Many years ago, when I was a child, swimming lessons were tortuous but thankfully rare. I remember in primary school being taken to the nearby town, to Greetby Hill School that had a tiny pool. After the fear of kneeling on the side of the pool to be checked for verrucas, one poor teacher tried to teach thirty children to swim. I remember getting a ribbon for making it across one length (10 feet – this was back in the Seventies), and finally another for making it three quarters of the way around the circumference (25 yards). I was too scared to tell them I’d put my feet on the bottom in case they took my ribbon back. It was enough that I’d made it round without drowning or swallowing a plaster.
At secondary school we were taken a few times to the new town swimming pool, set in the park and imaginatively called “Park Pool”. This was emblazoned on a large sign on the outside wall of the building. A highlight of my childhood was when the”l” fell off and it was apparently called “Park Poo”. Again, if you could make it from one end of the pool to the other you were deemed able to swim 25 metres and that was enough. I never reached the giddy heights of having to wear my pyjamas whilst diving for a rubber brick, and I was quite happy with that. That was the sum total of my swimming lessons until today.
Let’s cut to the chase. Today I made it to the swimming pool, I made it into the swimming lesson, I survived it and I ENJOYED it! Now there’s a bonus – I would have rated it a success even if I’d simply not drowned. And not swallowed a plaster.
A very patient lady called Alison gradually got me to put my face in the water and breathe out (how hard can that be? Pretty hard if you panic and try to breathe in – don’t try that at home). She gradually got me to swim with a float and with my face in the water, and as I stopped panicking it become much easier.
There were a couple of us at the same sort of level, so it was good to have some company as the rest of the class (instructed by another teacher) ploughed up and down doing ‘proper’ swimming (head in the water and EVERYTHING!) We tried lying on our backs with a float and kicking, then moved on to face-down-holding-float-kicking. For an encore we went for face down, kicking, holding a float with one hand and flailing around with the other arm. I think we were meant to be doing a beautiful front crawl arm, but cut me some slack – it was my first lesson.
By the way Alison kept shouting “HIPS!!!!” at me I don’t think I even have the kicking part sussed yet, but do you know what.? I’m going to go back and do it some more next week.
Now, can someone tell me how long it takes for goggle marks to fade? I *think* I might have had them too tight.
Oh – and a bonus cat picture. Look who I found, curled up in the foyer?
