to swim younger than that, and so did his two sisters just above him, but his oldest sister didn’t learn until she was 7 or 8, having started at 5. And let’s not forget that I was 12 before it clicked for me, after many years of a lesson here and a lesson there.

So I stopped worrying bout that one. I also noticed that my son isn’t scared of the water, so there’s that. He is very squirrelly, though, and was constantly messing with his goggles and climbing out of the pool. He said he was cold. He didn’t realize that getting in and out of the pool is much colder than just staying in there and warming up.

The lesson itself consisted of a pre-lesson meeting, a demonstration of the 10 levels of USA Learn to Swim, and practicing whatever level skills the kids were during the lesson part. My son spent most of his lesson on level 1, 10 bobs.

He held his breath, rather than blew bubbles. He didn’t dunk his head enough. He climbed out of the pool on a pole while taking turns with the teacher.

Finally, the class progressed to level 2, front and back float. My son tried to sit up while learning the back float. He swears he wasn’t scared.

This could take longer than I’d hoped.

Guess what I did tonight? I took my non-swimming son to swim lessons. Here’s the program we signed up for. They really do some good things with our young people. Check out their video:

Before you can swim fast, you should swim well. Here’s some total immersion footage of excellent freestyle glide.