Dyspraxic Adults

At what age did you learn to swim , or can't you swim? Although described as poorly coordinated I first learnt to swim at the beach at Pataya when I was 6. I mainly swim slow breaststroke only, very occasionally doing front crawl. I swim with my head above water. I don't like swimming underwater.

Around age 9 or 10, I think. Possibly I could swim a little bit at a younger age, not sure. Definitely couldn't swim out past where my toes could touch the floor safely until age 10/11. Still a very slow swimmer!

I barley swim, basically just flailing my arms around to stay alfloat :/ I just found this board, idk if I even have dispraxia but it really seems so. I’ve always wonder what was wrong with me and why I struggled with things. Been researching and this is the only thing that seems to actually make sense!

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I can’t swim.

For me, swimming is one of the few things which I’ve never been able to successfully learn to do. Oh, I can flail my arms and legs around in a vague approximation of swimming but after a couple of strokes my swimming has magically switched to unintentional scuba diving and/or drowning

I’ve never been able to physically comprehend the art of keeping afloat and honestly my head dipping below the water is a phobia of mine which I have no drive to conquer. I’m quite content to paddle and splash about.

It’s odd. Because other things, like riding a bike, driving a car... being relatively good at go karting etc are things that I took to quite well.

I was about 8 or 9 and enjoyed a lot of swimming in the past>

I could never quite coordinate the strokes where legs and arms need to sychronise apart from front & back crawl.

So I was never going to win any races doing breastroke or butterfly or dolphin butterfly or even sidestroke - which is about the most graceful to swim even though it does not look very good.

I have never seen it demonstrated but I found a video online - I only watched the first bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heKKhNBHp98

Not till I was 13. My mum organized a friend of my relatives who happened to be a swimming instructor, to teach me.

It took me quite a few lessons to pick it up but I am really glad I did saw it through. Not being able to swim as an adult would be another drag on my self-esteem, especially as I really enjoy being in the water.

My mom had been trying to teach me how to swim since around 3 it finally clicked one day when I was 8

I learned to swim when I was 10 as my primary school had weekly compulsory swimming lessons, which took place on Friday mornings.

Unfortunately I only achieved 10 metres because when I was in Year 6 the school modified its policy so that the older Infants (Year 2) and younger juniors (years Three and Four) went instead of years Five and Six. This meant I never learned to swim (and still cannot) any longer than ten metres.

Strangely enough, I was the only person in my class at primary school who could swim when I was 7. This is the only time that I've been above average at sport in my life. :-)

I should say that this situation was not down to me having a special talent. It was simply that my father, being a sailor, had taken me to a pool every week since the age of five- something that my classmates hadn't benefited from!

Willr0490 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 20, 2019 9:17 pm I learned to swim when I was 10 as my primary school had weekly compulsory swimming lessons, which took place on Friday mornings.

Unfortunately I only achieved 10 metres because when I was in Year 6 the school modified its policy so that the older Infants (Year 2) and younger juniors (years Three and Four) went instead of years Five and Six. This meant I never learned to swim (and still cannot) any longer than ten metres.

I was lucky that mum liked swimming so took us regularly then enrolled me and my brother in Saturday lessons as soon as we were old enough (age 6 iirc). and we were both content to jump off 5M board into 5M deep water at age 7 or 8.

It gave me advantage of much increased confidence when I later had school lessons in year 6 (or whatever Yr 6 was called back then. Was 1985). I was only person who passed ASA Stage 2* in my class as was able to swim the half a width or so underwater and retrieve a rubber brick from bottom of 'deep end' (1.8M) with relative ease.

Please don't be overly constrained by the fact you only achieved 10M badge. That said, I would avoid unaccompanied open water swimming and consider looking for lessons to help build your confidence in the water should you ever find yourself in a swim to survive situation. (assuming that interests you?)


*ASA's Stage 2 attainment requirements are much changed now.

I tried to learn to swim at the age of ten. I was hopeless! I was in a one to one swimming class with an autistic boy who learned much quicker than myself. I could swim by holding a poodle (floating thing) and by holding to something else but I gave up in the end. The only good thing I could do was the dog paddle

I learned to swim 3 times. I could swim (frogstyle) when I was about five, but afterwards we went 'swimming' with school, where we were only allowed in the shallow pool, where proper swimming is quite impossible, and I forgot how to swim. So I had to relearn, and then some years later I got trapped under a raft and took a scare from the water. So I had to overcome my fear and learn all over again. I could never do the crawl style though, which was a problem because it was required to be allowed to learn sailing, which I wanted to try.

I've always struggled with front crawl and can't really coordinate or sustain it so generally stick with my uncoordinated, but sufficiently effective breast stroke

My mother took me swimming from a very early age and I earned a fair few of my swimming badges.

However, after primary school (and the closure of a big swimming baths near us) I dropped off of swimming and only did it occasionally at the beach or when I found myself at a pool on holiday.

This Monday before work I got back into the water properly for the first time in many years and while I did struggle, I still remembered some of the skills and swam for half an hour - front crawl there, back stroke on the way back. The exercise was invigorating and I think I will make it a weekly thing from now on.