Swim Lesson Numero Uno

It took me three years to get here but I finally started swim lessons today.  I’ve been anxious for weeks.  Well, what can I say?  Fun, fun, fun!  There were three other adults signed up for the class.  The other three were no-shows so I had the instructor all to myself.  Cool!  A private lesson!

He asked me to dunk my head under the water a few times to assess my comfort level.  I guess I was so excited I forgot all about my fear.  So, we moved onto learning how to dunk my head under the water, blow out of my nose, come up, and breathe out of my mouth.  WHAT?  I wasn’t so excited about this but managed to get the hang of it after about 50 dunks.

We then moved onto kicking.  He asked me to grab onto the side of the pool and kick.  It took a while but I was able to relax my shoulder enough to eventually float to the top and kick my legs.  Kicking was a bit harder than I thought it would be…don’t lock your knees, point your toes, relax, relax your shoulders, don’t kick too hard, keep your legs together, don’t move your shoulders, good, better, no, try again. …. Whew!

We weren’t done.  Then he grabs a noodle and says, you’re going to hold onto this and kick.  I am?  I started to panic a little because I was unsure about not being able to hold onto the side of the pool.  He goes, you’re going to kick toward the direction of the wall.  Okay.  Cool.  don’t lock your knees, point your toes, relax, relax your shoulders, don’t kick too hard, keep your legs together, don’t move your shoulders, good, better, no, try again. …. Whew!

Now I want you to turn around and kick away from the wall.  Dude, are you crazy?  How deep is the water toward the other end of this pool?  I did that for another 10 minutes or so. Lesson complete.

Tomorrow I plan to go back to the pool to practice my kicking.   Hopefully, I can get in another session or two during the week.

Yippee! I’m going to learn how to swim!