Taking the dive - Haaretz

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Mon., September 10, 2007 Elul 27, 5767

Israel Time: 23:04 (EST+7)

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Taking the dive

By Roni Dori

The idea first took root in P.'s mind during a nature walk while on vacation in Kenya, about two years ago.

"The path reached a point where we had to enter the water and swim a short distance to some beautiful little islands," she recalls. "Everyone swam across and I was left behind. For me, that was the turning point."

P., 58, from Tel Aviv, almost drowned at age 6, and since then has not put her head under the water.

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"I would splash around in the shallow end [of the pool]," she says with a smile, "but I never entered the deep end."

After the trip to Kenya, P. registered for swimming lessons at the Ramat Aviv pool.

Her classmate Karine Guseinov, on the other hand, dreams of knowing how to swim properly.

"If someone threw me into the water I wouldn't drown," says Guseinov, 28, an accountant from Tel Aviv. "I know how to do the doggy paddle, but have no technique or style, so I tire very quickly. Dreams are meant to be realized, and the sooner the better."

Erez Golani, director of the pool, says that most adults who sign up for swimming lessons achieve their goal.

"It is difficult to say how many of them keep swimming afterward," he says, "although some of them keep coming here for aquacise classes or more advanced courses, to improve their technique. Some even join the pool. Most of the seniors combine swimming with water exercises."

Progress is an individual matter, and depends on each person's hesitancy in the water, previous knowledge and age. Still, the working assumption is that anyone who does not know how to float will never learn how to swim.

At the end of the first lesson, Guseinov manages to swim two laps, in spurts and starts, encouraged by instructor Anna Gershon. P., on the other hand, still does not know how to float. When she gets her body level with the surface of the water, while holding on to the side, Gershon makes half-fearful, half-amused funny faces at her, and she laughs.

"I've taken courses before," says P. as she climbs out of the pool, "but somehow no instructor ever thought of teaching me how to float. After all, that's how it starts, because if I don't know the starting position, how can I learn the rest?"

Gershon usually teaches freestyle first, and then the other strokes. P., however, is most likely going to start off with breast stroke.

"The problem with adults," says Gershon, "is that they come with the idea that they cannot swim. After 40 years of not being able to swim, they come to the course with a defeatist attitude."

At the third lesson, Gershon reprimands P. for stopping every few strokes, usually before traversing half the length of the pool.

"If you know you can get from one point to another, what's the problem?" she says.

Soon P. is proving to herself that she can do it. By the fifth lesson, Guseinov and two other students are close to achieving the goal of swimming five laps - even if they still haven't mastered the technique. By the seventh lesson, Guseinov can swim freestyle and backstroke in the deep end, and swallows water only when someone veers into her lane. P. has learned to exhale under water ("simply terrifying"). At the end of the course, P. swims a bit around the deep end, to the applause of all around her.

"I'm still not completely over my phobia," she says, "but now I know how to swim."

"Anyone who is aware of his body, who dances or participates in any other sport, will find coordination in the water easier," says Iyar Elisha-Gati, director of the summer courses at the Tel Aviv University pool. "People who come here as adults, on their doctor's orders, have difficulty learning the strokes."

Gati demonstrates swimming to music and makes her students practice techniques in the water between each lap.

"They have to practice the strokes hundreds, if not thousands, of times, to get them perfect," she continues. "There is no escaping the monotony of practice."

Shira Hazan, an adult swimming teacher at the Tel Aviv University pool, has five students in her group, aged 26-66. Some have signed up for eight lessons, others for 12. Here, breast stroke is taught first, "unless the student has a medical problem," such as a herniated disc.

"In the United States," explains Gati, "they start with freestyle, because that stroke is more natural and somewhat resembles walking. But the breathing is harder than in breast stroke. We usually teach freestyle and backstroke together. Backstroke is harder, because you can't see where you are going, and you also have to learn how to breathe properly, in case someone in the adjacent lane splashes water on your face."

Gati says that teaching children has become almost as difficult as teaching adults, now that many children have become couch potatoes, spending many hours opposite the television or computer screen.

"Their shoulder muscles are so weak, it takes a lot longer to teach them than it did in the past," explains Gati. "Teaching adults is actually quicker. The question with them is what level they reach."

G., 66, signed up for a course in backstroke, on orders from her doctor.

"I know how to swim breast stroke, with my head out of the water," she says, "but my head is supposed to be in the water. I started having upper and lower back problems, and my doctor sent me here."

At first, G. used a life preserver while practicing breast stroke with her head in the water, but needed it only for a short while. By the seventh lesson she was swimming backstroke, while wearing the life preserver, and hopes that by the 12th lesson she will no longer need it.

Dima, 26, a student at Tel Aviv University, never tried to learn to swim, due to a fear of water. One of the other women in the course, all of whom are in their thirties, signed up because she was jealous of her son, who swims like a fish.

"Another woman," says Gati, "brought her son to a course, and after only a few lessons told me that she thought maybe she should sign up, too. It took a while, but she eventually came."

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