Item# 7: Take a Swim Lesson
40 Things for 40 Years in 40 Weeks: Item# 7 (Be a Kid Again): Take a Swim Lesson
I have never considered myself to be a strong swimmer. I am not fearful of the water but I am cautious around it and even more so with the ocean. I took a few swim lessons as a kid at our community pool but that was the extent of it. I could never do all of the strokes. I was certainly not on a swim team. While I won’t drown and I can play Marco Polo with the best of them – I wanted to take a swim lesson, learn how to do freestyle properly (as I can never get the breathing right) and see if this might be a new form of exercise that could help my very crooked skeleton. And so in the spirit of learning and overcoming fears, taking a swim lesson became #7 on my #40for40in40 list.
The water and I have a rocky past. Not only am I not a great swimmer, I have gotten sea sick on several boats in my lifetime and I have also experienced sea sickness in an AQUARIUM. Yes, that’s right folks I got sea sick in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Right in front of the kelp tank. My poor dad happened to be standing next to me as the vomit started to project and his shoe took the brunt of it. I still cringe when I go to that aquarium or any aquarium for that matter.
I have been taking the boys to swim lessons off and on since they were babies. We have tried many different facilities. Swim Labs is one that we discovered last year. If you haven’t been to a Swim Labs facility before – they are small, indoor warm-water pools specially designed with 360-degree video feedback technology. They have a high powered machine in the water that creates tide and you swim against it. So you are basically swimming in place but you still have to move as you would normally swim to stay afloat. The great thing about their lessons is you can actually see on the video playback what you are doing wrong or if you have improved. As a visual learner, this was a huge selling point for me. The other thing that sealed the deal was that the pools are small and thus there are very few witnesses.
I was able to book a private lesson on a Wednesday last month and as it turned out, I was the only person besides the instructor in the facility that morning. I thought this is going to be great. I am going to walk out of here with a new confidence in the water and ready to swim on a regular basis for exercise. This was so not the case.
The first problem was that I had stupidly drank half of a La Croix water before I got to the lesson. Remember when they told you as a kid that you shouldn’t swim for at least 30 minutes after you eat? Well they should have added carbonated beverages to that list as well. I wasn’t thinking at all… clearly. Let me tell you… carbonation + swimming = bad stomach pains and feeling short of breath.
The second problem was that I was totally out of shape when it comes to swimming. Although I exercise daily, I haven’t swam more than just playing with my kids in the pool since I was a kid. I could barely keep up with the machine that was blowing water at me to simulate the current. So for 30 long minutes, I struggled to keep up, tried not to embarrass myself too badly and felt like I wanted to (and possibly could) die from a carbonation overdose.
A wise friend of mine once said, “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” If that is true, then I will chalk this up to being an experience. I am glad that I tried and I am glad that I found out that this NOT my sport. While I may still grab a kick board at the YMCA next time I am there and do a few laps around the pool with it – I will likely not be donning my Esther Williams cap and gliding through the water doing the freestyle stroke any time soon. But hey, I get credit for trying right? Right?
And so that completes #7 on my list. 31 items checked off the list and 9 to go! Stay tuned for more… #40for40in40