Being afraid to speak

Just how many people are afraid to speak up about any unpleasant experiences in their watery past? Zoe and I have our suspicions it is of epidemic proportions as unresolved fears, even if small at first can grow out of all proportion when they are left or managed. Frank Skinner trying to overcome his fear of water in a very public challenge last year has opened the door a crack for many more people to want to have a look at what may lie on the other side. However, doors can be walked through in two directions. In other words this is mostly seen as an opportunity for many people to want to try again to learn to swim when it is also an opportunity for those who teach to take a look at what lies on the other side of the door at where the learner is coming from. I would like to know the reasons why this is not happening widely.

Recently Zoe and I heard a tale of how great trauma was inflicted upon someone by a swimming teacher and wondered just how that teacher would feel if they knew. Sadly the story the person told us is not uncommon and the truth is that some people would come out the otherside relatively unscathed. To that person however it was devastating and removed life long chances of enjoying the water until they came to us for help. The dilemma is therefore how to build a common thread of communication between the teacher and all pupils so that this unsconscious accidental damage routinely does not happen. If teachers do not look through the door at where their pupils are coming from and want to just override or manage fears then communication stops and fears get the chance to grow much bigger under the radar.

Let's also consider what learning to swim entails. A person is visiting a new and all encompassing environment that almost all of us are born to be able to take advantage of safely but as we are not adapted to be permanently submerged could lose their life in just a few minutes. Where else do we ask people to take on such a challenge? Dolphins, whales, otters, seals, duck-billed platypus and many others are at one with the water and yet they too cannot exist permanently below its surface. They learn how to take advantage of its qualities and minimise it's disadvantages and risks and they are also not born knowing every piece of information they will need to survive in it's challenges. This is why learning to swim is so different from any other activity. It is also why the pyschological side of it is so important and yet is so bizarrely neglected on a regular basis. It also means learning to swim need not be hard at all.

Why the psychological side is ignored is historical and allied to a lack of comfortable exposure time to what is an advantageous and natural environment for human beings. A strong case of use it or lose it. Aquatic knowledge is held in the social fabric and what it says has a huge impact on how comfortable people are in water and how successful they are at achieving their goals. The way to regain lost wider aquatic knowledge is clear. Encourage slow re-engagement with aquatic environments starting with splash parks (wonderful places to start) and the use of our own sense of personal safety to guide us while someone more experienced than ourselves guards our lives too. Feeling safe is as important as being in a safe environment. If you do not feel safe then you are not yet but if you stay comfortable you will have access to your superior human potential to learn. Being afraid of speaking about fear openly through a sense of shame or, blame or expectation of the unknown holds everyone back because the ANSWERS are out there waiting to be used as they have been for millenia. Let's sponge them up?!

Quite new to science a Malaysian fungi called Spongiforma squarepantsii.
 "Sponge bob comes to dry land and is found sitting under a tree?"