During the spring of this year, I decided that I would take up swimming again over the summer break. In mid-July, I started my swim lessons and quickly realized it would take longer than the summer break for me to comfortably swim again. The day of my first practice, my swim coach asked me to swim the first lap freestyle. As I made my first few strokes, it felt like very muscle in my body seized up! I was moving my arms and legs but not really going anywhere! My coach asked me to stop and then asked how long had it been since I last swam. I responded – “more than twenty years.” He stood looking in disbelief while I explained over the last twenty or more years when I go to the beach or pool, I simply stand in the water for a few minutes then lounge around. My swim coach turned his disbelief to a wide-eyed expression, and assured me that he was there to help me reach my swimming goals. Needless to say, I was mortified and secretly cried under the crush of emotions I was feeling. I knew I wanted to swim again I just didn’t know if I could rebound from the very humiliating first day.
It’s now November and I am still swimming three days a week without anything seizing up. I’m not just swimming, I’m doing several one hundred meters with ease and it makes me feel good.
