Get Into The Swim Of Things Ymca Swimming Lessons: Fill & Download for Free

I don’t know about anyone else’s parents, but mine had to send me to swimming class so I would recover from swimming class.The first swim class I took was at the YMCA. As far as I can remember, it was a clean, safe-looking environment with a good amount of students. It seemed to be the perfect set up— there were two or three instructors, a nice, big pool, and plenty of fun toys to play with. All kinds of toys: bright floaties, pool noodles, sinky toys, frisbees— you name it, they had it.During our first lesson, the instructors showed us all the toys and had us each select one. They told us we’d each have to toss our toys and swim to get them, one at at time. I picked a frisbee, and tossed it towards the deep end like all the other kids with frisbees were doing. Except unlike their frisbees, mine sank— I’d picked a sinky-toy by mistake. I looked to my teacher, waiting for her to go grab it for me so I could try again with something that would float. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to ask me, a five year old that was just learning to swim, to go get it myself.So naturally, she asked me, a five year old who was just learning to swim, to go get it myself. She actually had to take off my arm floaties for this, since I had yet to learn to swim underwater.Needless to say, this resulted in an absolute disaster. I cried, she yelled, I tried to run away, she tried to drag me to the deep end, I cried more, she sent me home early, and I was almost scarred for life.Almost.While my mom withdrew my brother and me from the class after the incident, she refused to allow me to develop any sort of phobia related to swimming. Since she obviously couldn’t send us back to the Y, she asked two of our older neighbors to teach us. This worked phenomenally well for two reasons:First, while I might have been scared of the pool before, I wanted nothing more than to show these 5th grade girls how mature I was. As such, I arrived to the lesson clad in my bathing suit and ready to plunge headfirst back into the terrifying death-trap that people kept insisting was fun.Second, these girls knew my brother and me really well. They knew he was going to be a baby about the whole thing no matter what, and I was going to do everything in my power to be less of a baby than he was. They also knew that they only really had to worry about teaching me to swim, since my brother insisted on being glued to me 100% of the time at that age, so he’d have to learn how to swim if I did. Knowing these things, they made each lesson a competition: whoever gets in first wins, whoever dunks first wins, whoever does a lap first wins…you get the gist.It took a single afternoon to teach us both to swim, although I’m obligated by sibling-code to mention that it took him a several more days to jump off the diving board without a push.To this day, I’m incredibly thankful my parents made sure I learned to swim, it’s one of my favorite summer pastimes. I’m sure they wish they could get the money from the swimming lessons back, but hey, that’s a whole different issue.

I graduated recently from one of these "top" schools. Most of admissions was luck, but some of it was definitely sheer willpower. This ended up as a very long answer. The first half is focused on things my parents did, the second half is on what I did.First off, I was lucky to be born to a pair of poor but very highly educated East Asian scientists who defined status and happiness in terms of education. Additionally I was born with no serious physical handicaps and likely inherited a healthy IQ. Aside from 2 years of domestic problems around when I was 10, my childhood was fairly stable and my family was loving. Since I grew up poor, I wasn't spoiled and developed a strong work ethic. However, what little money my mom and dad did have was spent on oil painting lessons, music instructors, and YMCA classes to ensure that I was sufficiently stimulated and occupied to not do drugs or develop some other vices. The only real difficulties I had growing was moving to a new country every few years and losing all my friends. But in retrospect that probably made me more interesting to admissions officers and helped me learn how to make fast friends. Plus, the U.S. and European primary education systems were much less rigorous than Asian ones and I went from a B to an A+ student overnight after moving. This likely helped build my self confidence and helped me develop a personal mantra that with enough time and effort, everything is achievable. By the time I graduated from high school, my parents had become U.S. permanent residents through the O-Visa program, making it 10x easier to get into a top school as well as qualifying me for financial aid so my families finances did not restrict my application choices.All of the above so far was largely out of my control. But its striking how similar my background and values are to many of my classmates and co-workers; the Ghanaian doctor's son, the South Asian engineer's niece, the Russian computer scientist's daughter, the great grandpa who escaped the Holocaust with no possessions, the father who escaped rural Florida by becoming an engineer. Most of my peers grew up in households and communities where an Ivy League education was seen as a golden ticket to success for their children as well as the ultimate merit badge for being a good parent. We bought into the dream too as we saw the high impact careers* many of our upperclassmen trailblazers graduated into as well as the amount of respect our communities afforded them.How much of my acceptance was due to my genes/upbringing vs. my own effort is likely unknowable. However, I'd like to think there's two things I consciously did that mattered. First, I was able to delay gratification and to intensely focus when it mattered. Second, I knew when I hit my limitations and would require an exhaustive amount of time and effort to advance to the next level and instead worked on other pursuits where I'm more likely to gain an edge. A good example of the first was the SATs. I was neither the smartest nor the most hardworking in my graduating class. (I'm actually a huge slacker by nature and HATE memorizing anything I don't find fun). My Junior year GPA was good but not Valedictorian level, plus, after reading about Thomas Espenshade's study on the SAT gap I knew I would have to ace that test. On my first try of the test I got a 2280, within my target school's range but not a standout to bring up my other so-so stats. Hence, I spent 8 grueling straight hours memorizing grammar before my next test to bring the Writing section up 100 pts to a 2380 total. A good example of knowing my limits was with athletics. Despite spending 3 hours a day on track & field and swimming, I was still far slower than my teammates and nowhere close to a scholarship. I likely could've worked harder and more efficiently but it was already physically and mentally draining time and energy away from my other passions. I made the decision to drop athletics and instead prioritize economics team, which I enjoyed much more and where I helped my team win the state championship. Most of the other bullet points on my pre-college resume were similarly driven from these two principles.Ultimately, I believe that along with winning the genetic lottery, a set of values very similar to the protestant work ethic drove me towards an acceptance. After all, luck is the crossroads where opportunity and preparation meet.*What I didn't realize at the time is how much hard work you have to put in while in one of these colleges. It was the first time in my life where I felt truly outclassed by some of my peers, particularly in the hard sciences. Life's a funnel and it only gets more competitive the higher you want to soar.

Look for indoor play parks, Gymboree classes, mommy and me swimming classes. The best thing about these kind of group activities is you get to meet other moms while the children are busy and having fun. Enjoy!Tigard Indoor Play ParkPlay & MusicSherwood Swim Lessons | YMCA of Columbia-Willamette