Learning to swim

[Miss Chicken]

my learning to swim was a nightmare. I learnt though a school program.

This guy called Doug Plaister taught us.

As punishment he would hold our heads under water until we were struggling.

If we were struggling while doing our 100 yard trial he would watch us go under, struggle to come back up again, go under again. If he considered that we were in real trouble he had the big hook on a pole and he would hook it around our bathers and pull us out.

Once there was a local radio talk-back program where the topic was learning to swim and many adults who had been taught by this guy phoned it to say that they ended up hating swimming or being scared to swim becuase of this guy.

Once, at a family gathering, my niece started to tell us about her children learning to swim. My sisters and I started to talk about our experiences. The look on my nieces and their husbands' faces as we told them about Doug Plaister were of shock.

Doug Plaister ended up becoming Lord Mayor of Hobart so as adults we had to see his ugly face on TV a great deal. I used to shake mt fist every time I saw him.

I hope all of you had a more enjoyable time learning to swim than I did.

 

[thestrangequark]

My goodness, Miss Chicken, that sounds downright abusive! I don't really remember learning how to swim, because I learned by the age of two. I did continue to take swimming classes until I was 7 or 8 to improve my swimming, and I recall realy enjoying it. I never learned to dive, though. I wasn't afraid to jump off the board, but I was afraid to do it head first.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

As punishment he would hold our heads under water until we were really struggling.

If we were struggling while doing our 100 yard trial he would watch us go under, struggle to come back up again, go under again. If he considered that we were in real trouble he had the big hook on a pole and he would hook it around our bathers and pull us out.

What a bastard.

Should have shoved that big hook up his ASS. I agree with tsq, that is abuse and probably even assault, what he did to you. Is it legal to treat kids like that?

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Miss Chicken you swimming experience sounds horrible.


Mine was memorable for me to say the least, age of 5 my mother took me to the local swimming baths were she expected me to enter the small children pool seeing as it was my first time, but let out a scream of horror as i ran full pelt from her and jumped right into the adults pool at the 18 foot end, i of course sank to the bottom like a stone while swallowing about half the pool ,and was retrieved by a swimming guard seconds later.

Her scream and the water i swallowed are ingrained into my memory, is it is hers.

But i loved swimming as a youngster, i wish i had kept it up.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

My initial experiences with swimming were not very pleasant. I remember having some lessons in nursery school when I was very young - possibly when I was 3 or 4 - which consisted of us being sent into the swimming pool with no instructions, and all I could remember was being unable to handle the water splashing into my face and throat all the time.

After we moved house, we then took up proper lessons after school when I was 6, and it took me a long while to remove my training ring, I can assure you of that.

Shortly afterwards, though I took to it like, well, a duck to water, although I didn't really have any diving lessons until I was about 11 - not really leaping from diving platforms as the "assuming the position from the side of the pool and ducking in and retrieving the bricks" thing at school - quite a nice time for me when I learned to "see" underwater.

Still, gotta love learning to swim - and any good excuse to bring up this old video from our childhoods:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2VvcOHi2E8[/yt]

Topless Rolf Harris FTW.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^^Now that does bring back memories.

 

[Miss Chicken]

This was more than 40 years ago. It would be considered abuse now but back then it seems to have been accepted.

I did a quick search to see if I could find any mention of him and came up with these quotes from people he taught to swim.

I got alot of stories about about going there when it was a working pool, and in particular about Doug Plaister, who many people remembered as a guy who taught swimming by putting his foot on your head.

The old tepid baths. Doug Plaister trying to teach you to swim with a pole strapped to your back

and who could forget the education pool with Doug
Plaister with his long pole and booming voice

Sounds like a few of us had the pleasure of the infamous Doug Plaister and his pole

Still hear Doug shouting at me waving that bloody pole.

This guy must have been taught well before I was as the Sandy Bay Baths were gone be the time I could remember. I know my father used to use the Sandy Bay Baths.

While I was at school Doug Plaister, later to be Lord Mayor of Hobart taught us to swim. The lessons were held down at the Sandy Bay Baths which were built out into the Derwent at Short Beach about 30 metres off shore. He had a pole with a rope attached to the end with a sort of harness on the end of it. We would put the harness around our body and he would lower us over the side of the walkway into the water and the walk along while supporting us . Occassionally(he thought it was a joke)he would relax and allow us to momentarily sink.

I don't remember a harness. Maybe he didn't use it at the pool because there weren't waves to contend with.

EDITED TO ADD: Short Beach that is mentioned above is where Errrol Flynn learnt to swim and is about a stone's throw from the house I live in until I was 7.

 

[Finn]

Umm. I do remember classes when I was little. But my older brother's family is a swmming family. My nephews and niece could swim at one.

 

[Kirby]

As punishment he would hold our heads under water until we were struggling.

Good lord, that's child abuse! How did this a-hole ever get elected (or appointed, sorry I don't know Australian politics) to his position without people coming out in droves against him?

I was very scared and afraid of the pool when I was young, but when I was about 7 a fried of mine was on the local swim team and I joined not really knowing how to swim. The awesome coaches on the Columbine Knolls Jr. swim team (go Seahorses!) took a lot of care and made sure I learned the right way. Making me wear a teal speedo as a uniform is a whole other issue, but aside from that I've loved swiming ever since.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I learned how to swim when I was 8 years old and thrown in the deep end of a pool at the YMCA by a swimming instructor. It was either drown or make my way to the edge of the pool. I made it, obviously, but stopped going to his class after that.

 

[JiNX-01]

Miss Chicken, that is disgusting! That bully should have been tarred, feathered and fired!

My parents taught me how to swim and they weren't holes so it wasn't traumatic for me or my brothers.

 

[Miss Chicken]

As punishment he would hold our heads under water until we were struggling.

Good lord, that's child abuse! How did this a-hole ever get elected (or appointed, sorry I don't know Australian politics) to his position without people coming out in droves against him?

This was a time when boys could still get the cane and school and girls could geta ruler around the back of the legs or sometimes across their knuckles.

When I was in grade five I witness my teacher (a woman) bang two boys' heads together.

My mother used to belt us with a hairbrush often to the point of leaving bruises.

Teachers accompanied pupils when we went to swimming classes. They must have seen him doing such things to us but did nothing to stop it. Nor did most parents though I know that some children managed to get exempted on "medical grounds" when the parents requested it.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I have never liked swimming, or just being in water in general. I wouldn't say I'm afraid of it so much as I just don't find it to be a pleasant experience. I don't even like baths, I just hate being all wet.

I remember my first swimming classes and how much I disliked it. Getting in and out of the pool is always such a tortuously cold experience, gosh I really hate it! I can swim just fine though. They wanted me to jump off the diving board but I never did because it was too high and it seemed scary.

I remember being at a water park and my parents persuading me to not be a chicken and to go down a certain big tube slide and when I came out of the end I sank right to the bottom of the pool with my eyes open (something I never do!). I don't remember being scared though, I just remember looking up through the water at all the people (my parents included) standing around watching me. The lifeguard came in and fetched me out. I don't think I even swallowed any water but it was another unpleasant water experience that turned me off of swimming.

I might enjoy a heated pool more, one that I could just stand up or sit in. Hot tubs/spas are nice but they make me quite nauseous so I can't go in them.

 

[Rii]

That's just horrible, MC.

I don't recall my earliest lessons, but my mother enrolled me in the state vacation swimming program throughout primary and high school and I still have all the little certificates and medals from that somewhere. I got all the way up to oxygen-assisted CPR.

These days I mostly swim for fitness, although I do adore the simple sensation of floating.

 

[AstroSmurf]

I don't really remember learning how to swim, because I learned by the age of two.

Ditto. I learned when I was four and have no idea who taught me. But I was a natural. I took to it very quickly. However, I was never able to keep water from getting into my ears so my mom would make me wear ear plugs so I didn't get an ear infection. That I do remember. And every summer I was at the neighborhood pool at least twice a week until I was in my teens. I also could dive well. The lifeguards used to get pissed at me for sneaking up to the tallest board, which the kids were not supposed to be on.

And these days I don't really like being in a public pool so I don't swim very often anymore. My OCD kicks in and all I can think about is the wastes in the water. Just even the thought of the water getting past my waist (or even close to my face) freaks me out. (Several years ago I wrote the product information for a line of pool chlorine products. Now I know way to much about what they do... and what they don't do. Yuck!)

 

[scotpens]

Miss Chicken: I'm sorry you had such unpleasant experiences with swimming lessons as a child. This guy sounds like a pathological sadist who took “sink or swim” a bit too literally.

I don't really remember when I first learned to swim. I think I always knew how to tread water and dog-paddle. It just came instinctively. I do recall some swimming lessons at summer camp, and going to a local swim school taught by a man named Al Heinrich. (Funny how these things stick in your head decades later.) I always preferred swimming underwater, though. It's just more fun.

On a related note, my employer's daughter had swimming and diving lessons when she was younger. To teach her proper diving form, the instructor held out two hoops. When she could dive through both of them without knocking them out of his hands, she was doing it right. I said, “So what happens then -- does he give you a fish?”

Next, he taught her to balance a ball on her nose.

 

[Jono]

I don't know how or when I learnt to swim. Until I was 6 or 7 I lived on a small island in the Pacific and I remember going a lot of ocean and river swimming, but I also spent time (longer than 6 months) in Canada and England so I might have learnt there.

When we moved back to Australia my mum enrolled me and my siblings in the town's swimming club called "Penguins". Did that for 4 or 5 years, getting up at 5:30 4 mornings a week to train, weekly club meets, competitions on the weekends. Can't say I miss it. I use to really dislike summer time as we moved from an indoor pool to an outdoor pool. That pool was so freaking cold when you first jumped in at 6AM in the morning.

 

[Mallory]

I learned how to swim when I was nine and we moved to Florida. We lived near the ocean, but my mom wouldn't take us to the beach until we learned how to swim. So off to lessons we went and they were a lot more fun than the educational experience described in the OP.

All three of my kids learned by the age of five, swam competitively and my daughters went on to become Red Cross certified and worked as lifeguards in college. It sure increases my sense of security when I go swimming with them.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I almost drowned when I was 7 and still can't swim.

 

[Geckothan]

We did some swimming lessons at school, but I usually skipped it. I could probably swim well enough to not drown if I fell into a body of water, but that's about it.