Do you know the tingly feeling of being on the verge of a new hobby?
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

@blinry from what my parents tell me, I spent more time under water than above water in the kiddie pool, even long before I could swim. Water for some reason clicked with, diving especially.
I do remember worrying about water entering my nose but figuring out early on that it couldn't do that when blowing bubbles out of my nose. So to this day I push out a tiny amount of air when I go under, stop when my face looks forward or down, but start again when I look up or dive down.
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@schrottkatze Oh, glad to hear that! \o/
@blinry im glad that theres a learning method compatible with my particular audhd ^
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@Andi_H Wow, 24 hours of swimming… that's very inspiring!
Glad you found a way to swim again! 
@blinry you don’t swim for 24 hours. That’s the time you have to swim as much as possible.
You can always pause to eat, sleep, or whatever.
There are some people who apparently don’t need to do any of those things.

https://24h.dlrg-gladbeck.de/index.php?doc=auswertung/einzel&ak=3&j=2026
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@blinry from what my parents tell me, I spent more time under water than above water in the kiddie pool, even long before I could swim. Water for some reason clicked with, diving especially.
I do remember worrying about water entering my nose but figuring out early on that it couldn't do that when blowing bubbles out of my nose. So to this day I push out a tiny amount of air when I go under, stop when my face looks forward or down, but start again when I look up or dive down.
@blinry I also seem to match the water pressure with my lungs. As in, the deeper I go, the more pressure I put towards my nostrils to keep the water out. If that make sense.
I've gone down to 5m for up to 2min in the past. Thoroughly enjoyed that. These days my eardrums aren't as flexible as they used to be and I get ear aches when I go deep too fast, despite constant pressure equalisation.
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@blinry I also seem to match the water pressure with my lungs. As in, the deeper I go, the more pressure I put towards my nostrils to keep the water out. If that make sense.
I've gone down to 5m for up to 2min in the past. Thoroughly enjoyed that. These days my eardrums aren't as flexible as they used to be and I get ear aches when I go deep too fast, despite constant pressure equalisation.
@foosel That pressure adaption makes a lot of sense! When I was trying my bubble-blowing today, I suspected that this is probably something people pick up by practicing, and which learning resources don't seem to be talking about explicitly…
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

@blinry I couldn't swim as a kid, and has difficulties learning to swim as a kid.
So my grandpa (
️ ), who was active in the German Red Cross, got a children's scuba set, put it on me and went to the public swimming pool. Spent days there just being underwater, breathing canned air. After that, I was very much less afraid of water and at least learned to stay afloat.Only as an adult I learned to "properly" swim.
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

@blinry oh, I had the same issue when trying to learn crawl swimming and never really got around it (but also am not really regularly swimming). Not that much of a problem to explicitly dive (but never managed long times), but more splashing water into the nose / eyes (?) and managing to breath enough to actively swim.
Maybe I should try again to learn this?
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

Deleted because I don’t really know what I am doing

Deleted

Ask a certified trainer what the breathing techniques are.
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

@blinry I'm a certified life guard (well never worked as one but ages ago I made that course to be able t work as one. It would need refreshing to work though.)
I'm a decent swimmer, trying to go once a week.
Getting water up your nose is awful. Always. I hate it.
But it doesn't happen often.
For swimming (in opposition to diving) the key is to constantly breath out, when under water. (And breath in when over water.)It needs practice. But at some point it becomes "natural".
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@blinry I'm a certified life guard (well never worked as one but ages ago I made that course to be able t work as one. It would need refreshing to work though.)
I'm a decent swimmer, trying to go once a week.
Getting water up your nose is awful. Always. I hate it.
But it doesn't happen often.
For swimming (in opposition to diving) the key is to constantly breath out, when under water. (And breath in when over water.)It needs practice. But at some point it becomes "natural".
@blinry When I learned to properly crawl/freestyle like 15 years ago, I often panicked when water came up my nose or when I swallowed pool water.
As long as I could just hold my breath, it was okay but when trying to cross a pool, breathing is needed and took a lot of practice to make it work.
The first time I managed a 25m pool was such a huge achivement. Same with the first 50m pool.
This shit is hard. Keeping the energy up to be properly floating while breathing and moving forward. Damn.
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I still triggered my "out, now!" reflex a couple of times, especially when trying to go a bit deeper, and staying vertical. Gonna try practicing this every time I go swim!
Also – turns out holding my breath, closing my eyes, pinching my nose with one hand, and then diving is not a problem at all. My fear seems to be specifically about water entering my nose.
How did y'all learn how to do this?!

@blinry I never had issues swimming or my face under water.
But I absolutely failed at snorkelling - I could not make myself breath with my face underwater. The instructor spent some time and still now luck.
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@blinry I'm a certified life guard (well never worked as one but ages ago I made that course to be able t work as one. It would need refreshing to work though.)
I'm a decent swimmer, trying to go once a week.
Getting water up your nose is awful. Always. I hate it.
But it doesn't happen often.
For swimming (in opposition to diving) the key is to constantly breath out, when under water. (And breath in when over water.)It needs practice. But at some point it becomes "natural".
@zweifeln Oh neat, props to you for having guarded lives!

To clarify, do you always breathe out through your nose when underwater? Or sometimes also through the mouth? A book I've looked at is ambiguous about that.
Rationally, I think that if your face points down underwater, water shouldn't really go into the nose anyway, if the "pressure matches"? But I'm not too sure about that.
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@blinry When I learned to properly crawl/freestyle like 15 years ago, I often panicked when water came up my nose or when I swallowed pool water.
As long as I could just hold my breath, it was okay but when trying to cross a pool, breathing is needed and took a lot of practice to make it work.
The first time I managed a 25m pool was such a huge achivement. Same with the first 50m pool.
This shit is hard. Keeping the energy up to be properly floating while breathing and moving forward. Damn.
@blinry My recommendation: go slow. Just being under water blowing bubbles is good training. Getting used to the sensation with the face under water helps to feel less stressed about it.
When that becomes more "natural" you might start more about technic, distance, speed … but that's for later.
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@zweifeln Oh neat, props to you for having guarded lives!

To clarify, do you always breathe out through your nose when underwater? Or sometimes also through the mouth? A book I've looked at is ambiguous about that.
Rationally, I think that if your face points down underwater, water shouldn't really go into the nose anyway, if the "pressure matches"? But I'm not too sure about that.
@blinry Actually I'm not sure, it's always the nose.
For me, it's more "get the air out" … whether nose or mouth, I don't think it matters much. Just keep the pressure to push it out and don't breath in / suck water in. -
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