It was night #2 for the ol’ swimming lessons and I was ready. I had a proper duffel bag for my towel and trunks, I had nifty-looking goggles and I had practiced that whole blowing-bubbles-in-the-water thing in my kitchen sink in nice, comfy warm water and without incident (drowning in your kitchen sink is one of the more embarrassing ways to kill yourself). I was one of the first to arrive and Dave came over to say hello and asked me how my leg was. Thoughtful.
He then presented me with a straw. He vouched that it was all sanitary and chlorinated and such, then explained that I would be breathing into the straw to help me with the whole breathing in water business. I did so several times without causing injury and he seemed pleased. Or at least slightly less worried.
There were more people at tonight’s lesson. I believe it was six total, split between the sexes. The girls were in their teens while the guys all skewed much older. Odd that. Pete claimed he had last been swimming about 40 years earlier and would go on to complain several times about water up the nose.
While the others did some rudimentary exercises with kicking feet and rolling over while kicking feet, I was advised to keep at the more basic stuff until I was comfortable or even bored with it. I was okay with this. At one point a second instructor who was along for the night walked (swam?) me through simple exercises to get me used to breathing out while in and under the water. She suggested humming a tune and ultimately came up with The Beatles’ “When I’m 64.” We began humming together and as I dunked my head I was so focused on the humming that I pretty much forgot the breathing. Turned out to be one of those “chewing gum and rubbing your tummy” things. I did better without the humming and graduated past the straw.
The combination of breathing and head-dipping resulted in water in my right ear. I was told it happens to a lot of swimmers, which suggests it doesn’t happen to some. I want to know how certain people end up with magical water-repelling ears because I’d like a pair.
At the end of the lesson Dave came over and asked me if I was comfortable and all that and was concerned over whether I would show up for Thursday. I told him I was good for the remainder of the course, knowing I am often a slow learner when it comes to new things and would be satisfied as long as I was making some kind of progress.
When I changed, I nearly stabbed myself with the safety pin attached to my locker key.
Looking back, I am left with a few observations on my swimming thus far:
- the pool is just really freaking cold. I told Dave that maybe I am part reptile or something because the water never feels warm to me and it makes me tense up, which is bad for swimming. I’m mulling things to help, like stretching before the lesson starts or investigating heated bathing suit technology.
- I have the grace of a boulder. As soon as I move in the water, it’s like every part of my body decides it wants to find a different way out. I don’t float so much as drift for a moment like a listing ship before sinking. “Keep your hips up!” Dave advised. “Keep your butt down. Relax.” After awhile it felt like foreplay. Bad foreplay.
- I only ingested a small amount of water tonight and the goggles helped with the head-dunking. They leak a little but are definitely better than going naked. About half of us had goggles.
- no one dropped the soap in the change room. In fact, there was no soap. Most guys seem to wear boxers. Yeah, I looked. So sue me.
There was a time when I would have been self-conscious about being the slowest person in the group but that part of my ego wandered off a long time ago. I’m not going to end up rivaling Aquaman here but I’m already ahead of where I was and that’s good enough for me. Now I just need to find some way to get the pool water to heat up another ten degrees…
