This was my problem with swimming. I never learned to swim properly, and refused to have anything to do with the compulsory swimming lessons when I was 10 for reasons I no longer recall but may have been to do with not wanting to be in a swimsuit around the boy in class who was pestering me. But I was able to swim the length of the pool using a strange self-taught form of doggy-paddle. However, I never really believed I could float, because when our father was teaching us to swim he started with floating, and I invariably sank like a stone unless I held my breath, which seemed to me to be defeating the purpose. Then I started getting ear infections and irritation from chlorine, outgrew the free pool membership, and when I tried swimming in a lake once age 17, sank like a stone and barely managed to claw my way back to the shore, and have been too nervous and full of body issues to try again.