SINKING TO THE BOTTOM AND RISING AGAIN TO TIIE SURFACE WITHOUT APPARENT MOTIVE POWER There are very few swimmers who can achieve this. A thorough knowledge of motionless floating is indispensable, combined with the power to sink the body while the lungs are inflated, in order that it may rise again to the surface at will without bringing any swimming action into play.
Many persons imagine that some imperceptible motion is made with the limbs, but this is not the case ; the swimmer simply depends upon resources which an expert floater always has at command.
Those who are learning to float experience no difficulty in sinking, and their efforts are centred in the endeavour to sustain the body on the water. It is quite the opposite with the expert, who finds the greatest possible difficulty in sinking in a floating position and then rising again. Very careful manage ment of the breath is required. Some of the air in the lungs must be forced out in order to sink, but yet sufficient must be retained to bring the body to the surface.
In motionless floating the body, by virtue of the operation of a natural law, rises slightly at each inspiration, and sinks again after an expiration. This is the important fact to be
remembered.
When the body is floating motionless on the surface the lungs should be carefully cleared, inflated two or three times, and the feat may then be attempted. At the time when the last deep inspiration is taken the head should be slightly lifted, the hips dropped gently, and the fingers raised. These move ments will destroy the buoyancy of the body and it will then sink, and a slight exhalation before going under the surface will send it to the bottom.
The exhalation must be slight, or otherwise the return cannot be made.
As soon as the body has sunk three or four feet below the surface, the downward impetus should be arrested by the straightening of the limbs to the ordinary floating position. Then contract the abdomen towards the chest, as this will add greatly to the floating power, and the body will begin to ascend. The body will, of course, rise much more slowly than it descended, but the face and chest will at length appear, upon which A quick gasp should be made, and the remainder of the body will at once float easily.