TREADING WATER | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1896

TREADING WATER.

THE easiest position that a man, a woman, or a child can assume in water is to float perpendicularly. Any person, without any previous practice, can tread water, and so keep afloat for a long time. He should keep his hands below the surface of the water, his lungs inflated, and his feet moving up and down as in walking. Let the “man overboard” throw his hands and arms out of the water, let him raise an outcry whereby all the air is expelled from his lungs, and he will sink to the bottom. The trouble is that nine persons out of ten lose their presence of mind when they are in water out of their depth for the first time. If, instead of struggling and floundering about, they would do a little walking, there would not be the slightest danger of drowning right away.

Anyone can tread water in the first attempt. No preliminary teaching is necessary. Treading water is simply walking into the water out of one’s depth, with or without the aid of one’s hands. The operation is not unlike running upstairs, and, if anything, easier. Truly, any man, any woman, any child, who can walk upstairs, can walk in the water, and, remember, on the first attempt, without any previous instruction or practice.

Hence I say that persons really ignorant of the art of swimming are perfectly safe in water out of their depth. Very often you hear people exclaim: “Ugh, if this boat were to upset, I’d drown, of course! I can’t swim, you know.”

Yes, but you can tread water. Most of us attach a strong significance to the word “swim.” Why should we mean one thing when a man swims, and another or different thing when a dog swims? The dog can not “swim” as a man swims, but any man can swim “dog fashion” instantly and for the first time. The animal has no advantage in any way in water over man, and yet the man drowns, while the animal swims. The dog, the horse, the cow, and even the cat, all take to the water, and are able to walk as they do when out of water. Throw a dog into the stream, and at once he begins to walk, just as he does when on dry land. Why should a man, woman, or child act differently under like circumstances?

It seems strange that people have to be told to do what the animals do instinctively and instantly. Men’s ignorance of so simple a thing as treading water is remarkable; it is without reason or excuse. There is a popular notion afloat that in some way the dog and the animals have an advantage over man in the water. Nothing could be further from the truth. The advantage lies with man, who is provided with a paddle-formed hand, and knows enough to float when tired—something the animal rarely or never does.

Next to treading water, floating on the back is the easiest thing to do in water. This consists in lying flat on the back, head thrown well back, the lungs inflated, the limbs extended, but flexible, the arms held close to the ears, the hands over the head. The majority of people able to sustain themselves in water prefer to float in a horizontal position rather than in a perpendicular manner. Both positions are much better, in fact much safer, than the attitude that we assume in swimming. I have found it so. One day, in a rough surf, I was nearly strangled with a sudden swallow of water; had I not been able to float, the result might have been disastrous.—Harper’s Young People.