Life Skill #3: Learning to Swim

Last year during the summer vacation I wanted to get Pozu enrolled for swimming classes, but the instructor had asked me to wait another year before she started. So this time without fail, I started familiarizing her with the swimming pool and the fun she could have in the water. The main motive I had was to make sure she had no fear of the water once she started her lessons because then she could focus more on technique rather than fighting her fear.

We practiced for about a week prior to her starting the swimming class and by then she was fearless to the extent that she could jump in the pool without even knowing how to swim. She used to have a pair of arm floats that gave her enough confidence to take risks and move around by herself. We also explored the underwater scene often so she knew that there was nothing to be scared of. The GoPro Hero 3 helped in capturing some of those precious moments that are showcased here.

As expected, her class began pretty smooth and she was already swimming independently from the second day onwards. The instructors were pretty good in working with children and could easily teach her the basic techniques of keeping her head in the water and coming up to breathe etc. By the end of the second week, she was able to complete a full lap by herself which was quite an amazing feat for a 4 year old. Not to mention that she was the youngest in the training batch and so she received the most amount of attention from both the trainer and the other students as well. 

At the end of the season, I was pretty happy that she had learnt to swim reasonably well and over the next few years she should be able to master it as well. The only downside of being in Bangalore is that the weather doesn't permit the use of swimming pool through the year. So even though she could theortically practice everyday, once the school has started, we've had very few occasions to jump into the pool.

Life Skill #1 - Learning to Ride

Sometime in late 2013, I had removed the trainer wheels on Pozu's bicycle and planned to teach her the fine art of balancing a bike. But that plan never really materialized and I never got the chance to put the trainer wheels back as well. So in January 2014, the effort to teach cycling was revived again.

I was thinking it will be a time consuming affair and I will be mostly running behind her holding the bike at the back like how they show in the movies. And then at one point in time the dad lets go and sees the kid pedal off to glory, with tears in his eyes. But it wasn't meant to be like that, we just went down with her cycle, I asked her to sit and told her to look straight ahead and start pedaling. All it took was one push and she went off cruising on two wheels effortlessly.



A couple of more practice sessions and she had already learnt how to maneuver around and do a complete circuit without touching her feet on the ground. Never knew it could be so easy!


I had gotten her the set of elbow and knee guards along with her helmet to ensure that there was minimal risk of injury even when she fell hard. But the best part was that, in her own mind, she had made peace with the fact that falling wasn't a bad thing at all. I think this was the single most important factor for her to learn so quickly - she had virtually no fear of falling and every time she did, she just shrugged it off and kept moving ahead.



Though she had learnt to ride nicely, the size of the bike was becoming an issue. She had clearly outgrown the green bike and it was time to give it away. So, in May 2014, Pozu got an upgrade to a spanking new Firefox 14” bike which she lovingly calls YellowFox.