Swimming Tales

Maybe this is one nice story that I haven’t still written about….:)

When my son was about 2 or 3 years old, we were in the US. We enrolled him in swimming classes there and the infrastructure and swimming classes were excellent. I used to regularly accompany him to all his swimming classes but never once thought that I should learn swimming too. Either it was the swimming attire or the feeling that I was a “mom” – the “swimming for me” thought never crossed my mind. My daughter also started her swimming classes and the feeling that I could “learn” to swim never came.

Fast forward another 5 years later and we had returned to India for good. There were swimming classes here too and my kids soon joined it. These classes were more accessible since they were in the apartment itself. Initially, I was apprehensive of the water conditions(we had returned from US…..how else would we be? ;)) But soon, we got adjusted to everything.

Swimming:

As the days went by, I realized, that ladies were stepping into the pool(not a lot of them, but some were stepping into the pool) Swimming attire in India became more comfortable and there were fully covered body suits!! 🙂 By some strange way, a lot of us friends boldly decided to learn swimming! 🙂 We had fun shopping for the swimming attire, cap, goggles and sunscreen.

Then, the day came and at the young age of 40, I made my first splash into the pool!! 🙂 With fully covered body suit, cap and swimming goggles – you could definitely not recognize anybody! We had terrific young instructors who kept us motivated. I almost felt like a 20 year old getting ready for competitive swimming!! 😉 One by one more ladies joined and we were quite a good bunch in the pool 🙂

There are 4 styles of swimming and I almost learnt 3 of them(though, I don’t know whether I remember them all after the Covid years)

Freestyle:

We were first taught to float in the water and be relaxed. Freestyle is probably the most basic of all swimming styles. I took my own sweet time to learn freestyle – though there were some ladies who learnt all four strokes in 15 days time. Our pool might measure only 15 m in length and I stopped every few strokes to catch a breath of air! 🙂 🙂

Backstroke:

After having decently mastered freestyle, we moved to back stroke. Backstroke is much easier as we don’t have to manage breathing under water. In back stroke, the only issue I faced was that I had no directional control 🙂 I remember going around in circles when doing in back stroke…;) 😉 (obviously, I was doing something wrong!! :))

Breast stroke:

After doing back stroke we moved onto breast stroke. I learnt breast stroke only for a little while before the rains came and changed our routine. Breast stroke is supposed to be the easiest of all the strokes but getting a balance in water was tricky for me. You definitely resemble a frog in water when doing breast stroke(ha, ha)

I never did learn butterfly stroke through the entire session.

Learning to swim has been a wonderful experience and I would definitely like to thank the two young coaches for believing that we could do it at that age(I don’t think they cared for our age either – we were all equal subjects in the pool:)) Here are a few of my swimming thoughts:

1. If you are feeling tired or exhausted after doing swimming, it is quite a possibility that you are doing some of the strokes wrongly(either the kicking is not enough, the hand and leg are not in the correct position or more)
2. You have to be relaxed in the water(the water can sense you… ;))
3. The fear of water will slowly go away but always swim when somebody is around(life guard, coach, friend)
4. You will get better as time goes by!
5. And swimming is quite addictive! 🙂

Enjoy your time in the pool! 🙂

This post is for alphabet ‘S’ for #BlogchatterA2Z by @blogchatter