SWIMMING
If asked which style of physical exercise I should recommend to bring nearly all the greater muscles of the body into play, and be of all-round value to the exerciser, I should unhesitatingly say swimming—and it is with a good deal of pleasure one notices how greatly on the increase the learning of swimming is amongst well-to-do people, and that parents are beginning dimly to realise what an incalculable amount of good children of both sexes gather from this exercise. Having seriously studied swimming and diving since I was fourteen years old, I feel that I am at liberty to speak strongly on the subject; of the good that can be got from indulging in one of the most pleasurable physical exercises there are, and also the harm that can result from bad teaching, &c.
Having been a member of the Bath Club, London, since it first opened, I have had every opportunity of studying swimming and the people who swim—and there is no doubt that the Club has done an enormous lot to encourage learning swimming amongst the rich and their children, particularly the latter, averaging in age from three years old and upwards; also, of course, I have swum and watched swimming in many other countries and baths. An interesting thing is that most of the men anyway who swim seriously, going in for competitions, exhibitions, &c., are gleaned from the working classes, not from the idle rich, who one would imagine have far more time and opportunity to perfect themselves. But the art of swimming and diving is curiously little excelled in by the latter. They of course know how to swim, as that is taught at most public schools—but few get any further, the real swimming world being composed nearly entirely of hard-working men. This, of course, refers to England. When I first began swimming it was thought quite out of the common to take an interest in this exercise, and women who swam, amongst one’s friends, could be counted on the fingers of one’s hand. As to high diving, that was looked at in horror and amazement.
Then the Swedish divers came to London and gave exhibitions of high diving; and people began to realise that there might be something worth while in this art beyond the ordinary flopping-along breast-stroke through the water, which was about as much as the average woman, anyhow, dared to try. Swimming clubs for both sexes began to crop up, competitions were started, prizes given—and the standard rose by degrees to what it is now. Not high enough, by any means, but an enormous improvement on fifteen years ago. I personally think that what makes the Swedish divers stand out as a rule head and shoulders above any other divers is their marvellous realisation of form in their work, and to define what one means by form is almost impossible. Some will say a diver with a great deal of finish has good form, personally I think it quite possible to be an absolutely finished diver and yet lack a great deal in form. It seems to me that the great dash and boldness and muscular control the Swedes exhibit in the air has a great deal to do with it. One of the above qualities is often seen, but all three together seems almost unique to the Swedish divers.
Perhaps it may be interesting to mention the difference between a plain English dive and a plain Swedish dive. As regards the positions—the English dive is taken with the hands pointed straight up above the head, from the tips of the fingers to the end of the toes the body ought to be in a straight line. The Swedish plain dive is the swallow dive, so called from the position of the hands and arms out from the shoulders at almost right angles. During the flight through the air the back is hollowed as much as possible. A man doing a high running swallow dive greatly resembles a bird swooping down, and the beauty of line that the best divers manage to get into it is remarkable.
Of course the muscular development and control needed in high diving is very great—therefore making it a most valuable exercise. A really good high dive and perfectly developed and controlled muscles are bound to go together.
I think that the beauty in the art of diving is greatly under-valued, and gracefulness not nearly enough insisted on in the teaching of it; like all other physical exercises unless fitness and beauty of the body are the aim of the exerciser, they ought to be left alone, little good will certainly be gathered from any form of exercise if it is entered into merely in the spirit of competition, and not with the wish to improve the body and the mind. Most exercises of a vigorous kind will help a person mentally: for instance, the mind would have to be a seething mass of corruption if it was past being helped by the contact and feel of cold water after a rush through the air from a height; unclean and impure thoughts that crowd gaily and with little shame under the electric lights in a crowded restaurant would not venture to show themselves when the body is tingling and the mind rioting with joy from a swift rush through the sunlit air into a still pool in a river, or even into the green depths of a swimming-bath. No; exercise aided by cold clean water and fresh air do not walk hand in hand with uncleanliness of spirit, and if only this was more understood and realised by parents, how much unhappiness and peril might be saved their children. As to the teaching of children—swimming ought to be taught to all and taught in the right spirit—not regarded as a means to clutch a gold medal from some less fortunate brother or sister, but a glorious means of helping themselves mentally and physically, and an exercise that ought to be put within the reach of rich and poor; and, I feel most strongly, taught, as all physical exercises should be taught, to man and woman, as a weapon to combat through life temptations and sorrows which come to all on life’s journey. It is only necessary to watch small children splash about in pool or bath to understand what great joy can be given them and in a very easy manner. Taught and helped they make marvellous progress and even the quite small ones will strive to perfect themselves in stroke or dive—also love of the water seems to breed good temper and good fellowship, therefore surely that love is to be encouraged. As to the harm that can be got from swimming I think it is the same that can be found in any exercise that is practised in a harmful manner. Overstrain is particularly liable in children who are allowed and encouraged to race each other until their hearts are bumping, which also leads to bad swimming. I am sure no serious racing ought to be allowed to the young until the strokes are sure and perfect.
Again, children, in baths especially, are allowed to stay in far too long. No time limit can be given, I know, as one child can stay in the water a great deal longer than another, but constantly one sees children blue with cold and exhaustion, and when they are taken out of the water only too often parents and teachers hurry them off to stand under a hot shower-bath or, a still worse evil, take them into the hot room of a Turkish bath to get warmed up, consequently an overtired, flushed child is the result, instead of a happy, brisk, and refreshed one. Less time in the water, and, if cold, a few exercises or a romp to warm up after, will be far more successful and also stop the plaint which is often dinned into our ears—‘Such a pity my child can’t learn to swim, but she or he always catches cold afterwards.’
Small children can learn, apart from the ordinary breast and side strokes, all the so-called fancy work in the water, of which there are many different varieties—all of them being a great aid to gracefulness and sureness, and delighting children as well as grown-up people. Personally I am no believer in high diving for young children, as the muscles are seldom either strong or controlled enough to make a fair certainty of the dive being a good one, and if it isn’t I do not think it is good for a small child to hit the water in the wrong position.
They certainly ought to learn to dive and to dive well, but not from more than a ten-feet board—until they can really make a certainty of a good clean dive from that height. I mention this as often one sees ambitious parents urging on their children to dive from a thirteen or fourteen feet board, when they cannot properly dive from three feet. Of course a good teacher will not permit this, but good teachers are few. Grown-up people also often make the same mistake, and go falling off high boards long before they can dive from a low one. Also in the minds of non-swimmers or divers there seems to exist the curious belief that high diving is a gift. I have often been met with reproachful looks after a dive, and the words, ‘I really don’t know how you do it, it is quite wonderful; and you know I have tried and I can’t spring a bit like you can; isn’t it a shame!’ When answered somewhat prosaically that it has taken fourteen years of hard practice to acquire that spring, and that it is necessary to have the muscles developed in the legs and body before it is possible to dive at all with any skill, watch the non-swimmer’s mouth and you will see the one word ‘liar’ forming silently thereon!
These are a type who appear in swimming-baths and stand about on the edge rarely venturing into the water, and, when they do, struggle about in a half-drowned condition, believing that to show any muscle or knowledge of swimming is to be thoroughly ungraceful—if not hopelessly vulgar. They also have another trying habit, and that is of paddling feebly round in circles always just on the spot where the divers from the high boards must enter the water. When the frantic instructor tries to explain the situation, they stare wildly round the edge, but nothing will ever induce them to look up to where the danger comes from. More than once I have become weak from laughter, standing on a high board watching the instructor and paddler—also when eventually the whole bath starts shouting at them and they are removed, it is a certainty that in a sort of hypnotised condition they will be back in the same spot shortly.
There is also another type very prevalent at swimming-baths, as I know for my sins, and these are women who come and stand about on the edge of the baths, for what reason I never could discover, unless it is to talk, but it seems a damp and uncomfortable spot for indulging in conversation. They always stand with their backs to the water, and seem to be absolutely unconscious of both bath and swimmers. It does not the least matter that there may be the most convenient balcony with comfortable chairs provided for those who wish to watch the swimming, not at all—nothing short of violence will move them, and if there is a low diving-board handy, they always stand on it. Polite remarks such as, ‘I wish to dive, please,’ or ‘Please I want the board,’ uttered in a beseeching fashion, has no effect whatever. For years I treated these people with politeness, but eventually my temper broke, with excellent results, and I have now adopted a way which is instantaneously effective, and I offer the suggestion with great pleasure to any of my fellow-swimmers who have suffered in the same manner. Here it is—brush past them heavily once or twice so that they get thoroughly wet, if that is not effective run lightly up behind and shout ‘Board!’ with all the strength your lungs are capable of, that will generally cause them to jump several feet into the air, and while their nerves are still trembling place them in the hands of an attendant to conduct to the aforesaid balcony!
It is extraordinary how keen people get about swimming even when they have taken it up quite late in life—I know several who swim regularly, and work away at diving with the greatest diligence, and it is much to their credit, as learning diving after you are full grown is a most painful exercise, and if you are well on in years and heavy I should have thought doubly so—and one would have imagined not a very healthy exercise, but I know one or two women who are well past middle age who have only the last year or two taken up swimming and diving, and they seem to benefit greatly by it. I think it a very great question as to whether giving swimming-baths to the very poor is an advantage or not—I do not mean for a moment that they ought not to have swimming-baths and also learn to swim, but done as things are at present with insufficient instruction, and water that is changed only once or twice a week, the risk of infection is great. If people who do not wash regularly use swimming-baths, and a bath with soap is not made compulsory before entering the public water, then running water through the bath ought to be the alternative.
Let me once more urge parents to have their children taught to swim, in the proper fashion, and with the proper ideas as to its value and place in life, for there is no better sport or exercise than swimming and diving to instil in a child’s mind purity and self-control, and drive away that present-day great usurper of the mind, uncleanliness of thought, the beginnings of which, alas! can sometimes nowadays be seen in even the quite young.