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I Wanted To Overcome My Fear of The Deep End
So I signed up for a swimathon
I entered a swimathon. With a goal like that, I would be forced to rise to the occasion, to overcome my fear of deep water. So I thought.
By then I’d had four years of private swimming lessons, at least 120 sessions of instruction and practice, but all in a shallow pool about 1m deep.
Some Day You Gotta Move On
Most of my lessons were on a Saturday afternoon. I would emerge from the changing room, padding across to the pool in my flip-flops, just as the last class of children clambered out, wet and slippery, eager for dry towels and words of encouragement from attentive parents.
Sometimes my swimming instructor was an eighteen-year-old young man or woman. Despite me being well over twice their age, it was never awkward. They knew how to carry the authority teaching demands. I knew how to be as humble as learning requires.
And I did learn.
I went from being a stiff sinking board of a body, to a person capable of front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke. Even if my front crawl swung between delaying taking a new breath for as long as possible and breathing on my right side only, rather than the recommended 1:3.
One Saturday there was a schedule clash, leaving our private lesson a little crowded. I suddenly felt I was taking up space that belonged to a kid or another adult. I was like a fully grown bird that would not fly the maternal nest; an awkward penguin that would not jump into the sea.
I needed to build my confidence and stamina in a standard-sized pool. I couldn’t learn to swim in the deep by staying in the shallow.
I ended my lessons. My next goal would be the Swimathon. It lay four months ahead.
My last swim teacher wasn’t eighteen. We were age peers and parents of teenagers. She invited me to come to a leisure centre where she swam with a friend of hers for exercise — so I’d have her moral support when doing full 25m lengths for the first time.
We went down to the deep end together and I let my feet sink to the pool floor. Discovering the water wasn’t as deep as it seemed or looked was reassuring.
