SWIM!!!!!! Swim swim swim. Swimswimswimswim swim!
Okay, so it was my second adult learners 'beginners swimming' class, and this week we were building on Week 1 skills - ie. floating, and kicking. Push off, float and kick. As in, swimming without any arms yet. Oh yeah, and while making sure to breathe.... I seem to struggle with that last bit, lol. On my front, I was doing really well - over the full hour I 'swam' about 9 or 10 breadths of the pool, which I think is about 7m wide. Got applause again, hehe, and really enjoyed encouraging others in the class who were struggling more than me.
Then, he wanted us to try the same on out backs. Push off, float and kick. Ummmm.... this is where things fall apart for me. I push off, kick once, and then immediately flail and drop my feet to the floor. Tried it a few times. Failed. So he held one hand under my head and one hand on my forehead, and gently walked backwards as I kicked. I 'managed' about half a width, this way, but the second he took his hands away, I was down. Once I figure out my confidence, and can keep my hips up etc. (but mostly the confidence) I'll be able to do it without help.
This is the weird thing, actually. I am pretty convinced I WILL be able to do it. That's kind of a new way for me to approach this sort of thing. In fact, I normally live my life by the motto "If at first you don't succeed, give up, tell everyone it sucks, never do it again, and go have a cup of tea instead." *laughs* So who's this weirdo looking forward to next week's lesson?? Can't possibly be me... Ah, but read on:
We finished the class having a go at swimming across the pool with breast stroke legs (just float and kick, as before, but with the different leg kicks) - this had me feeling really fluttery nervous beforehand. I remembered back to the last proper time I swam, over 20 years ago - when my knee dislocated as I bent it while swimming breast stroke. I really, really didn't want to do this, and I told the instructor as much. I felt my voice catch as I explained my nerves.
"Okay," he said, having obviously heard the same break in my voice. "If you don't want to to give it a go just yet, just stick with the front crawl kicks you've been doing. Just see if you can do the breathing and get the whole way over however best you can."
A voice responded, "No, I'll give it a go with the breast stroke legs, see how far I can get." - I looked around, and oddly it turns out that voice was mine. *gobsmacked* And even more bizarrely, I made it across a full width without stopping. (I don't think I took a breath the whole time, mind, hahaha - don't ask me to do too many things at the same time...)
Roll on Week 3.
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