In life, we always start from top to bottom. Before we learn how to get drunk at bars, we have to know how we get drunk on baby milk. Before we learn how to drive cars, we need to know how to walk. And before trying to escape the shallows of the ocean alone while a bunch of man-eating sharks are circling you for the kill, you need to know how to swim. This trope applies to episodes where the character, generally a child, learns how to swim for the first time. They usually start at levels that help them get used to the water:
- Learning to move your legs in the water. Holding on the edges, you paddle and paddle, until you can do it automatically by mind.
- Learn to float on the water. Hold on the edges, while trying to balance your body on the water on your stomach. Later, let go of the hold and float on your back.
- Learn to swim small distances, then later long. Swim like a foot or two, then go longer and longer until you’re a master at swimming on the surface.
- The ultimate test: holding your breath in the water. This comes last because you just started on the surface, and now you have to learn what to do under.
- You can do other optional swimming strokes, including breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.
Normally, a child will have a fear of swimming, so maybe this could help them become comfortable. A helpful relative or teacher encourages them to try little by little, starting with these easy steps to complex strokes. But maybe, the learner might already know the basics if they got Taught by Experience. They will also learn the cliches of what to do and what not to do when they want to swim, like when water rushes too fast to swim in, always swim with a guardian (if under 13, of course), and Night Swim Equals Death. Well, in Truth in Television, the first two are pretty accurate, and the third one…well, that has its own page.
This applies a lot to Western Animation and Music, specifically children’s. Compare to Learning to Ride a Bike, which is basically learning how to swim, but you learn how to ride a bike. Failures on Ice is another, where the character can have many fails while learning how to ice skate.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Grave of the Fireflies, while they are paddling in the sea on a beach trip, Seita promises to teach his little sister Setsuko how to swim when the weather gets warmer. Tragically, due to the War situation, he never gets the chance.
- Idol Densetsu Eriko: In one episode, Eriko is scheduled to film a television acting role, but it stipulates that she has to swim. Eriko has never swum in her life and needs coaching from Yasuko.
- Ranma ½: Akane is notoriously unable to swim. One segment of the manga even has her attempting to learn how to swim, and it is with the aid of the normally unhelpful Principal Kunō, who genuinely wants to help Akane learn to swim properly. But by the end of the story arc, Akane's penchant for sinking like a stone and inability to master even the most basic of swimming techniques, even Principal Kunō is throwing in the towel and telling Akane to just use a floatie.
- School Rumble: During the Beach Episode, the audience is reminded that none of the girls can swim, so Harima, hoping to be paired with Tenma, suggests the boys teach the girls how, and does a Ghost Leg Lottery to figure out who will be paired with whom. It turns out to be a case of Divided into Disaster, as Akira and Hanai are paired up, Imadori is paired with the object of his obsession, Mikoto, who's plainly not interested in him, Tenma is paired with Nara, and Harima is paired with Eri, who'd walked in on Harima changing into his swimsuit a little while earlier, and he'd physically restrained her while he was naked hoping to keep her from screaming. It ends up with Eri saying she'd rather drown, Akira reading on the beach while Hanai "demonstrates" how to swim, Tenma being able to swim 5 meters by herself, and Mikoto and Imadori spending the night on a deserted isle just offshore.
- Soaring Sky Pretty Cure: In the Beach Episode, the Cures head out to the beach for some fun in the sun. Unfortunately, Sora, she of Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training, never learned how to swim and sinks like a rock; turns out her hero training involved walking on a lake bed underwater but not swimming. Thankfully for her, Mashiro is a very accomplished swimmer and she's able to help Sora in the end.
Comic Books
- In Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today by Malaysian cartoonist Lat, two swimming lessons respectively represent the present and the past.
- In the present, a boy learns to swim at a public swimming pool, but his parents stand at the edge and wave their arms in swimming motions -- right in front of the instructor and life coach.
- In the past, Lat illustrates the way his father taught him to swim when he was a child — by tossing him into the river.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: The arc titled "Swimming Lessons" has Calvin being forced to participate in swimming lessons, early in the morning in a freezing cold pool. Things get worse for him when he finds out his instructor is his dreaded babysitter, Rosalyn. On the drive home, Calvin describes the experience as "40 minutes of terror" and asks his mom why she didn't sign him up for something more fun, like hang gliding, sharpshooting, or driving.
Mom: How about piano lessons? You start Tuesday.
Calvin: ACK! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO—
Fan Works
- In the Gullfriend31 fic Baby Steps
(a Futari wa Pretty Cure story), Nagisa fills a kiddie pool with water so that someone as small as Mepple and Mipple's baby daughter Maple can swim in there. She manages to paddle, much to her parents' joy, though Mepple does get exasperated when she spits water at him.
- The Guardian: Chapter 23 of Life Before Hogwarts is about Snape teaching Harry how to swim in the lake on the Hogwarts grounds during Easter break. This is so Harry will know how to swim and be safe around the water when they go on vacation to the beach during the summer.
- Icarus and the Sea: One chapter focuses on Varrick teaching Zhu Li, who grew up in a city, how to swim.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Swimming with Silverstream, Silverstream teaches Yona how to swim, which is a challenge for her, because in the My Little Pony universe, yaks are naturally unable to swim.
Films — Animation
- In the Dot and the Kangaroo sequel, Dot and Keeto, Dot, who has been shrunk down to insect-size, falls into a pond and is unable to swim. In the following sequel, Dot and the Whale, she learns how to swim after Nelson the dolphin teaches her how to breathe underwater like ocean-dwelling mammals.
- Ice Age: The Meltdown has a subplot of Diego being afraid to swim and Sid teaching him how, likening it to stalking prey since Diego is a saber-toothed tiger.
- The Wild Robot: Teaching Brightbill to swim is one of the tasks Roz must accomplish to get him ready to migrate with the other geese before winter. Rule of Funny applies, since she tries to teach him human swimming techniques that are totally unsuited for his physiology.
Literature
- Anna Magdalena: In the story "Anna-Magdalena goes glug-glug-glug", Anna-Magdalena takes swimming lessons in preparation for a trip abroad with her aunt and uncle. Unlike the other children, she finds floating very difficult and keeps going "glug-glug-glug" to the bottom of the pool. She does not manage to stay afloat by herself until she actually goes away with her aunt and uncle.
- Froggy: In "Froggy Learns to Swim", it's a hot day, and Froggy and his parents go to the pond for a swim. Froggy, however, is reluctant to join his parents in the pond because he doesn't know how to swim, preferring to swing on the swing instead. However, Froggy falls off the swing and lands in the pond, where he worries he'll drown. His mom assures him that frogs are great swimmers because they are born in the water, and teaches him how to swim. Froggy eventually becomes a great swimmer, and when it's time for him and his parents to go home, he doesn't want to leave, not because he enjoyed swimming too much (at least not at first), but because his bathing suit came off in the pond.
- Mrs. Pepperpot: In one story, Mrs. Pepperpot wants to swim, but can't. She eventually shrinks and meets a frog, who teaches her how to swim.
- Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great: During their Tarrytown vacation, Sheila's mom signs her up for swimming lessons to make her get over her fear of water. Despite Sheila's constant protesting that she will drown, she learns to swim and eventually passes her basic swimming test at the end of the summer.
- Warrior Cats: After Cinderpaw injures her leg, Jaypaw is so determined to help her heal it that he decides to teach her how to swim. Leafpool is opposed to it at first, but Cinderpaw is willing to give it a shot. These lessons end up giving her the strength she needs to walk properly again, and she becomes a warrior thanks to it. Her ability to swim isn't common for Thunder Clan warriors, so the lessons really were an unusual tactic.
- In the kids' book You Can Swim, Jim, Jim is with his friends at the waterpark but doesn't want to swim. He decides to go buy a snack instead, but then trips and falls into the pool. At this point, he decides he likes the pool after all.
Live-Action TV
- Family Matters: The episode “Sink or Swim” follows Steve as he learns how to swim by his friend Carl. Laura ends up being the one to help by pretending to fall into the pool and drown, and Steve jumps in to rescue her.
- Young Sheldon: The episode "Teenager Soup and a Little Ball of Fib" follows Sheldon as he takes this trope to the test, literally. Although he did do well on the test, he causes The Plague to the entire school.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate III: Early on in Shadowheart's romance route, you can get her to admit she doesn't know how swim. Should the player turn Shadowheart away from the Goddess Of Evil she worships, her final romance scene will have her take the PC to the nearest beach so they can teach her how to swim. Whether or not Shadowheart learned how to swim comes up again after the death of the Final Boss sends the party falling into the bay. If she did, Shadowheart will express relief that her swimming lessons paid off. If she didn't, she'll express dismay that she almost drowned barely a minute after the party's victory.
- Love of Magic: Emily doesn't know how to swim because lakes in Elsewhere tend to have nasty things lurking in them. After finding this out, Owyn has the option to buy her a swimsuit and take her to the Glade to teach her.
Web Videos
- SuperMarioLogan: In "Bowser Junior's Pool Party", Junior throws a pool party in his house and invites his two best friends, Joseph and Cody. While Junior and Joseph have no problem swimming, Cody has never swam before because he has Cerebral Palsy and is H20-intolerant. Junior decides to teach Cody how to swim so he can join him and Joseph in the pool, but Cody has a failed lesson. Determined to prove that he can swim, Cody dives into the pool but ends up drowning (given the series' nature, Cody shows up alive and well in The Stinger to tell the viewers that he didn't actually die and will be in the next episode).
Western Animation
- In the Angry Birds Toons episode "Sink or Swim," Red tries to learn how to swim. After many failed attempts, he eventually does so after the pigs steal the eggs, only to forget about it at the end of the episode.
- Baby Looney Tunes: In "Like a Duck to Water", Granny takes the kids to the pool so they can learn to swim. Despite being a duck, Daffy is not willing to get wet, so the other kids tell him that his fear is valid since everyone's scared of something. He then gives it a chance and he doesn't even want to get out of the pool anymore.
- Bluey: Parodied in the episode "Swim School", which follows Bluey as a mean-spirited instructor for the Heeler family as they learn about swimming in the pool, and also stuff you should never do, including doing "nature's waterfall course" in the pool...
- Bobby's World: In "Swim By Me", swim season opens up at the local pool, and Martha has Kelly and Derek take Bobby there (much to their dismay). Derek tells Bobby to stay in the shallow end, but Bobby goes off the diving board and lands in the bottom of the pool. Derek saves Bobby from drowning, and when Howard and Martha find out about Bobby's near-death experience, they get Uncle Ted to give him swimming lessons so he'll be safer in the water. Uncle Ted is horrified since despite being a grown man, he doesn't know how to swim, either. By the end of the episode, Bobby and Uncle Ted take their swimming tests and pass.
- Camp Lazlo: In ''Swimming Buddy", Pierre and No-Neck, a pair of French otter lifeguards who work at Camp Kidney, give the campers their swimming test, grading them based on how well they swim. Lazlo and Clam are ranked as Sharks, while most of the other campers are ranked as Sea Cows (and Samson is ranked as a Spineless Goldfish). Raj, however, is so bad at swimming that he gets ranked as a Larva. Lazlo convinces Pierre and No-Neck to give Raj another chance, and if Raj passes his test, they will clean Lazlo's dirty socks by licking them, but if Raj fails, then Lazlo has to lick Pierre and No-Neck's socks clean. Over the course of the episode, Lazlo and Clam teach Raj how to swim, but with minimal success. When Raj sees the marshmallow victory cake that Lazlo and Clam made for his success, he sees how much his friends believed in him and is determined not to let them down. He takes his test, passing it at the end of the episode.
- The Casagrandes: In "Slink or Swim", the eponymous family goes to the pool, but Carl sheepishly avoids swimming the whole time. Bobby eventually discovers that it's because Carl can't swim as he bailed out of swimming lessons the previous year because he was scared, and was too embarrassed to admit his fear. Bobby, who used to be a lifeguard, teaches Carl to overcome his fear and swim.
- Chip and Potato: In "Chip's Swimming Lesson", as the title states, Chip and her classmates go to the pool to swim for the first time. Chip suddenly gets cold feet despite her initial excitement, but once Nico reassures her that it's shallow enough for anyone's feet to touch the bottom, she gets in and enjoys it.
- Classic Disney Shorts: "How to Swim" has Goofy learning just that. An early sequence has him practicing while lying on a piano stool... and unwittingly rolling out of the house and into traffic. The rest of the short has him doing various water activities — diving, surf swimming — and failing spectacularly, as usual.
- Doc McStuffins: “Get Set to Get Wet” follows Doc as she helps a mermaid doll learn how to swim, encouraging confidence and teaching water safety in a kid-friendly format.
- Kamp Koral: In "Pat's A Li'l Sinker", Patrick wants to swim with his friends, but he keeps sinking. Mrs. Puff gives him swimming lessons and he eventually joins his friends at a party at the bottom of the lake.
- Muppet Babies: In "Beach Blanket Babies", Nanny gets the babies swimsuits and a wading pool to teach them how to swim so they'll be safer in the water. Fozzie is afraid to go swimming for the first time, so the babies pretend they're at the beach to help him overcome his fear.
- Rocky Kwaterner: In the episode "The Big Splash", Rocky is challenged to a swimming contest by Karl, but since he can't swim he has to learn how. Rocky's own idea for learning to swim involves observing a fish and a frog, and try to replicate their moves, but this goes nowhere so Theo and Luna try to teach him instead. Eventually the kids learn that Karl can't swim either and is secretly also taking lessons, convinced he can learn to swim faster than Rocky can. Eventually Rocky's strategy pays off when he mimics a turtle and wins the race by swimming slow and steady, while Karl tries to go too fast, tires out, and has to be rescued.
- Rugrats: In "The Big Flush", the parents take the babies to the community pool to teach them how to swim. The babies mistake the pool for a giant toilet and spend the episode searching for the flusher, because they think it would be fun to flush a giant toilet. Meanwhile, Stu tries to overcome his fear of high diving boards, eventually doing so when he sees Tommy on the low dive, having mistaken it for the flusher.
- The Smurfs: In "Grouchy Makes a Splash", it's revealed Grouchy never learned to swim and that he has a fear of water, so the other Smurfs try to teach him. It's not until he faces his hydrophobia to save Baby that he finally overcomes this, and he refuses to get out of the water now that he's come to like it.
- Sonic Boom: In "I Can Sea Sonic's Fear From Here", Dr. Eggman has created a seismic device that threatens to flood the island and has placed it underwater. However, Sonic's fear of the water gets the better of him and the others decide to try and help him overcome it by getting him swimming lessons. Unfortunately, a combination of a crappy teacher and a near-death experience makes Sonic's fear even worse, though Sonic is still brave enough to go underwater and foil Eggman's plan.
- Tom and Jerry: In "Just Ducky", Quacker the duckling hatches, but for some reason, when he tries to jump in the water and swim with his siblings, he just sinks. Jerry tries to teach him to swim, but fails. Quacker figures it out when he sees Tom drowning and jumps in to rescue him. At the end of the episode, Tom and Jerry watch happily as Quacker swims with his family, swimming like a human rather than a duck.
