THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 17, 1995 TAG: 9508170050
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By CLAUDINE R. WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
EVEN THOUGH she lives in Virginia Beach, Sandra Cherry has never swum in the ocean. She avoids the deep end of swimming pools, and she knows what it's like to be an outsider at a pool party.
Cherry doesn't know how to swim. But at age 47, she says she's ready to learn.
This summer, she's taking lessons at the Kempsville Recreation Center in Virginia Beach.
``Swimming is a kind of a social standard, especially in an area flanked by beaches,'' Cherry says.
``If you can't swim, you are considered a nerd,'' she says. ``While everyone else is swimming, you are stuck in the shallow end wearing a bathing suit. Everyone else is having a good time, and you are just out of it.''
Every year, hundreds of adults in Hampton Roads sign up for swimming classes or try to learn on their own. Many of them must wage psychological battles with themselves to do so.
Aversion to the water could be caused by post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks or phobias, said Virginia Beach psychiatrist Abbot Lee Granoff.
For example, Virginia Beach resident Jeanette Matthews, 40, can still remember when her aunt threw her into the water at the beach when she was 8. She recalls the panic she felt when her eyes and mouth began filling with salt water. Whenever she ventures into the deep end a pool, her mind replays that incident.
Now she's slowly learning to swim; this summer she enrolled in a class at a Norfolk Boys & Girls Club. Learning could help relieve her anxiety; by actually swimming, many people become desensitized to their fears. Others may need medication and therapy so they can learn how to swim, Granoff said.
For others, mental blocks have little to do with an inability to swim. A generation ago, laws limited black people's access to pools and classes. Grandparents and parents who never learned to swim now are less likely than others to acquaint children with the water.
Black children between 5 and 19 are two to four times more likely to drown than whites, says a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
At Kempsville Recreation Center, a small class straggles to the pool. The class members all have different experience levels, varied fears and anticipations.
Meet Robert Cuffee, a 49-year-old ship welder who lives in Virginia Beach.
He's a novice swimmer. He can make it about 4 feet across the short end of the pool.
Cuffee has problems with the mechanics of swimming.
``It's hard just getting your legs and arms coordinated and everything going,'' he says. ``But I'm going to hang in there, though.''
He flings of some of the chlorine water from his face and goes at it again.
``Blow, blow, blow,'' instructor Jan Walck tells Cuffee. ``And you didn't kick your legs. Your water level is right, but you didn't kick.''
This is Cuffee's second swimming class. He signed up for a class eight years ago, but when the instructor announced that the class was ready for the deep end, Cuffee didn't return.
Cuffee, who has worked on ships for 20 years, says his job makes it important for him to learn how to swim. He works near water 40 to 50 feet deep.
``You just want to learn how to swim in case you go overboard,'' he says.
At the pool, Cuffee avoids the flotation board. He puts it aside and attempts to stroke alone. Again, he doesn't quite make it.
Cuffee's classmate Cherry still uses the float. She can keep her legs straight and kick, but she has trouble floating on her own.
Nevertheless, she says she's happy to have the chance to learn. Cherry was raised in inner-city Kansas City, Mo., where swimming pools were rare. And after launching a teaching career and raising three children, she says, there was very little time to learn.
But now she's ready. After all, she says, it's no fun watching other people swim at the beach.
``I don't want to just lie on the boogie board anymore,'' she says. ``God doesn't want us to be afraid. There is a point when you have to give up your fears.''
As Cherry learns how to float, blow bubbles and kick in the water, her daughter Celeste, 11, is learning how to dive. Celeste began taking swimming lessons at age 4.
``I didn't want her to grow up like I did, not knowing how to swim,'' Cherry says. ``My daughter is glad that I'm in classes, and I'm determined to get something out of this, even if I could just kick a little farther.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/Staff
Instructor Jan Walck, left, helps Aileen Baldonado, 15, learn to
relax during an adult class at Kempsville Recreation Center.
by CNB