Howdy,
Swimming lessons, not for kids, feels weird.
But was nice.
The water was wonderful.
I just finished getting some swimming tips from a man in Mariposa—Mike Bergstrom—who was a former swimming coach at Ohio State University.
I feel better, as an adult swimmer, about that term, swimming tips, than the idea of swimming lessons.
Not that it’d be bad to get or take swimming lessons as an adult. But I—as the water lover that I’ve expressed myself to be—would consider myself a better-than-average swimmer. I’m not going to make the Olympics. But I don’t foresee any reason why I’d drown in the town people, either.
Which is why I don’t know why it felt weird, why I was actually a little nervous heading to the pool? How would I stack up? Why was I going to a swimming lesson?
I didn’t go to swimming lessons this evening to learn how to swim. I went to learn how to swim better. Looking for any edge in the water I can pick up, any advantage against my own struggles (endurance and efficiency—since I guess I’m becoming an old guy who might be seen swimming slow-stroke laps. [I wish, I’ve never found that rhythm and don’t have a lot of faith that I ever will. That’s actually hard, that kind of patient and disciplined swimming. Maybe someday, when my skin is leathery and saggy and I’m sporting a speedo.])
Today, I went looking for tips.
And I got some. Which was great: and gives me something tangible to think about, to work on, when messing around in our condominium community pool—or maybe when I swim to Alcatraz.
Just kidding: I don’t have any plans, dreams, or delusions of swimming to Alcatraz anytime soon. But my instructor today, in the Mariposa County pool, has; according to the Mariposa Gazette, he’s competed in the Alcatraz Challenge Swim. A helpful tip? Don’t let the sharks get you.
Mike Bergstrom told me today, while his wife, Beth, also swimming laps, was within earshot, “In the open water swims you just have to swim faster than the sharks, or—that’s why I bring my wife with me.” She smiled like, Oh, yeah … Many other people of Mariposa would know that as the outrunning the bear joke: you don’t have to run faster than the chasing bear—you only have to outrun your neighbor.
I think the Bible says something about outrunning your neighbor; it’s right next to that spot where Nacho reads about “wrestling your neighbor.”
Anyway, I’m just looking to swim straight. Straight and narrow. And today helped.
It’s good to do things as adults that children are willing to do, and I guess technically I never had worry about if it sounded like a kid’s swimming lesson, because it had been given its own term: Adult Masters Swim Training.
Did entering the pool like a boy (not pool boy) make me an adult master?
… I’d say, I’m in Training.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Swimming.
Word Count: 163,430 / On Pace: 162,250 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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