Day seven: 7/26

Duration: 1.5 (0.8x1, 0.6x1)

When I arrived, I'm already unsurprised by the yellow caps sitting with us together under the canopy. After the usual gathering, warm-up and times three routine, we were told to swim at full speed for the last routine as the coaches are going to time us. The length and time limit in the official test was 200 meters, six minutes. I finished at 4:51 and by the looks of it, not many passed. 

Everyone was exhausted and out of breath - I can literally see my heart beating through my rash guard as I looked down. We then gathered under the shade next to the canopy and greeted another new coach for today's lecture. Like the previous coach, he allowed us to take off our "ployester" swimming caps. That's what the label said.

He went off asking us what to do in case of real-life emergency situations and requested a different answer every time someone quoted a coach's theory or a textbook. The first case is what if you didn't distance yourself and the victim before rescuing him, and said victim is trying to pull you down. I gave the model answer and got rejected. Someone said to kick him in the face. The other suggested pulling him under. Another said to clamp his nose and mouth so he can't breathe. One yelled just knock him out. The solutions became more and more brutal until the coach stopped us and continued his lecture.

In my opinion, forceful extrication from the victim is used only as a last resort. If the victim tries to grab you from more than a meter away, swim faster. You're a lifeguard. You can even race with him until you both get to land, then the victim won't need even rescuing at all, perfect solution. Everyone laughed.

If you can't, kick up water in his face. I'm sure everyone has used this once or twice as a kid. If the victim grabbed you at the wrist, twist your hand around, loosen his grip and grab his instead. If the victim is at close range, just push him away or if you're kind enough, grab him by the waist, go under and raise him up. As soon as the victim had his breath of air, he'll eventually lose adrenaline and become exhausted. You don't need to wait for the victim to actually entangle you and pull you down in order to start rescuing him.

The coach's summary of the lecture is to be creative. If you're afraid to approach the victim at the front but the book said so, make a distraction and approach him from the back. Screw the book. If you can't reach the victim's body parts, pull his collar. If you can't do something, improvise.

He was surprised at my age because again, I'm at least five years younger than all the other students. He asked me to help him demonstrate every time, and was even more astonished when I already anticipated what he's going to do next. I revealed that I learned them before last year, then he even step down and offered to make me teach instead. Everyone laughed. I was a bit abashed.

We went through the methods pretty fast, and the coach was satisfied with everyone's progress.

At one time everyone focused their attention at a particular pair because one of the two students had an especially muscular build and learned judo, taekwondo and mixed martial arts for years, and every move he made seemed as if he was wrestling the victim to death underwater. We laughed at his imaginary victim's misfortune and went on.

Soon we were practicing the methods at the pool. All went well. Our pair was one of the earlier ones to finish, so we had a few minutes to spare while waiting for the others to finish. We hosted a small talent reveal. I did some magic tricks with two rubber bands, then arched my back backwards and did a full circle underwater, along with handstands, backflips and frontflips. Another voiceovered anime impressions in Japanese. The third person did an unnaturally realistic beatbox underwater, and with different effects. We had fun marveling at each other's talents.

After lunch, the head coach gathered us all for the second lecture, which is to bring the victim back to shore. After training with each other, we had our first-hand experience on test dummies. A dummy weighs about 38 kilograms and it was filled with water so it doesn't float at all. Worst of all, it has no arms, only shoulders so it was especially hard to grab onto.

My dummy constantly submerged his entire head underwater and floated up vertically, so I had to constantly knee it in the back to get it back up. Someone didn't care if the dummy was suffocating or not and grabbed it by its neck while pulling it to land, the dummy's head facing underwater. Another person stomped the dummy underwater upon failing the test. Nobody passed, to begin with.

Someone spilled a bag of M&Ms near the canopy, so we had to be on the lookout for landmines. The coach taught us how to throw a rope effectively, which is also one of the subjects in the final test. The rope was 16 meters, and there's a specific area 12.5 meters away to throw the rope into and a time limit of 45 seconds. I passed on my first try along with a third of the team. We had a competition of three rounds, and unfortunately the blue caps lost.

We swam another times three routine, went through another announcement, then the course was dismissed.

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Additional notes:

* To effectively throw a rope, you bundle it up first. There's a lifesaving competition somewhere, and one of the subjects was rope throwing. You throw the rope to the victim, and whoever pulls the victim back first wins. The world record of 25 meters was around 9 seconds. 

https://youtu.be/SPbaDW820To