I had the opportunity to go swimming last weekend. The weather was just right and regardless of whether we ended up crashing my friend’s place to use her pool or not, it was a hell lot of fun.
One of the reasons why I really wanted to go was so that a friend of mine could teach me how to swim freestyle. I had signed up for classes a year ago but long story cut short, I just couldn’t be bothered arguing to the centre that they still owed me 4 classes.
When I was younger, my parents taught me and my sisters how to swim. That was the only ‘lessons’ we ever had. Sure, we learnt how to float, how to swim from one end to the other, how to stay underwater and just get used to swimming in a pool. But we never actually learnt anything else other than breast stroke. I suppose on the upside, at least we got used to being in water and not freaking out when we are underwater. On the other hand, because I got so used to being in pools, I now freak out at the thought of swimming in the open sea where there are no edges that I can eventually hang on to when I’m too tired of staying afloat and also where I can’t see the bottom. Worst of all, where I know there are things lurking around that I may not even be able to identify. The worst thing you can get at a pool is a floating band aid coming right at your face. I won’t even touch on the pee-ing issue because everyone prefers to think it never happens.
Last year, when I signed up for classes, I thought, ok, I’m finally gonna learn how to swim freestyle. The instructor asked if I knew any other style and I said, “yea, my parents taught me breast stroke when I was younger and that’s basically the only thing I can swim.”
So she asks me to show her my technique which I did. When I got up, she had this look on her face and went, “dude, I don’t know what shite you just pulled right there, but that ain’t no breast stroke!”
Ok, she didn’t say that, but she may as well have! All I could think of at that moment was, WTF? What have I been swimming all my life if that wasn’t breast stroke???? Did my parents just make us invent a new swimming technique?? Like how they never corrected our hokkien?? Then I thought about how I had openly swam my ‘breast stroke’ in front of the hundreds of people since I ‘learnt’ how to swim. o…m…g.
Does anyone else feel my embarrassment here?
Anyway, moving along, I eventually learnt how to swim freestyle. It was great but extremely tiring. After less than an hour in the pool, I was exhausted. I got out of the water and could hardly walk without feeling like my legs were about to collapse on me.
I hadn’t practiced since then. So last weekend when I went back to the pool with a friend who was happy to teach me, it all came back to me. It wasn’t so hard after that. I’m actually surprised I can swim that fast especially since breast stroke always seems so slow (then again, it could have been due to the fact that I wasn’t actually swimming breast stroke). Before I knew it, I’m already at the end of the pool. Now I understand how people can swim so many laps in an hour.
It was great being back in the pool. My family used to go swimming every Sunday and I hold many fond memories of those days. I just hope the weather doesn’t get too cold too soon!
