My Life In Sport: Swimming

I went for a swim today. The weather was too nice to pass the day away inside, so I thought I would make the most of it. Unfortunately I thought it would be a good idea to go for a run before I went for a swim. Bad, bad decision. It was practically the first 'run' I have done since my last school Cross Country, over 2 years ago. It didn't go too well and I quickly realised what a stupid idea it was!

So when it came for me to get into the pool, I was a little knackered already. As I got in, my chest felt like it was full of lead and my lungs were being constricted. A rather worrying sensation. I also very quickly found that one's natural instinct for floating diminishes with neglect and general swimming techniques take even longer to remember. However, I had a pleasant swim in the late afternoon sun and the pool was nice and warm. While I was floating around, I got to thinking about my past history of swimming and decided I had to share some of my funny memories. It's never exactly been a 'sport' for me but I thought it would fit nicely in the 'My Life In Sport' series.

NO WAY would I ever,
ever go up one of those...

Some of my earliest recollections of swimming came from Wellington. We had the occasional school trip to the big swimming complex there, the same one that the athletes train in- I still recognise it on the news sometimes. It had a huge big diving platform à la that funny Mr Bean sketch. Anyway, we little ones went off to a side pool for basic swimming lessons. The first thing we learned to do was to blow bubbles in the water. Seriously. What the hell was that about? I mean for one thing it was just putting lots of kiddie spit into the pool! What's funny though is that I seem to recall them calling it 'motor boating,' which you would never get away with today! Ahh they were simpler times...

Anyway that didn't do me much good and when I came to Auckland I didn't really know how to swim at all. So I went to that swimming place in Panmure, the Lagoon one. There they had a great system where you had different levels of competency, and with each one you got a sticker of some marine creature. They were a little silly to start off with, like krill and penguins. I do however still have my certificate! I didn't advance very quickly at the start; however everything changed when our family went on a camping trip up north to Taipa, where we went out with our 'boogie boards' (how pretentious a name is that?!) into the surf every day. When I came back I was amazed to discover floating was now second nature and my swimming was much better. I even got a few more stickers.

A Fairly Accurate Comparison

The came swimming at school. That was never much fun, you spent so much time changing at the start and drying off at the end, half the period was out of the pool. One of the worst things for me was that a lot of flesh is exposed when swimming. When I was rather tubby, this was rather embarrassing so I never much enjoyed it. Then again, being fat made me pretty bad at swimming in general; getting out of the pool would have been easier with a crane. I felt some affinity for beached whales in this extraction process, as the only way out was over the side and onto my belly. Worse than that was when you had to do those damned Aquathons; you had to swim forever, then get out quickly and then go running forever. Needless to say they weren't my cup of tea.

When King's School upgraded their pool complex, my mother who teaches there got me into some swimming courses there. Unfortunately, it was competence based and I was rubbish, so I was quite a lot older than the others! I remember one kid asking me my age and I was rather proud of how much older I was... Anyway, apparently my feet didn't really like kicking all that much and tended to stop after a while, which is sort of an issue with swimming. I got to use these flippers which were pretty cool. Luckily though those lessons didn't last too long; my heart just wasn't in it.  

Perhaps my finest moment in the pool came in Year 11 at King's. For P.E. that year we had a special swimming assessment, where each lesson we had an activity we would get marks for. At the end, the class could be ranked to find the best swimmers. Anyway, when I realised you could get 0 points for an activity, I made it a personal challenge to fail every one of them. This was easy for some easy, like swimming a length with a heavy jersey on- I faked being unable to get past halfway so I could get out. Then there was the long distance one, where you got points for finishing by a certain time. I made sure I went slowly enough that not only would I get 0, but I would make everyone wait for me to finish. Well the rest of the class left but at least the teacher had to wait! Unfortunately I was awarded 1 mark, for the life saving course. You were supposed to save someone and would get marks taken off for each part you failed. I made sure I failed more than enough, but the teacher exercised some 'compassion' and gave me a 1. I was gutted.



Go on, have a swim sometime soon! You know you want to! 
I mean if I can do it...