Adult Swim Lessons

I had to take adult swim lessons because my swim lessons were a total failure the first time. When I was a little girl, my parents signed me up for swimming lessons. They were a nightmare. I was most afraid of jumping off the edge of the deep end or even worse the diving board a mere foot higher. The instructors claimed they would catch me, but they lied. When I came back up for air alive, I had to swim to the edge of the pool like my life depended on it. This may have been a useful learning tactic for some kids, but it wasn’t helpful to me. Luckily, the water provided chronic ear infections so I had to miss more lessons than I attended.

For a time my mom would bring me to watch the lessons and see what I could learn from the bleachers of the pool. Not much. After years of lessons, I never actually learned to swim. I could doggie paddle, but much beyond that was beyond me.

Mini-Tri

When I signed up for a mini triathlon I knew I’d be doing the breast stroke with my head above water. It wasn’t as awful as you might think. I passed people doing the crawl who took off in the group in front of me, but I was embarrassed and felt like a fish out of water. I decided I wanted to learn to swim.

Adult Swim Lessons

A friend of mine—another adult—agreed to take private lessons with me. It made me feel better to know I wasn’t the only grown up who never learned to swim. We showed up at the pool on a Saturday morning. Other than the swim instructor and a couple of mom’s with infants on their hip, we were the only adults in bathing suits. Other parents watched from the sidelines, but they weren’t headed in the pool. It was obvious who the instructors next students were.

After wrapping up her lesson, she hopped out of the pool and approached us. “Are you guys ready for your swim lesson? It’s time to get in the water.” We were ready, but she stopped us. “Oh, I meant to ask, are you guys okay with the deep end?” Was she going to claim to catch us as we jumped in too? I looked at the number painted on the side of the deep end. Five-feet. That wasn’t even fully over my head. The question seemed laughable. Neither of us were afraid of the water, we just couldn’t swim.

Assessment came before learning, so the instructor asked us to show her what we knew. We both tried to explain we didn’t know anything, but she wanted to see for herself. We tentatively pushed off the side, craning our heads out of the water on the breast stroke and keeping it out so as not to risk drowning when we switched over to a crawl that took us diagonally across the pool— a surprising direction since we could see where we were going.

When I went to school, we learned that if you are going to criticize someone else’s work, you always start with a positive to make the negative comment coming a tad more palatable. I’m assuming, since the instructor was younger than us, this she had similar training, yet the best she could muster in support was, “That was okay.” She decided and clarified that we would start with floating. Good thing my friend and I could laugh at ourselves, especially since everyone else had left the pool.

To add to our comedy of errors, though I’ve outgrown my chronic ear infections, I have not outgrown my fear of chronic ear infections so before getting in the pool I had put ear plugs in to keep the water, and, as it turns out, most sound, out. Ear plugs made me louder when asking a question and the instructor quieter when she needed to explain a key factor in the proper mechanics of staying afloat.
Before we showed her our best floats, I knew what would happen. I’ve attempted floating before. I don’t float. I wind up in a back bend as my legs sink down. My head does linger above the water—at least a small circle of my nose, mouth, and eyes. Everything else is submerged.

Learned to Swim

We had six 30-minute lessons on the schedule, and I was starting to have my doubts. We were real newbs. But six weeks later she had us doing the crawl and the breaststroke (both with our heads underwater). It took me a little more practice to perfect the breath—and years later there is still room for improvement, but I can swim.

Between feeling the water run over my skin during the crawl or hearing the pattern of my breath through the stroke, swimming creates a sensation of feeling the present. I’m not just in the present moment, I feel it. Sure, there are days where I get bored counting laps and then lose count as my mind wanders to other worlds, but more often than not I look forward to my swim and how good my body and mind feel while buoyant in the water.

When I learn something new I’m continually reminded of the challenging process you have to muddle through to make a change. In the beginning, I flounder around—failing miserably. I have to be willing to laugh at myself a bit at this stage or I’d just quit. Then there comes a part where I have to balance focus and sincere trying with letting go and thinking less. Think about what I’m are doing too much and it gets in my head, yet if I don’t try at all to improve my form I’ll never learn the new trick. Once that balance between effort and ease is discovered, I can fall back into it any time.

It’s just important to remember when you are starting out with something new that failure and embarrassment are part of the near future. They are part of the learning process. With supportive instructors, friends, and family the challenge becomes a lot easier to handle. But we all need to be supportive of ourselves too. It’s a process.

And it truly is never too late to learn something new.

Check out this video to see more!