Swimming Pool Blues: A humbling lesson in learning

I am learning to swim. Or rather I am failing (and flailing) to learn to swim.

To be more specific I am trying to learn freestyle which I did not learn as a child. Lessons in 1980s Sheffield seemed to be more focused on ensuring you could do the breaststroke in your pajamas and pick up bricks from the bottom of the pool!

I want to learn to freestyle because I have fallen in love with sea-swimming and would like to enter an ocean event next year. My current ‘head-above-water’ breaststroke might look a bit ridiculous and take at least 3x as long as other competitors. Also, because I was lucky to win an amazing ORCA wetsuit that I want to do justice to. And to role model to my kids (who complain about their own swimming lessons) that sticking with hard things is important.

So that’s the goal.

Damn goals. So easy to set.

I find a swim coach. He tells me that 5 intensive private sessions are usually sufficient to provide most people with a good grip of the basics – that I can then practice and master in my own time.

Turns out when it comes to swimming I am NOT most people. I am in a special category.

Within the first few minutes of lesson 1, I begin to suspect my coach primarily teaches very strong swimmers how to improve their already impressive times. My hunch is that the level of ineptitude he is now witnessing is not how he would prefer to spend his time. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch. He is patient, encouraging, and clear. I start to enjoy it and make some positive progress over the first few sessions. I feel quite proud of myself.

And then I hit lesson 5.

I HATE it. I hate the chlorine. I hate the endlessly repetitive drills. And I mostly hate being so rubbish. I have gone backwards. I am making basic mistakes. I seriously question whether there is something anatomically wrong with my nose. I am sure I am breathing out when I am supposed to but I am still taking on enough water up there to sink a ship.  How is there even any left in the pool?

I am coughing and gulping down so much air that my stomach is bloated and sore. My eyes are stinging.  My ears are full of water and I am struggling to hear the (I suspect) increasingly terse instructions from my coach. Frankly, I am a mess. I am having flashbacks to swimming lessons as a kid – which I had forgotten (suppressed) how much I dreaded.

My head is now fully working against me…over-thinking everything and I have lost the ability to sense what my body is doing in the water. My internal chatter starts its usual tricks…I begin silently blaming my coach for being overly perfectionistic (‘Does he not appreciate I am not trying to be an Olympian, I just want to survive the next bloody length!').  My rational mind knows this is categorically not his fault but my rational mind is no longer in charge.

My lesson finishes as the Advanced Swim Squad begins. As I splutter through my final lengths, a bunch of enthusiastic swimmers are limbering up on the poolside – all speedos and upper-body strength. It would be humiliating if I had the energy to think about it.

I get home grumpy, dizzy, snotty, with my head pounding. Whilst I Google symptoms of chlorine poisoning my kids ask me whether I want to quit.  YES, I bark. And I might. I really, really want to. But I probably won’t. Because when the nausea (and the tantrum) has subsided I hope my stubbornness will kick in.

Because at some level I know that this humbling, vulnerable experience is what learning sometimes looks like. And because I really, really want to learn how to swim properly – not just to achieve my goal but because I know that learning something (anything) new as an adult is good for our brains and our souls.

So to everyone out there risking your dignity by trying something new (and perhaps publicly making a bit of an arse of yourself in the process)….whether it’s a new skill, a new venture, a promotion, leading a team, or parenting. Good on you!

And if you have hit that moment where it all feels utterly, abjectly impossible – have faith that on the other side of that hurdle is growth.  You are not drowning, you are learning. Keep going. Tweak things. Take the small wins. Congratulate yourself for at least being in the arena (or the pool!).

At least that is what I will tell myself tomorrow when I tentatively put my goggles back on.