Here's my top tip for getting the most out of swimming. Don't take your kids! If, like me, you've spent the last decade thinking of swimming as something you do with your children; something that wins you parenting brownie points but is closer to torture than exercise, try it alone - ah, that's better.
Have you read A Squash and a Squeeze, by Julia Donaldson, with your children? An old lady complains that her house is too small and a wise old man tells her to take each of her animals into it one by one, to her growing frustration and incredulity. Then he tells her to take them out again and she's astonished to find that her house is actually enormous. It's the same with changing rooms and the general horror of taking young children swimming. So much baggage! So much paraphernalia! So much farting around taking longer than the time you actually spend swimming!
Now I'm, "full of frolics and fiddle-de-dees, it isn't a squash and a squeeze!" The changing rooms are huge and it's all easy and manageable. You can get your knickers on without dropping them on the soggy floor and there's no one there to laugh at your wobbly/hairy/saggy bits. The showers are hot, you can wash your hair, and you can stand around putting on mascara and then go for a coffee (and a bun) after, if you want. Beg, borrow, steal or swap childcare, but go by yourself, you're worth it!
As for the lesson. Well, I was demoted from the intermediate to the beginners group within thirty seconds. So far; so humiliating. But, hey, the training pool is properly warm (all that toddler wee, no doubt). Trouble is I now have no motivation to progress up to the intermediate group in the, much colder, grown up pool. I am not a fan of cold water. Frankly, I find the Mediterranean a bit nippy. There was a lady there who'd been going once a week for a year. She'd been a non-swimmer when she started and was, that morning, sent off to the big, cold, pool with the grown-ups, just to make room for me. She shot me daggers as she left, naturally, but look how far she'd come!
The teachers were lovely and very welcoming. Even the one who gently steered me back to the training pool didn't make me feel too silly. And this is what I've learnt about myself: I can do almost anything when someone in authority tells me I have to, as long as they do it very gently in soothing tones. Come the glorious day, Citizen, I will be "just following orders" with the best of 'em.
The teacher told me to take a full breath, put my face under water and breathe it out fully before surfacing. I did it, despite my whole being screaming, "No! Why? Why would I do that?! It's not natural; I don’t have gills!" By the end of half an hour, I was going back and forth across the pool (with a float), breathing in rhythmic and meditative fashion under and over the water. I was even rather enjoying it.
I'll be back next week (snow permitting)!
