Do you know how to swim? Do you need to know how to swim in order to become a swimming pool owner? Not necessarily the swimming pool contractors from A Clear Choice Pool & Spa Service in Menifee, CA say. You can learn to swim after the pool has been constructed.
Swimming is ideal exercise and it may be easier for you, as an adult, to want to learn to swim in the privacy of your own swimming pool rather than in a group setting at the community pool. If you do know how to swim, you may want to introduce your children to the swimming pool as a way to spend time with one another.
Do you know how to swim?
There are many methods by which to learn to swim, and you need to know your own personality and which teaching/learning method will work best for you. If you have your own pool you can hire a swim instructor to come and teach you to swim right in your own backyard!
- What are the rules of the water? These “rules,” regardless of whether you’re in a pool, lake or pond stress the fact that no one should be in the pool alone — no matter if they know how to swim or not. If you’re in a swimming pool and don’t know how to swim, stay in the shallow end. If you have children in the house who don’t know how to swim, make sure the shallow and deep ends are clearly delinated and make sure they wear life vests at all times.
- Take it easy. It’s a myth and an old wive’s tale that you can simply drop someone into the pool and they will “sink or swim.” Sure they may swim to the side of the pool out of fear but they certainly won’t ever want to get back in. Start out by getting into the shallow end, wearing a life vest and easing your way in. Lower yourself until you’re submerged up to your chest then eventually go underwater. Hold onto the side of the swimming pool as you ease your way in and work up the nerve to put your head under water. Take a deep breath before you put your face in the water and take time to just get used to the feeling of the water on your face. Work your way up to holding onto the side of the pool, putting your face in the water and kicking your legs back so that you’re floating. If you’re teaching a child to swim, you will probably be told to blow a puff of air into his or her face as that will teach them to hold their breath so they can go underwater.
- Tread water: Treading water is a lifesaver as is the “dead man’s float.” To learn to do this, grab onto the side of the pool (or the hand of someone who is swimming with you) bend your knees (since you should be practicing this in the shallow end for now) and start kicking your feet. Once you feel comfortable, release the side of the pool and kick your feet in a motion as if you were climbing stairs, your hands should start out shoulder length apart and them move your hands in, with your palms in, until they touch, then push back out. Treading water will help you keep your head above water. The dead man’s float is one in which you float on your back to keep your face out of the water. It is a pose that helps you to relax in case you can’t get out of the water. Children are also taught to float as a way to regain their stamina from learning to swim.
These are beginning steps of learning to swim and they are the baby steps necessary to take to get comfortable in the water and can lead to learning particular swim strokes.
Talk with your local swimming pool builder or swimming pool service contractor about ways to learn to swim and safety devices and life saving equipment to have pool side.