I am five or six or seven or eight and in the swimming pool at South San Francisco High School, learning to swim, being rolled onto my back and flapping my arms unwilling to trust in buoyancy. I guess I should say five and six and seven and eight as I learned and failed every year took the same lessons and every year I flunked until they gave up and promoted me to the next level. That first level was called "sand flies" and the second level "dunkers". I didn't enroll in dunkers and I officially became a swimming school dropout.

Now here I am not quite 40 years older watching Aidan and Lydia learn to swim. Aidan is swimming for the first time with no board and just a small** vest **on his back. He is near tears. When he reaches he end of the pool he tries to climb out. The teacher tells him "one more lap" and Aidan is mad. He yells/cries at the teacher and tells the this was supposed to be his last lap already. He keeps trying to climb out of the pool. The teacher holds his ground. Lydia is paddling her way across the pool happy as can be. One more lap it is with the teacher prodding Aidan all the way and Lydia leisurely paddling behind. Lydia's job is a bit easier this year as the teacher isn't trying to get her to swim without the board. Plus I think the teacher -- very stern with Aidan -- is a little afraid of Lydia. Where-as one always knows where they stand with Aidan, with Lydia it can be a mixed bag and she can run some game on you.

Lydia taking a break and Aidan learning to swim

Anyway, Aidan makes it across the pool and out of the water and seems no worse for wear. The theory here -- and I guess most places -- is that you need to push the kid really hard past his limit otherwise he will never go there on his own. Which I guess the high school teachers who taught me all those years ago didn't understand but what the 1200 kuai for 12 lessons instructor here doesn't not understand.

Me, I don't know. I just hope Aidan and Lydia will continue to want to go swimming and can be safe in the water even if their father flunked out of swimming school.

I return home tonight to catch the final two minutes of their lesson. Aidan is -- in a relative sense -- racing across the pool with a smile on his face and the small vest on his back. When he is done, he can't wait to tell anyone who will listen that he could swim by himself. He tells his friends mom, he tells the teacher, he tells Yang, he tells me. He is so proud of himself as I am him.