Older age doesn't stop them from taking the plunge
Stephen Scigliano teaches student Geetha Narasimhan, 64, of Rockville Centre at Swim and Scuba in Rockville Centre. Like many adults who learn to swim later in life, Narasimhan had to overcome the memory of a terrifying childhood experience. Credit: Corey Sipkin
When Geetha Narasimhan, 64, started swimming lessons last year, she had to learn more than a new set of skills. Like many adults who learn to swim later in life, she had to overcome the memory of a terrifying childhood experience.
Narasimhan, who grew up in Jamshedpur and Chennai, India, had gone with her family to a river for a picnic when she was in elementary school. “My father was swimming on the other end of the river. I went down to the river to wave to him,” she said. “I fell in, and I started drowning. My friends were trying to grab me. An adult who happened to be there jumped in and saved me.”
She moved to the United States in 1980, first living briefly in Farmingville, then Queens and finally Rockville Centre, working as a physical therapist at Nassau BOCES in Massapequa. Still, she had never learned to swim.
“If I went to a hotel or a friend’s house, I wouldn’t jump into the pool,” said Narasimhan, who retired in 2017. “But I’d get into the pool.”
After deciding on a trip to a tropical area that she was missing out, she began taking swim lessons last year at Swim and Scuba in Rockville Centre. First she learned to tread water then swim the crawl.
“I learned to conquer my fear of the deep end,” Narasimhan said. “Now I can swim. I’m refining my strokes, learning how to do breast stroke.”
The safety factor
Water can be a pleasure year long, but statistics point to the associated dangers. There were an average of 3,536 annual fatal unintentional drownings not related to boats from 2005 to 2014 in the United States, about 10 per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s in addition to 332 annual boat-related drowning deaths.
Arlene Butts, 42, of Mineola practices with a board in an adult swimming class at the Town of Hempstead's Echo Park Pool in West Hempstead. Credit: Corey Sipkin
A widely cited 2014 survey by the American Red Cross found that 80 percent of Americans said they could swim, but only a little more than half of self-described swimmers indicated they possessed five basic skills the Red Cross says can be needed to save their life in the water, including swimming one lap in a 25-yard pool.
“There’s a huge demographic of adults with very limited abilities in the water,” said Marina Mentzel, 35, founder of Huntington-based urSwim, which teaches swimming primarily in private pools. “I’ve seen an increase in adults wanting to learn the skills.”
Indeed, many older people learn to swim to protect themselves and loved ones.
Stephen Scigliano, co-owner of Swim and Scuba, in Rockville Centre, which teaches adults and children, said older people often “want to learn to swim, so they can assist, if something happens to their children or grandchildren.”
Instructor Tom Arena teaches adults to swim at a class offered through the Town of Hempstead aquatic program at Echo Park Pool in West Hempstead. "Teaching swimming lessons to adults has been an absolute pleasure," he says. Credit: Corey Sipkin
Many adults are becoming more active later in life, leading to a desire to swim, Mentzel said. And waterfront vacations motivate would-be swimmers.
“Long Island makes it even more critical to learn,” said Mentzel, who lives in East Patchogue. “There’s so much access to water here.”
Nevertheless, fear, often compounded by a bad experience in childhood, can prevent, postpone or complicate learning.
“If you weren’t exposed to it as a kid, you just don’t take that initiative,” said Brenna Dowd, an instructor at urSwim. “All of a sudden you’re an adult and you’ve never been in the water. And you have more of a rational fear of it.”
Overcoming fear
Teaching adults to swim frequently involves helping them overcome fears as well as learn strokes.
Marina Mentzel, of East Patchogue, who runs URSwim, teaches adults to swim, including her father, Jim Montes. "One of my colleagues challenged me to do a triathlon, which would give me the goal to get me to learn how to swim," Montes said. Credit: Veronique Louis
“Adults overthink the skill,” Mentzel said. “Swimming is a very natural ability in the water. As you get older and it becomes more foreign, you start to overthink the skill itself. We’re meant as humans to swim.”
A physical therapist who routinely helped others face fears about their physical abilities, Narasimhan needed to overcome similar fears before learning to swim.
“I couldn’t go past five feet. I was very nervous. I had to get over the fear of the deep end,” she said. “My technique was all wrong. I was barely kicking and moving my arms. If I could do one length of a pool, I’d be gasping for breath.”
Like many who learn to swim later in life, Narasimhan was prompted by life events. After she retired, her children took her to Hawaii as a retirement gift.
She tried to snorkel wearing a life jacket. “I got into the water and I had such a panic attack that the snorkeling guide threw me back in the boat," she said. "I was petrified.”
Adult students learn skills and how to overcome fear.Instructor at swimming classes at Echo Park Pool. Tom Arena teaches a class on March 2, 2020, in West Hempstead. Credit: Corey Sipkin
She went to a cove to snorkel in calmer waters, holding a guide’s hand and gazing at the ocean floor. “He said, ‘You’re missing out on the beauty of life. There’s so much you can do if you get over the fear,’” Narasimhan said.
She found help at Swim and Scuba in Rockville Centre. Since October 2019, she has taken 18 lessons and continues to learn.
“You teach them something they can do before you teach them something they can’t,” Scigliano said of a process including kickboards and conversation to comfort students. “You never end on a negative note.”
Family and fitness
Nigel Henry, 46, of Baldwin, says he’s learning not simply because his life could depend on it, but because someone else’s might.
“I have a 10-year-old son who swims better than I and has no fear,” Henry said of Nigel Henry II. “As a parent, I’d like to learn so, if there’s a need, I would be able to save him.”
Henry, a first-generation American, grew up in Queens and Medford, but his family is from Trinidad and Tobago. “They’re fairly good swimmers. I visited the Caribbean every year,” Henry said. “I never truly learned to swim as I should.”
He remembers being caught in an undertow as a child. “I got pulled out to sea,” he said. “I was around 10 years old. I was able to come up for air. My family was there to assist me.”
Henry said he used to wish he could enjoy the water more. “I would go in the water up to where I could walk,” he said. “There was envy when I saw family members able to swim to a barge.”
He took his son at age 2 for a father-son swimming lesson at a local YMCA, but his son didn’t like it. He tried again when his son was 5 at Swim and Scuba. Now that Nigel II has learned to swim, Henry is taking lessons at Swim and Scuba. “Seeing my son swim end to end and being confident is an amazing feeling,” said Henry. “I need to get up to speed just in case.”
Still others say learning to swim as an older adult was part of a larger fitness goal.
That was the case for Jim Montes, 59, a Long Island resident for 35 years who lived mostly in Setauket.
“I grew up in the projects in New York City, where, like most city living, there’s relatively little access to pools and water,” Montes said of growing up in South Jamaica, Queens. “I never learned to swim as a child.”
He moved to Long Island, had two children who learned to swim — one of them urSwim founder Marina Mentzel — and lived in houses with pools.
“You just fake it,” he said. “I would go in the pool but couldn’t swim a lap. No one ever questioned it, because you own a pool. I would jump in and float or just grab the wall.”
Triathlon challenge
Two years ago, as Montes began to think of moving to Florida or North Carolina after retiring, he considered learning to swim. Then came the call to action.
“One of my colleagues challenged me to do a triathlon, which would give me the goal to get me to learn how to swim,” Montes said.
He joined Trilatino, a Bronx-based triathlon club, last March and by May was working with his daughter.
“My daughter helped me in open-water swim,” Montes said. “We would go out on the bay and work on my fears. Now I can swim in a pool and the open water.”
After lessons with Mentzel, he swam at Coney Island and completed the Rockaway Beach Triathlon in September.
“While I was doing it, it was petrifying,” said Montes, who moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey, about a year ago. “But after I did it, it was a huge sense of relief combined with a sense of accomplishment, conquering fears.”
Swim instructors say they work with students to reach goals from basic safety to a triathlon — although most students share one goal.
“If you don’t want to be on a swim team in the Olympics, the goal is to learn to swim to be comfortable in the water,” Scigliano said.
And the students aren’t the only ones enriched during swimming lessons, instructors said.
“They are inspirational people,” Eileen Scigliano, co-owner of Swim and Scuba, said about the adult students. “I see people blossom, going from being afraid to put their face in the water. Then they’re swimming laps, going under water. It’s a phenomenal feeling.”
Beyond private lessons
Aside from private lessons, adults can be found in group lessons at town, village and community pools across Long Island.
The Town of Hempstead offers adult swimming lessons at its Echo Park Pool in West Hempstead for residents 16 and older ($60 per seven sessions in the summer and eight in the winter); classes of up to 20 students last 45 to 50 minutes.
“The majority of people in our adult classes are in their 50s. We live on Long Island. It’s safety. They want to go to the beach, the pools. They want to learn the skills of swimming,” said Justine Anderson, aquatics coordinator for the town’s Parks and Recreation Department. “They want to show their grandchildren and their children. It’s 100 percent safety. Most of the people have a fear of water. They want to get over that.”
Tom Arena, a town instructor specializing in adult swimming lessons, said he gets pleasure from helping adults learn to swim.
"Teaching swimming lessons to adults has been an absolute pleasure,” he said. “Just seeing the pure joy on their faces when they are finally able to take a few strokes is always a big treat for me."
Lessons span different levels at Echo Park and at the town’s 23 pools during the summer. “We try to gently get them in the water and teach the fundamentals, getting their face wet, submerging, blowing bubbles,” Anderson said. “And basic swimming strokes.”
Students learn skills and how to overcome fear. “We have some people who don’t even go in the water the first few times,” Anderson added. “You have to talk with them. They’re nervous.”
Still others are competent swimmers who want to improve. “Some do triathlons and want to perfect their stroke,” Anderson said. “They want to get a streamlined stroke. We show them a more efficient stroke.”
