Yesterday my 11 yr old daughter was telling me how boring it was to swim in our cheap 4' deep pool. I told her that if she uses it to practice different things she can use those things in bigger water. I showed her how to frog kick with the fins and she took to it right away. Next I took two 4 pound hard weights and tied them to a 52 ounce plastic Folgers coffee can. I gave her an empty Gatorade bottle and told her the rough principles of using lift bags. I told her to use the gatorade bottle to bring air down to the coffee can "lift bag" and fill it. On the first launch it rocketed to the surface, the can rolled to the side as it broke the surface, lost some air and the whole thing went down as fast as it came up. I told her that is why the lift needs to be controlled on the ascent when using the open bottomed "lift bag". She had fun with this for quite a while. After a bit she was filling the "lift bag" with her breath. she worked on trying to make it nuetrally buoyant and understood the whole concept of the air compressing more as she pulled it to the bottom of the pool loosing buoyancy. She told me that now she wants more weight and a bigger lift bag. She wants to be certified for her 12th dirthday next May so I thought I would get her started this winter with the classroom part. I am always proud of her but when she shows intrest in diving... I'm smiling from ear to ear.
Great story! I can't wait for my kids to get involved in diving. Alas, I have to wait at least 10 more years...
Very nice story, thanks for sharing!
Your daughter is soooo super cute! Keep her interested- she'll be way ahead of the game and learn excellent problem solving skills in the process.
My favorite pool activity was collecting coins- when your little and it's 12 ft it teaches you excellent breath control and increased lung capacity. Needless to say I was a fish, and grew up a fish ;D
When we went to Mexico over Easter I brought down 24 plastic Easter eggs and I was going to put Peso's in them and plant them in shallow water for an underwater Easter egg hunt. She thought she was too old to do an "Easter egg hunt" so she spent the morning giving them out to the little kids. I told her to say "da nada" when they said "gracias". She told me that if she tells them that, then they would think she speaks spanish and that she would seem rude to them when she didn't know any other words. She then told me that smiling is universal and she would stick to that. I just hope she stays as kind hearted as she is right now.
Very cool ;D Have her practice in the deep end of the pool on fri....
I try to teach my kids to use a closed lift bag with relief valves. Then they can "fill it up and let 'er buck" ;D
Thanks for this post John, it makes me smile,,,,,, T
GREAT story John, good for you for getting her started early...
when i go to the pool my 12 year old teaches me new strokes.
is she interested in snorkeling in the lake? if so there is allot of fun stuff to do.
She has been snorkeling quite a few times in lakes around here and in Mexico. Its one of the few things that is not electronic that she likes to do. One time about 20 miles South of Cancun, she and I were snorkeling over this shallow reef and we saw this 4' barracuda laying on the bottom near a brain coral. I used hand signals to tell her "Big" "fish" "There". She looked right at the 4' barracuda and hand signalled me back "Big" "fish" "Where?" thinking that there was a bigger fish than that somewhere beyond the "little 4' barracuda".
Another time we were goofing around in waist deep murky water near Cancun, there was about 20 people in the immediate area. We heard someone shriek and looked at that person. There was a 3' baracuds breeching the water and going like a streak for my daughter. It missed her by 6" and went past her. Her eyes were big as saucers, and I asked her if it freaked her out at all. She said that she wasn't afraid of the barracuda, but she was nervous about what might have been chasing it. I didn't know that sharks like to eat barracuda.