Splashing into the right stroke

If I had thought that learning to drive a car needed an insane amount of hand-eye coordination, nothing prepared me for the skill set that swimming demanded. In a car, you are on solid ground, and if nothing else, you can hope that the car stalls.

By the time I finally decided to learn swimming, my daughter had already learnt all the strokes and was swimming comfortably, and my husband was well into his classes. I joined, enamoured by their claim that 20 classes were all that were required to learn swimming. 

The classes turned out to be more challenging for my instructor. On day two, he asked if I had ever had any traumatic incident in a water body, seeing how I tensed when I had to put my head underwater. I reassured him that there was no such thing.

On day four or five, when I was made to go to the deep end, I was too terrified to let go of the bar. I was also in a pool of guilt with memories of how I had shouted at my daughter when she resisted going to the deep end. I told my instructor that I was going to go back home and apologise to my daughter. And I did just that, many times, over 3 days. After 12 classes, I was still struggling to keep my head above water. Eventually, it was only in the sixteenth class that I did it comfortably, much to the relief of my coach. I was so delighted that I started laughing and almost went down.

As I could not master the skill in 20 classes, I enrolled for classes at the other place. The first few classes went well. The trouble started when it was time for me to start moving ahead; I could not move my arms and legs together. I forgot to kick my legs, and when I did, I nearly rammed into an unsuspecting classmate in whose territory I had drifted into. There are just so many things one has to do and also remember to breathe the right way while keeping the body extremely relaxed! 

Learning the backstroke was another nightmare. I ended up with water up my nose and argued that all I needed was freestyle – and it doesn’t matter if I can’t perfect that either; I just needed to learn enough to get from one end of the pool to the other. I made it clear that I didn’t aspire to become Michael Phelps. 

The breaststroke was probably the most humiliating of all. I held the kickboard and kept kicking my legs and yet stayed in the same spot while others were waiting in line for their turn. I gave up and swam in freestyle to make way! And then came the butterfly stroke. The only way to get the rhythm was alternately telling myself, ‘I’m a dolphin… I’m a butterfly…’ and I worked hard at it. And now, the times I do get it right, I say, ‘Sir, I’m swimming like Michael Phelps today!’ much to their shock and amusement.