SWIM!

[aurienne]

Swim class tonight, we had a few more students. after a bit with the floating barbell, I did the thing where one VOLUNTARILY moves from vertical to horizontal position, utilizing both arms and legs to keep in motion. (I can't quite breathe yet -- bubbles yes, inhaling, no. But I'm working on turning my head.) Again, NO FLOATIES, NO HANDHOLDING

Comments

Water vs Sky

[aurienne]

Thanks.

I can see why it's such a workout -- once I got most of the parts of the body doing what they're supposed to, it's HARD to propel oneself just a few feet or yards or whatever. (Crossways, at the 4-foot line, and we had 2 or 3 lane's worth to play in for class. A few times I went to our lane-marker or the wall boundary without putting my feet down!)

At least in hang gliding, you have two forces (lift/gravity) wanting to help you move, and a much bigger machine in helping you change directions and harness those motion forces. You also basically only need to use a few parts of your body at any time. Launch = feet (plus balancing the wing a bit). Steering = torso. Landing = feet again. Plus breathing? Happens easily! A little harder in the freefall part of skydiving, but the breathing's still good, just talking's tough, since my cheeks inflate to be like Rocky the Flying squirrel's.

(Last night I lit a candle for a few hours -- like I needed to replenish my fire-spirit after all that water-work.)

I think the sensory deprivation part was one aspect of making swimming tough for me -- a waterproof MP3 player would really help, once I master the motions, with endurance. I can lose track of time more easily with a story or whatever. My teacher talking about sitting in a boat all day, watching the scenery? Nope. In yoga, I suck at Shivasana, though. (The "corpse pose" rest at the end that others fall asleep to.) I'm not a good meditator.

Another media option would be a good waterproof notebook and writing implement -- not to write constantly, but when I'm in motion, I *do* think, yet I need to get the thoughts down immediately in order to progress the thoughts further, instead of rehashing old whinges. So if I could leave this magic notebook by the edge of the pool, and scribble in it every few minutes, that could help. (I've already added a notebook to my carry-around-at-gym bag so I can scribble between machine-usage.)

[allah_sulu]

In swimming, you can can get a good amount of thrust from diving or by pushing yourself off of the wall. Also, in some ways, it's easier when you're out of shape and gets harder the better fit you get - since fat is bouyant but muscles are heavy, dense, and pull you down.

[aurienne]

I was doing push-against-the-wall, but I know in laps the goal is to use one's body. (Diving/jumping also scares me a lot -- it's an even bigger state-change than vertical to horizontal)

And when one is STRESSED, floating is really hard. I'm pretty dense for my weight. So I think this teacher's strength was that she got me in control of MOTION first, and then at the very end of yesterday, she had us do a backfloat -- WITH an optional hard/arm motion (I opted for it) to keep us elevated. I can control muscle motion more than relaxing/trusting. One of my swimming goals is being able to handle myself in a moderate emergency, so moving away from the danger is good.

[allah_sulu]

I can handle myself in a watery emergency; but if I also had to rescue Q and R, it would be pretty tough. In the lessons I had no choice but to take when I was younger, diving was included. I think the board there was 7 feet up IIRC; about 15 feet is the highest I've leapt into the water from (but that was a leap, not a dive).

[aurienne]

R should at least take some swimming lessons before he's old enough to get existentialist. (I was an intellectual 8 year old -- I KNEW the water wanted to kill me, for real. And anyone making me go in it? Also trying to kill me. This wasn't monster-death or storybook death, this was REAL, since REAL grownups can drown.)

I will advise my brother to also make sure my niece is seriously playing in water before she's 4-ish, like Mommy-and-me stuff, if not actual swimming. If you still believe in Santa, you can believe that the water-imps will hold you up. (I don't know if that's what they tried to teach me, or if they trusted me with science knowledge back then). Also, babies don't know much about gravity, and since they're still learning land-motion, water-movement is just another skill to acquire.

I had to wait until I redeveloped a semi-functioning pantheon before I could swim. And I had to trust science AND my body AND this gear.