A Reason to Blog: Learning to Swim
To give this blog “a point”, I’ve become aware of the importance of having something to write about, other than my random thoughts day-to-day. So I’m going to attempt blogging with a focus. What happens if I write about learning how to swim?
My memory of swimming goes back to swimming lessons in the Tamitik Recreation Centre in Kitimat, BC. When I was younger, I was enrolled in many different physical extra-curricular activities and I enjoyed them all. Ballet, gymnastics, ice skating, and swimming were the most memorable. One year I was in gymnastics and swimming at the same time. That same year, I developed symptoms that were thought, by a team of doctors, to be a brain tumor. I spent a week or more at the BC Children’s Hospital and upon my return home, with no evidence of a tumor found, I was no longer permitted to engage in gymnastics because of the potential harm the tumbling might do (it was thought by the adults). It was sad to stop and especially because it was not my abilities that were preventing me from continuing on with swimming. I think I lost my confidence to be in the water after believing that I was not fit for physical exertion. Not all was lost, though.
I had learned as much as one does at the dolphin level (I think): water safety, breathing, the dog paddle, the back stroke and the front stroke when I was about 6 or 7. Now I’m 32 and beginning again. I started going to the pool in my gym in 2007, inspired by a friend. His fitness activity of choice is swimming and being that I was still strengthening my knee from earlier that year, I decided to try it. It felt a bit intimidating, but it helped a great deal to just do the aqua classes first, getting comfortable with being in the pool. I suppose the easiest way would have been to sign-up for swimming classes. I didn’t have the extra money to pay for lessons so I just went for it on my own and experimented. I have not gotten much better but I know that I have improved. I started doing the front crawl with my head above the water. The first time I did a lap, the lifeguard came over to me to ask if I was okay. I calmly said, “Yes.” She said, “Okay, I just wanted to be sure. You know it’s more difficult to swim with your head above water.” I laughed and replied, “Yes, I know. I’m just not comfortable swimming with my face in the water, yet.” So I went to the ‘multi-purpose’ area, shallow and wide, and just practiced putting my face in the water, going back to basics like blowing bubbles. It was a reminder that one can never be too advanced for the value of basics.
A couple of weeks ago, I took an ‘open water workshop’ with the total immersion coach at the YWCA. Peter was a fantastic teacher! I was pretty scared of looking like a fool and I succeeded, in my own mind at least, of looking like a fool. I don’t know what it is about a group of attractive adults practically naked all learning to do something that feels very complex and unnatural that just begs for some light dialogue. And conversation and eye contact come as easily there as it does while showering naked next to a stranger.
It was only an hour but we covered a lot of really effective techniques. My long-term goal is to be able to freedive in the ocean. A short-term goal to that end is to get through one session of Intro to Masters. I feel a little impatient that the next session doesn’t start until September. If I am still motivated in September to progress with swimming, and I hope I will be, it will be a good indication of the likelihood that I’ll stick with it. I have a tendency to distract myself with so many exciting possibilities that I lose sight of things begun.
I will post about my process of learning to swim here and perhaps in that process I will also learn something about writing.
