learning to swim at 26
I learned how to swim at the age of 26. Or rather, I'm still learning. In my last lesson, I managed to swim 50 meters without using any support (and I didn't drown, lol). In the lesson before that, I got dizzy, my leg cramped three times, and I had swallowed half the pool. (you could see water draining)
So today, I can't quite say, "I know how to swim now." But I also can't say, "I don't know how to swim."
I'm learning how to swim at 26. And I have a few observations about it.
First of all, there are a lot of children at the pool. A lot. And they're incredibly good at swimming. The first thing that happens when you start learning to swim as an adult is that, while you're desperately struggling around trying not to drown and taking huge breaths that somehow end up with you swallowing the entire pool, tiny little kids are happily swimming right beside you. It's an incredibly humbling sight. It strips away the ego you've built up over the years and the confidence that comes from being able to handle most adult tasks with ease, and suddenly you realize you've taken on something you know absolutely nothing about. Something that even children are better at than you.
Fortunately, dealing with that part wasn't very difficult for me. One of the best skills I've ever developed in life has been being able to say, "I don't know," and accepting that I don't know. So accepting my lack of knowledge & skill came quite easily.
The next challenge was digesting all the fear I had accumulated over the years. In the very first lesson, I was supposed to swim about 25 meters using a kickboard and fins. Instead, the moment my feet left the ground, I started flailing, struggling, and trying not to drown even though my head was above the water the whole time.
My first few lessons were spent simply trying to get into a horizontal position in the water. Up until that point, it was all just fear of the water. My instructor literally forced me to the bottom of the pool, and I saw that I could come back up. Once I realized, somehow, that nobody was going to let me drown in that pool, I started being a little less afraid. Even then, it took me getting three leg cramps just to make it 25 meters with a kickboard. I was tensing my body far more than necessary and pushing myself to an absurd degree.
By the end of the first month, my only plan was to quit.
To justify it, I had convinced myself of all sorts of reasons: that my instructor wasn't attentive enough, that I wouldn't have time for swimming lessons, that maybe swimming just wasn't for me. I kept going through that first month simply because I had already paid for it (while also looking for every possible excuse to conveniently skip lessons whenever I could), but watching the people who had started at the same time with me improve while I was still struggling so much made me feel awful.
One day, about an hour before class, I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom thinking about why things were going this way, why I couldn't do it, why I would never be able to do it. My spouse came in and told me to get ready for the pool. I told him I couldn't go.
He said, "I don't think you're afraid of the water. I think you're afraid of failing."
I cried a lot that day. I didn't fully understand what I was feeling, but I was certain I wouldn't be able to get into the water. Ever since the beginning, every single day I had been trembling as I walked through the door, making self-deprecating jokes and coming up with excuses to turn back, but that day I couldn't even bring myself to leave the house.
I wasn't confronting my fear of water anymore. I was confronting my fear of failure.
After taking lessons, trying at least five or six times, I still felt like I was exactly where I had started. And I felt like I would never get past that point.
The next day, before class, I went back and read some of my journal entries. I remembered how, during my first lessons, I couldn't even get into the water with a kickboard, and I remembered the cramps. At the same time, I realized something: every single day I chose to go swimming, I ended up swimming better than the version of me where I didn't go at all.
That day, when I got into the water, my instructor happened to be busy with other students, so he left me alone for a while. Instead of following memorized instructions like a robot, I tried to understand how the water actually worked. I experimented to see what happens when I did different things, and by the end of that lesson I realized I could stay afloat on my own.
At the end of class, I told my instructor that my learning style was to repeat something until I truly understood the dynamics behind it. I needed to discover every possible outcome of a movement through trial and error.
I started feeling a little better.
In the next lesson, I practiced not next to the wall but between two lanes. My instructor believed I could do it now. Even though I resisted a lot, he refused to change his mind, and I tried to stay afloat between the lanes, with no wall to hold onto.
On my way to the lesson after that lane incident, I noticed my feet wanting to turn back again.
I can analyze my own pattern now. Whenever there's a new challenge, an unfamiliar path, taking that first step doesn't come easily to me.
When I had finally gotten used to swimming safely alongside the wall, knowing that the next lesson would be between the lanes scared me. Then I got used to swimming between the lanes, but now I had to let go of my kickboard. After swimming without the kickboard for the first time, I once again didn't want to go to the next lesson. Then I learned to let go of the kickboard. Next came getting rid of the fins. We had a lesson where I swam 50 meters without fins, without a kickboard, without any kind of support. And yet I still didn't want to go to the next lesson. Even though I had done it, even though I had concrete proof that I could do it, the idea of getting into the water without fins in the next lesson terrified me because I still wasn't confident in my abilities and I didn't know whether I would fail or not. Once again, I couldn't bring myself to go.
That's where I am now.
I convince myself to go to class (most of the time by telling myself not to waste the money I've already paid), and I'm incredibly happy whenever I manage to do something I couldn't do before. Just being in the water gives me enough courage to attempt something I've never done before, and I finish the lesson. Before the next lesson, I'm afraid again because I know I'll be facing something new. I skip lessons with all kinds of excuses until, the next day, I convince myself all over again and see that I was actually capable of doing the very thing I was afraid of.
I have to remind myself of this pattern often. That many of the situations I feared so much, the ones that sent me into anxiety and fear spirals, eventually turned into skills I genuinely enjoy, and that I have more than one example of this happening.
Before my next swimming lesson, I'll read this piece again. Every time I try something for the first time and don't become great at it within ten minutes, I'll remember what learning to swim felt like.
There is nothing quite as satisfying as learning something new, especially something you're bad at, and watching yourself slowly become good at it. These are some of the moments that make you feel like you're truly living, like you're expanding your own limits with your own hands.
I can't wait for swimming in the open sea and to exploring the open sea of possibilities by taking on new things I'm bad at.
Thanks for reading. If you have any feedback or would like to discuss further, I would be happy to hear from you.