Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/204

190 Swimming

Swimming.—Every 1st Class Scout ought to be able to swim. It is not only for her own amusement that she should do so, but so that she will not cause other people to risk their lives in rescuing her when she gets into difficulties in the water, and that she may be able to help those in distress. British girls are behindhand in learning to swim—it is very different in Norway and Sweden, or in America, where nearly every girl can swim.

Where a doctor says swimming is bad for her, or there is no possible means for her learning, such other badges that she does not hold may be accepted instead towards qualifying the Scout for her 1st Class.

No Scout can be of real use till she can swim, and to learn swimming is no more difficult than to learn bicycling.

All you have to do is at first to try and swim like a dog, as if trying to crawl slowly along in the water; don't try all at once to swim with the ordinary breast stroke that swimmers use, because this only lets your mouth go under water every time. When paddling along like a dog get a friend to support you at first with a pole or his hand under your belly.

Any of you who cannot swim as yet, and who fall into the water out of your depth, remember that you need not sink if you take care to do the following things. First, keep your mouth upwards by throwing the head well back. Secondly, keep your lungs full of air by taking in long breaths, but breathe out very little. Thirdly,