Do we all know how to swim? It’s hard to put a figure on numbers or percentages because it’s not too improbably accurate to say that no reliable polls have been conducted, either nationally or globally on “the can or can’t swim”. Swimming has loads of benefits as have been customarily informed and reminded. However, none could be as worthy as being able to swim to save one’s very life in water.

There are approximately 500 cases of children between the ages of 1 to 18 drowning each year in this nation alone. The Perak Clinical Research Centre in their research found that 31 children between the ages of 2 and 9 drowned in hotel and theme park pools between January and September this year. According to Dr. Amar Singh, head of the centre, 75% were children below the age of 5.

Learning and knowing how to swim is life-lasting. This is as important as education is towards imparting skills required for living. In fact, swimming is life-saving education. There needs no reminding that there is more water than land. This would put us at a disadvantage if we can’t mitigate water. There are many learn-to-swim facilities and it’s all a matter of looking them up. Where there are swimming pools, there are likely to be such facilities. Enquiries can be made through state swimming associations and swimming clubs training competition swimmers too.

Swimming is a relatively inexpensive activity and you don’t need much. It is also a fun activity and one dresses for the fun occasion. Swimming products providers bring you all sorts of renditions of suits to bring out the best in you. Basically, it’s a matter of looking and feeling good. Who wouldn’t, when one is dressed so fashionably that often turn heads? That’s what dressing is all about. It’s a projection of your persona and when it turns heads from either gender, it simply means that your projection is being appreciated.

You have the opportunity to be overdressed or underdressed. Swim attires do not discriminate – hence you have options for the barest minimum all the way to the preferred maximum. Take for instance renditions of the bikini all the way to burkini or Muslimah suits. In between you have the one-piece, two-piece, mix and match in a mindboggling array of colours, cuttings and designs. Kids have UV-suits too. Suits also come with functionality in mind such as whether you wish to up-play your assets or downplay your liabilities, so to speak.

There are also fun accessories where essentials have been rendered fashionably. Besides these, you can look like a fashionable pro and make a fashion statement as well. It’s all there for you to bask in. Looking at how goggles and swim caps have come a long way, you’d be awed by what’s being offered today.

When countries urbanise previous rural lifestyle with a lot of physical activity has become sedentary and technology apart from making our life more convenient is also making us less active. Urbanisation contributes to poorer health with more time indoors, longer office hours, easier accessibility to high-calorie foods and lower exercise levels being some of the culprits. Physical activities have been reduced such as desk-based jobs replacing physical labour jobs, lifts replacing stairs, cars replacing active travel and slew of other instances.

So what does one need for swimming? Suits are what we begin with. Then you’d need a pair of goggles and a swim cap. You’d also need float or kickboards which helps tremendously with buoyancy. Don’t forget your towel. That’s basically it but as usual there are other thinkable accessories available since many would love to go beyond bare essentials.

Learning to swim is essentially a must. It’s just a matter of when you do or decide to do it. Evidently, it’s undeniable that it’s a matter of the sooner the better.