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More grown-ups finding lessons not just for kids

By Janet Frankston
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- When Kelly Yuan chose a college 17 years ago, she was relieved her first choice didn't require students to pass a swimming test.

She didn't remember swimming as a child, when most people master the skill, and a bad experience swallowing pool water as a teen had left her with no desire to learn.

But now, at 34, she decided it was time to catch up. Yuan recently enrolled in an adult swimming class, joining other women between ages 28 and 63 at 7 a.m. every Sunday to learn the ways of the water.

With the erosion of swimming programs in public-school physical education classes over the past few decades, some adults are now trying to learn what they may have missed as a child, some swimming experts say. Adult swimming has become popular enough for New York's 92nd Street Y to open a second beginners class on Thursday nights in 2004 and double enrollment, said aquatics director Lane Wineski. In New Orleans, some swimming instructors report an increase in adults learning how to swim after Hurricane Katrina.

Swimming instruction programs try to accommodate these adults' special needs, offering adults-only classes and addressing the kinds of fears adults may bring to the water that kids don't.

"They feel they are the only ones who would be afraid to put their face in the water or not go into the deep end," she said. "They're embarrassed they don't feel comfortable because they're not 5 years old learning how to swim."

Yuan's instructor, Manny Tubens, said he takes a different approach with adults. He spends the first 10 minutes of the initial class telling them what to expect and building confidence for the fearful students.

"We walk around the pool in the shallow water. I tell them they can stay near the walls, and I'll hold your hand," he said. "I try to get them in the mood to relax."

He said adults are more serious about

swimming. "'They want to learn techniques, timing and breathing, whereas the children just want to splash around," he said.

While he skips the games -- such as singing "Ring Around the Rosie" to get the kids to dunk their heads under water -- some of the tools are the similar. Adults and children use the same buoyant long noodles. He doesn't give kickboards to children because they can slip off, but uses them with adults.

Kathryn Scott, director of physical education at the University of California at Berkeley, uses at least one game with adults -- called rocks and corks -- to explain the principals of buoyancy and the physics involved with swimming.

"The physiology is important," said Scott, who helped review the Red Cross water safety instruction manual.

Tubens, who has taught swimming for more than 22 years, says he takes on grown-up fears head on. He taught one class at a YWCA in Midtown Manhattan called "Petrified People Don't Sink."

Tubens said he gives his students different options to make them feel comfortable.

"If they can't swim across the pool, 10 or 15 feet, maybe they can walk across and use their arms," he said.

It's difficult for adults or even teens to learn to swim because they recognize the real dangers of water, said Allan Cassorla, a clinical psychologist and associate director of counseling and psychological services at Columbia University. He said children are often fearless.

"With adults, there is a greater degree of concern about safety and concerning one's own mortality," he said. "That increases as one gets older."

Many public schools have eliminated swimming programs as part of physical education, as budget cuts reduce physical education classes, said John Leonard, executive director of the American Swimming Coaches Association in Fort Lauderdale.

But a lot of kids continue to learn through private lessons. About the same percentage of kids are learning outside of school, as has been the trend for the last few decades, he said.

He estimated that 5 million Americans take swimming lessons annually, and about 98 percent are children. Adult lessons are on the rise, he said, but could not quantify a number.

One woman's tale of overcoming her fear of swimming

By Janet Frankston, Associated Press

NEW YORK -- The confirmation letter for my beginning swim class said I needed a cap and goggles.

I bought a new brown bathing suit that I could always wear to the beach, and I chose an electric pink cap, thinking I'd wear it only once. I borrowed goggles from my fiance.

For weeks, I dreaded getting into the 92nd Street Y pool. Even with my fiance only a few feet away at the pool's edge, my stomach churned.

But I wanted to show him I could try, after my near-nervous breakdown during our trip to China last fall. I had panicked when we had to cross the Yangtze River at night, across a series of narrow planks with no hand rails in some areas, to reach a boat that would take us along the river.

After inhaling water a few times as a child, I never liked the feeling of my head submerged. I almost didn't graduate from Columbia University because of its required swim test for undergraduates. But I doggie-paddled with my head out, and I passed.

Swimming had been a fear I couldn't conquer, but now at age 33 I was ready to try.

So I guess I had something to prove to Scott and myself as I slowly climbed down the ladder into the cold 4-foot-deep end.

I hadn't been in a pool for years. I remembered how the water could feel relaxing and

liberating, and soon I got down to my shoulders. I found enough courage to move from the side surprisingly quickly.

Whether I realized it at the time or not, my goal was to make myself comfortable, then maybe I could progress.

I declined to participate in the initial "bobbing" exercises, where my teacher and classmates dunk their heads up and down.

Mine was always the only head above water, as I stood and waited for the next drill.

By the end of the hour, I could submerge my mouth and nose and blow bubbles, though I felt silly at my childlike progress.

My teacher suggested humming to keep the water from seeping in, and I concentrated on that instead of worrying about my head and the chlorine smell.

My instructor never pushed me to dunk my head when I wasn't ready, and that helped. I started to understand why people enjoy gliding up and down the pool like a fish, but I still worried I would meander to the deep end, where there is no pool bottom to touch.

As the classes progressed, I felt less afraid.

By the fourth class I felt confident enough to dip in my face in, and eventually my head. I tried to float on my back without a kickboard, and I could do it. I signed up for another session of five lessons.

Now, I can do the front and back float, and I can dunk my head for almost 10 seconds. I still can't believe I'm not afraid. Though I'm holding my breath a lot, I am learning to blow out of my nose.

I'm not quite a swimmer yet, but I am beginning to enjoy the water.

At least enough not to panic on my next trip down the Yangtze.

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Take a look

Janet Frankston, 33, puts on her goggles as she prepares to enter the pool for a Beginner Swim Group class at the 92nd Street Y in New York. (Associated Press/TINA FINEBERG)

Water safety instructor Manny Tubens, right, guides Kelly Yuan, 34, through an exercise during a Beginner Swim Group class at the 92nd Street Y.

Water safety instructor Manny Tubens, right, guides Sandra Brown, 42, foreground left, through a breathing exercise during a Beginner Swim Group class at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

Janet Frankston, 33, listens as water safety instructor Manny Tubens, unseen, speaks during a Beginner Swim Group class.

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