I’m a sports coach for teenagers who want to swim but don’t want to do competitions. They just want to swim, swim hard, swim a lot, and swim even more. The group I teach has an average age of seventeen years old, and I’ve taught most of my students for over five years. 

Teaching them can be challenging, as they get bored easily, so I try to make each lesson different from the other one. And if we all have an off day, we just take it easy. 

This time, I decide to see if the kids are up for some childish fun. I make assignments like “If the letter E is in your name, you do [this], and if there isn’t, you do [that],” or, “If there’s black in your swimming gear, do [this], and if not, do [that].” I manage to find combinations where most of the time, half does [this] and the other half does [that]. The kids surprisingly like it a lot.  

As a final assignment, I decide to be cheeky. For the sake of the story, let’s say my name is Amy. 

Me: “All right, last assignment. Just imagine the most beautiful name you know, one you would love to be called yourself. Don’t say it out loud; keep it to yourself! Now… if this name contains an A, an M, or a Y, you do [this]; otherwise, you do [that].”

Most kids don’t hesitate and just do either assignment. One, however, stays behind. 

Me: “Something the matter?

Student: “Aren’t we a bit arrogant today? *Big grin* 

Me: “I was hoping the others would have noticed, as well, but it seems you are the only one! So, as a reward, you may do whatever you want.”

Student: “Nah, I’ll just do [this assignment].”

I love teaching these kids.

This happened when I was ten. My parents were members of a policemen’s club that featured a small, private swimming pool. Three of my friends and I were in the changing area — a small area barely bigger than my bedroom — when a woman walked out of the toilet cubicles. The only people who had been in the pool at this point were this young woman, a mother and young child, a lifeguard, and a swim teacher.

Woman: “Which one of you moved my clothes?”

She pointed at a pile of neatly folded clothes.

Me: “It wasn’t me.”

She looked at each of us in turn, all three of my friends parroting the same words. The woman starts to look slightly cross.

Woman: “You shouldn’t tell lies, girls. Then people won’t believe you when you tell the truth.”

She walked back into the pool area. We left the changing room a few minutes later to wait for my friend’s dad to pick us up.

Later that afternoon, I was having tea when my parents called me in.

Dad: “[My Name], I’ve just received a very interesting call from the pool today.”

Dad explained that just after we’d left, the changing room had been found in a mess. A few bath toys belonging to the mother and child had been thrown about and placed in unlocked lockers. A towel was on the floor. The mother’s purse had been wedged into the wall where a brick had fallen out ages ago. The mother’s bra was also missing.

Of course, I protested that we hadn’t done anything.

Me: “There was another woman in there. She could have moved those things.”

Mum: “[My Name], why would a grown woman do something so ridiculous?”

Dad: “You were the only others in there, the lifeguard said.”

After endless pleading, with my parents saying things such as, “You don’t need to defend your friends,” and, “It’ll be much easier on you now if you just own up,” and, “[My Name], don’t you realise the consequences of this? They may not let us back in,” they decided to search the house. I don’t remember much about what happened, as I was crying with frustration that they didn’t believe me.

The next day, the pool called up and said that the mother’s bra had been found in the bushes outside the changing room window. Since two of my friends weren’t members of the club, I hated the fact that they may be banned.

While the pool didn’t ban me or my friends, the parents of my friends who weren’t members never took them back.

This story is being told second-hand by a non-specialist, so some minor details may be wrong.

My best friend worked as a swimming instructor alongside his mum several years ago, teaching young children. Due to the children’s age, at least one parent or guardian was required to be present for the entire lesson.

One day, in the middle of winter, [Friend] entered the pool area with a gaggle of kids and parents and immediately noticed that the temperature of the room was way lower than he expected. Sure enough, the pool heating had failed overnight, and the pool temperature had dropped down to 20C (68F).

20C might sound nice and warm, but as water is a very good conductor of heat and has a very high heat capacity, that is actually quite cold water. It’s not icy cold but enough that you’d need to acclimatize to it before being comfortable swimming, and way too cold for small children and toddlers to safely swim in.

However, a 20C pool will keep the air at a nice and warm 20C, which feels even warmer in winter, so some of the parents didn’t believe [Friend] when he announced that lessons were cancelled for the day due to the cold pool. One father in particular took issue with this and demanded that his child be allowed to swim, but my friend held firm and said no.

At this point, [Friend] turned around to speak to some other parents about refunds for the lesson and reschedules for the more advanced swimmers. Then, they all heard a splash coming from the pool.

Fearing that a child had fallen in, [Friend] quickly turned around and was greeted by the sight of a grown man, curled into the fetal position, rapidly sinking into the deep end of the pool. The angry dad from earlier had wanted to show my friend that 20C was nice and warm, and of course his son could swim today, so he’d stripped to his underwear and dove in.

Here’s the thing about cold water: if you jump in and are not used to cold water, your body gets so overwhelmed by the sudden cold shock that your muscles all cramp up at once, leaving you to sink like a rock. 20C isn’t massively cold, but it will feel like it if you’re standing in a warm, humid room and expecting warm water.

At this point, [Friend] knew that someone needed to rescue this guy before he earned a Darwin award in front of a dozen small children, and knowing that his mum wasn’t strong enough to pull a full-grown man off of the bottom of the pool, [Friend] dove in himself.

Now, [Friend] is hardly immune to cold shock, either, and knew he only had a few seconds, but a combination of keeping his shirt on to give him a slight edge in insulation and expecting the sudden shock of the cold water allowed him to dive in and drag the terminal idiot to the edge of the pool, where the other parents hauled him out and got some towels on him.

[Friend] only managed to also not drown by holding onto the ladder, but he told everyone to make sure that the parent was dry before he got out. He had to be helped out by his own mother, along with a few other parents, and he needed the rest of the day off.

The moron who started this entire thing was banned for life for disobeying a lifeguard and endangering staff, but it was made clear that his son was welcome back, so long as he was accompanied by a competent adult.

I have been teaching at a private swimming school for over forty years now. It might be because of the “private” part, but until the past two or three years, we mostly had white students. We didn’t screen for that or anything; we just didn’t get any applications. But, like I said, in the past two or three years, it suddenly changed. Why, we don’t know, but we were overjoyed!

A new season starts, and I get a full rainbow of children. I have never taught these children before, so I want to see what they can do. They all have their basic diplomas and most are actually already quite skilled. I teach in a “competition pool” that’s about fifty years old; it’s three-plus meters (around ten feet) deep, and twenty-five meters (about eighty-two feet) long — half of an Olympic pool — with white tiles with black lines. 

Me: “All right, let’s see how far you can swim underwater. Remember, it’s how far you can reach, so any distance is fine. Just show me what you got.”

And the kids got to it. They lined up, and eventually, we got to a girl with beautiful dark skin, the darkest I’ve seen in real life. She wore a black bathing suit. She dove, I looked away for a second… and she was gone. Of course, I silently freaked out. Where did she go? I sighed, relieved, when I saw her climbing out of the water. I decided that she must’ve just been really fast and I’d just missed it. 

Just to test them, I decided to let them do it again. This time, I was going to pay very close attention to [Girl]; I wouldn’t be fooled twice! But again, I blinked and she was gone. Poof. 

Now, I just wondered if I was going crazy. What the heck was going on? So, I decided they would do the assignment one more time. I knew I was doing this just to find out why [Girl] just disappeared… and then I saw it. 

This girl swam very beautifully and hydrodynamically. She used minimal strokes and… followed the black line on the bottom of the pool perfectly. Due to the refraction of water and the lack of light underwater, she was almost invisible! 

So, while I always tell my students to follow the black line when underwater, I had to ask [Girl] to swim two tiles over from it. Part of me felt bad for having to ask her this, but honestly, if anything happens underwater while she’s swimming perfectly above that black line, I might not see it in time!

We rent out an apartment on one side of our house. The tenant is a great guy; he’s easy-going and quiet, he pays his rent on time, etc. We have a pool on our side of the property. [Tenant]’s lease agreement states that he’s allowed to use the pool but his guests are not. The reasoning behind this is a liability issue; I don’t want my home liability insurance premiums to skyrocket if anything happens.

A few months ago, [Tenant] had a coworker pitch up who didn’t ask and just assumed that he could bring his young daughter with him to swim. Once the guy and his kid arrived, [Tenant] quickly came to ask for permission for the girl to swim.

Me: “Unfortunately, it’s a liability issue, so I can’t allow that — especially since that kid looks like she’s around six years old. She wouldn’t even be able to stand in the shallow end.”

The kid’s father insisted on speaking with me.

Father: “Come on! Please let her swim. I already promised that she could swim!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I really can’t do that.”

Father: “You b****!” *To his daughter* “This mean lady won’t let you swim. We have to go home.”

Kid: *Whining and starting to cry* “But you promised!”

Sorry, kid. I’m not required to keep to the promises your dad makes.

[Tenant] was very apologetic. He didn’t even know the guy all that well. The guy just pitched up and demanded that his kid be allowed to swim.