RutSum

Swimming Is One Hell Of A Sport

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I recently took a great leap out of my dark hole and joined swimming lessons for some greatly needed exercise and to beat off the heat this summer. I’ve never been really excellent at any sports all my life, except for maybe skating or badminton when I was young. I really wanted to learn swimming even when I was young, but never really got a chance due to the lack of a swimming pool at my old school (Green Fields School, Safdurjung Enclave) and lack of availability of training at my new school (Bal Bharati Public School, Pitampura).

So the point here is that I’ve always felt vulnerable when I went to water parks with friends or places like Kempty Falls or any other place with a water body suitable for a dip with family. I wanted that to change.

The first day was all about floating and learning how to kick. I must mention here that the pool I enrolled myself in has mostly kids over there, so the trainers give more attention to them and aren’t particularly good when it comes to explaining to me where I’m going wrong. So I decided to practice and perfect the basic kick on the first day.

Its been 3 more days now. I’m still practicing what I learned on the first day. I did try to learn how to dive, but I couldn’t get that right either. I usually end up splashing a lot of water on the kids nearby and hurting my chest. SO I kept on practicing the same freestyle stroke. The arm and leg movement coordination has improved definitely, but not significantly. I just don’t want this to turn out to be another big FAIL.

Also, I am still nowhere when it comes to breathing during the freestyle stroke.

I used this video to learn how, but I am still gasping for air midway. I guess its just too many things to focus at once – kicking, the hand movement, the rhythm and coordination between the two, then blowing out the bubbles, and rotating the head and not taking it out, and then taking in a breath. Guess its just practice I need.

What do you think? Am I missing something vital here?

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