Learning to Swim

“It’s a good idea to begin at the bottom in everything, except in learning to swim.” – Unknown

Up until about six months ago, I couldn’t swim. As an adult, I had taken lessons on two previous occasions, several years ago, without success and had no intentions of making a third attempt.

But as luck would have it, my husband Alan decided he wanted to brush up on his swimming skills (the triathlon seed had been planted in his psyche a few months earlier). He proposed we sign up for swim lessons that were running concurrently at one of the local universities – Stroke Development for him and Adult Learn to Swim for me. Given that he’d been alongside me for my six months of training, through the winter, for an ultramarathon that he’d had no interest in running, I couldn’t say no.

My instructor Chris was wonderfully patient with our small group of newbies. Over the next eight classes, he lead us through blowing bubbles in the water, to front and back floats and glides, and eventually to front and back crawl. We were doing swimmingly, or so I thought.

“I just saw your swim instructor,” said my husband, chuckling as we sat in the hot tub after class. “He was standing under the shower with his face cupped in his hands. He looked like he’d just had the worst day of his life.”

“We’re not that bad!” I exclaimed, with a laugh, in my group’s defence.

The lessons at the university, while plenty challenging for me, proved less so for Alan, who grew up with a backyard pool. It wasn’t long before he had found a local instructor certified in Total Immersion, a method of swim instruction that focuses on moving through the water efficiently. Before I knew it, Alan had us both signed up for beginner classes and I soon found myself amongst a group of seasoned triathletes. I thought I was going to throw up.

Over the next 12 weeks, my learning curve skyrocketed. This was, however, not without at least one meltdown. After week three, I sobbed in the car for a good half-hour after a particularly difficult class. I had never felt so defeated.

“You’re doing just fine,” said my ever-supportive husband. “You’ll see for yourself in the videos. You are way too hard on yourself.”

Our instructor had taken short underwater camera videos of each of us swimming in the first, sixth and last class. Shot from three different angles, the videos were a wonderful learning aid for assessing swim technique. My footage wasn’t pretty (no woman wants to be filmed in her swimsuit), but it did show a steady improvement and helped convince me to agree to sign up with hubby for 12 more weeks in the advanced class.

Learning to swim as an adult has been one of the most stressful and challenging things I’ve ever done. But it has also been one of the most rewarding and empowering. Gone are the days of panicking in the water. I now enjoy diving off the starter blocks and am swimming laps for endurance. And just last week, I learned how to draft off of and pass other swimmers (by swimming over them!). Who would have imagined!

But perhaps most exciting of all… I’ll get to go to the waterpark for the first time in my life!