[leghifla]

When I was about 10, I was able to swim but I was not great at it.

For some reason (I think someone dived just in front of me), I needed to stop swimming and ended "vertical" in the water. It was quite unusual for me at the time. For a moment, I tried to go back to swim horizontally on the belly, without success. Then tried on the back, no success either. After a few tries, I began panicking like it is said the the video: I was just climbing an invisible ladder... A guard finally helped me reach the border of the pool and that was over.

After that, I tried to put me under the same circumstances: vertical in the water, 2 m from the border. And then convert to horizontal swimming. Every time it was easy. To this day, I still have no clue why I was not able to do that

[genewitch]

the brainstem probably takes over, which will disconnect the rational, logical part of your brain from your extremities.

i'll just comment my comment here instead of crapping up the entire thread. I went through about 20 videos and only missed two because the site assured me the person who the lifeguard rescued was "splashing around". My median time was -5s, with an upper bound (probably site limited) of -15s. The videos are just a toy, though. You know someone is going to need rescue, and probably about 10 seconds in. I was picking the people who looked like they'd need help. I'd make a great lifeguard but it would be because i'd point and yell at people to get out of the deep end 30 seconds before they even had any issues.

I learned to swim at 5-8 or so, and from 10-15 we spent summers swimming in the pacific ocean. I never had to be rescued during that time. I went swimming with a bunch of friends at Huntington Beach directly after a sewage leak into the ocean near there and they had put bleach into the water. I have asthma, so when i crossed the "can't touch the ground" part of the undertow and had an asthma attack, i yelled at a friend "get a lifeguard, i won't be able to get back to shore" - he relayed that on and then came to make sure i didn't "freak out". The lifeguard did have to tow dead weight, though, i couldn't move due to lack of breathing - not breathing water.

It is good to know that i can watch a decent sized group of people in inner tubes swimming and notice if one is struggling.