Learning to swim

Learning to swim: the incredible joy of jumping in.

When children learn to swim, they do everything through play. Adult learners, all tension and technique, could do with taking a leaf – and a leap – out of their book.

Most children seem to love jumping into the water – the children I teach would spend the whole swimming lesson leaping into the water if I let them. It is unusual, but the other day one of my adult pupils surprised me by asking about jumping and even diving into the water. He is a new swimmer. He’s only been learning for a few months so this was brave of him. I think he probably meant “sometime in the future – when I can swim properly”. But it got me thinking. I started to wonder what it is the children love about it.

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