I was watching a little boy in a swimming pool the other day.

He was floating with inflated plastic around his arms and an inflated ring around his waist. His mother was standing next to him.

The child was “safe.” But he couldn’t swim. His body was doing nothing. He could barely move with all the inflated plastic surrounding his limbs. He was basically isolated from the water. How was he to feel the water with his body?

In order to swim, one must be immersed in the water, and feel it without effort. It isn’t enough to sit in it, floating with the help of an apparatus.

We don’t use crutches when we learn to walk and we........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)