Swimming is a natural part of Australian life. Girt by sea, we are a nation of beachgoers, and a love of the water is encoded in our national DNA.

Learning to swim is, therefore, something that it is assumed we all do at an early age. Which is why it's always been slightly embarrassing for me that I didn't.

I dropped out of swimming lessons because I didn't care for what I considered the teacher's fascistic approach to education, and made it into adulthood quite unable to keep my head above water. A lifelong shallow-ender. Not very Australian at all.

Swimming isn't just a matter of recreation, though — it can be a matter of life and death. Between July 1, 2016 and June 30, 2017, 291 people drowned in Australian waterways, an increase of nine on the previous year, and 10 above the 10-year average.

There are a range of factors contributing to drownings, but there's no doubt that you're a lot safer in the water if you know how to swim.

Not that my decision, at the age of 38, to sign up for swimming lessons was motivated purely by the desire to avoid drowning — it was mostly pride. My expectations for the lessons were simple: to learn how to swim. This I did. But I learnt a few more things too:

1. It hurts.

I probably should've known this. To most people, I expect it goes without saying that physical exertion causes pain. When Olympic swimmers are interviewed poolside after the race, they don't exactly look fresh as daisies.

Furthermore, I've always found that repeated movement of my limbs hurts when it's done in air, so I don't know why I thought it would be any different in water.

Swimming the length of a public pool can be daunting to a shallow-ender. ( ABC News: Ian Cutmore )

But throughout my life I'd always associated water with the relief of pain, not its onset. Water was the magical fluid that soothed sore muscles, rather than causing them.

My first lesson disabused me of my delusions bluntly and at pace. It seemed I'd only taken a few strokes before my limbs were aching and I was gasping for breath.

Of course I'd have been gasping for breath anyway, because I kept swallowing mouthfuls of chlorinated water. This did not help the feeling that my lungs were about to defect from my ribcage in protest at their mistreatment.

Swimming doesn't hurt quite as much now, but it's still what I'd call "exercise" — it's just wetter than going for a run.

2. It's kind of humiliating

The mercy of adult swimming lessons is that they run them on weekday mornings, meaning you don't have to go through your paces in front of the after-school crowds of gawping juveniles. But that doesn't mean they're private.

You have to do them right next to the lane where people are swimming laps. People who know how to swim laps. People who probably learnt to swim laps when they were about four and can't quite believe there are grown human beings there holding onto kickboards and using pool noodles to keep themselves afloat, striving to reach that advanced level where you're allowed to use your arms.

When you're learning to swim as an adult, you can't help but feel a bit like Billy Madison. Luckily your classmates are other adults, so it's not quite as embarrassing as sitting in with the kindergartners, but you're still out there in public, flailing around in an attempt to figure out basic skills that the average second-grader has mastered. You know it, and everyone around you knows it.

The overall vibe is that of walking down the street with a big sign around your neck reading "NOT A GROWN-UP". Humbling? Sure is!

The thing about swimming lessons is you have to do them next to people doing laps — who learnt to swim aged four. ( ABC News: Margaret Burin )

3. It's also really exciting.

If you want to feel a real sense of adventure, I can't recommend learning to swim enough.

When you get to your late 30s, the thought starts to creep in that new sensations are a thing of the past, that from here on in it's all just variations on a theme. But when you start that kicking, and suddenly you realise, you're up, and you're actually moving forward in the water … wow.

Learning to swim as an adult is humiliating, but also life-affirming. ( Audience submitted: Sue Belperio )

You might just be paddling away in the Casey Recreational and Aquatic Centre, but you could be stroking your way down the Amazon for the incredible feeling of accomplishment you've just received.

The thing about learning entirely new skills as an adult is that it's such an unfamiliar feeling, and it seems so far beyond your grasp — generally speaking if you haven't learnt to do something by 38 you expect you never will — that even when the skill is something as basic as swimming, it feels like a spectacular unexplored frontier that you're crashing through.

It's the counterpoint to the humiliation, and it makes it worth it.

4. It can actually make you more scared than before.

I'd never actually been scared of the water. I couldn't swim, but it was easy enough, when I found myself at the beach or the pool, to just stay in the shallows.

Naturally enough, with my newfound knowledge, when I recently visited the beach I thought it was time I pushed the envelope a little, so I headed out, and out … and out a bit more. Until I was at that point that oceanographers call "where you can't keep your head above the water and your feet on the ground at the same time".

This was what I'd trained for — to confidently be able to negotiate the ocean depths. And I was gripped with terror. I frantically swam back to safety, certain that any second my new ability would disappear and I'd sink like a stone.

So that's the thing about learning a new skill: your unconscious brain takes a while to catch up with the development. The formerly well-justified fear of deep water didn't go away just because I was better equipped to handle it. Which is probably a pretty good failsafe for my mind: I'm not exactly an expert swimmer yet, so staying wary might not be a bad idea.

Still, it was startling how quickly my confidence evaporated as soon as I put myself in a situation where I had to swim, rather than just wanting to.

The mercy of adult swimming lessons is that they run them on weekday mornings. ( ABC News: Giulio Saggin )

5. It made me a better parent … I think

I've never been what you'd call a confident father, mainly because I've always struggled to believe that I really know best about anything.

As a parent you kind of know all the right things to say to your kids, but setting a good example is a trickier matter.

Do I act in a way that I want my children to emulate? I'm rarely sure, but I feel a lot better about myself as a parent now that I've bitten the bullet and learnt to swim 30 years later than I should have — and not just because it got them interested in learning to swim too.

If nothing else, the demonstration that it's never too late to learn something new, that you shouldn't let embarrassment hold you back from doing what you want to do, that determination and perseverance are worthwhile, has to be a good example.

Since I've taken these lessons I feel like I've lived up to a principle I believe in, and I feel, more than ever, that I can show my kids something useful about how to live.

Most of all, since giving it a go I've realised how much more there is in the world that I haven't experienced, and realised that experiencing those things is still possible. It's given me a refreshed desire to seek out the new and the novel, and to instil that kind of curiosity in my children.

Plus, I'm a lot less likely to drown now — I'm calling that a win.

Ben Pobjie is a writer and comedian.