Dear One and All,
Last Sunday, Jon Foss (founder & CEO of Foss Swim Schools, a successful business in the American mid-west, growing for 30 yrs, teaches c 2 million lessons/yr) gave us a fascinating talk on his vast experience, nurturing the remarkable ability for
humans to learn to swim.
The orthodox view in physical anthropology has, for generations, been that humans are adapted to efficient walking & long-distance running. And of course, it's true. We have many anatomical traits that are consistent with an efficient striding gait
whilst walking on flat, firm, vegetation-free substrates, and no doubt humans are indeed very good at long-distance running.
Meanwhile, almost totally ignored has been the equally clear cut & evidence-based argument that humans are rather good at swimming too, certainly compared with our nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees & bonobos. If children are exposed to swimming at
an early age, as indeed some populations are (e.g. the Moken people of Indonesia), they consistently learn to swim remarkably well - perhaps as well as some semi-aquatic mammals.
The orthodox view has always been to argue "so, what?" we're good a lots of things. I've heard examples like "we can play the trombone", "we can ride bicycles" to make this point. But these things require technology. Swimming can be done totally naked,
without any aid whatsoever, and in humans, it may be learned before one has even learned to walk.
Among many fascinating aspects of his talk, Jon conducts a preliminary audit of human physical traits, arguing that they are consistent with adaptations to swimming. From what he's learned in decades of being a great swimmer himself & then a first
class swimming coach, he's convinced such a list of traits are at least as valid as those used to make the case for a savannah-dwelling endurance running ancestry.
Of course, these 2 ideas are not mutually exclusive. As Bert Chan proposed in his recent talk, perhaps humans are the "triathlon ape" - we can run, we can swim & we are great with technology (e.g. cycling).
Watch Jon's Video here...

https://youtu.be/LSIydke_Nyg

Or see his entry on the web site here...

www.whattalks.com/talks
WHAT Talks
www.whattalks.com

All the best --Algis Kuliukas

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:-) Thanks, Jon & Algis!







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