Swimming is fun

My swimming teacher had some words for me about my post about how I don't like how I look swimming. She was not a fan of that post.

She pointed out that I have come awful far in just a few years -- from not swimming at all to swimming mostly on my own, albeit gangly, for nearly a quarter-mile every Sunday.

I've even surprised her, she said. She did not think I'd ever swim.

So who cares how I look. I enjoy it. I feel good afterward. My dream of quashing Michael Phelps will have to remain a dream ... unless I see him on the street and run him over in my new kickass chair.

Oh well

I have been swimming for a little more than three years.

I know I am no Michael Phelps, but I assume that I look somewhat cool in the water. Make that "assumed."

My teacher had her iPad and she taped me doing the regular backstroke. This stroke always feels moderately good, so I like doing it and figured I looked sort of normal doing it. Notice I used the passt tense.

I look as if I am drowning in the ideo. My legs are deadweight, floating just under the surface. And the strokes are not controlled and look pathetic.

Swimming is super-cool and really cold

It felt good to get back in the water. I get in via the children's pool, where the water is warm to hot.

The problem is, though, after we left the kiddie pool, it felt much less good.

I still did about 30 minutes of exercise, doing the backstroke for five pool lengths, walking for two and kicking for two. But most of it was just to keep my teeth from chattering.

Not sure how I'll survive without a wetsuit, which might look too odd.

Easy is for wimps

If I only did things that were easy, I might never get out of bed.

I certainly would not transfer to a normal toilet to do my business. My manly parts are cheering this news after being squished this morning when I slipped and sat down on the toilet seat in an awkward position.

I would not stand at a toilet either. Here, it is my head that is cheering. I stood up today, had too much speed and bashed my head into the wall.

I would not have taken a new job either. I am pleasantly surprised that I am looking forward to the new job, but it will still be hard.

I might still swim -- backstroke is not that hard -- but I would not put my head underwater and let someone drag me across the pool and back in five-second increments on my stomach. I certainly would not let the dragger decide to start counting only when my legs were at the top of the pool. Surprisingly, this was pretty neat. Exhausting, and I did suck in some water, and the dragger told the teacher I panic and thrash at the start of every five-second drag -- maybe because I can't breathe? -- but it was cool.

I would not have stayed for the potluck after swimming to celebrate its 20-year anniversary. This meant changing at the rec center -- not as nice as home -- and eating something that totally screwed up my digestive system. But I did get to see my indefatigable swimming teacher whip out her blue fiddle and start playing, leading me to wonder if there is anything she doesn't do.

An easy life would be awful boring.

Working the knees

Today was the first swimming class of the session. It wore me out.

I asked the teacher if we could work on my knees especially.

They are locking up on me when I stand, which is fine when I am standing. But they tend to buckle when I need to lower myself from a standing position. I think that is what caused the recent near-death experience.

Now, after the exercises my legs are tired and jumpy, and I think I will take an Advil cocktail go to bed.

Deep end here I come

Interesting day at swimming yesterday. And yes, I still swim most Sundays, but it is not always eventful.

As I got there, one of my classmates was climbing down a ladder into the pool. This doesn't seem that astounding, I realize, but the guy normally walks down the ramp. He uses a cane and has an orthotic device on one foot. So really, this was pretty bad ass.

I asked the teacher after class when she would let me climb down the ladder, instead of using a ramp and wheelchair. Her response? Next week. She then said, "You don't scare me buddy." I suspect she thought she was calling my bluff, but I am ready for the ladder.

She continued: If you get that breathing thing squared away, we'll take you to the deep end and let you dive in. I've seen guys jump in from there power chairs.

How cool would it be to wheel up to the 12-foot deep end and dive in, leaving your chair behind?

My breathing is not up for that yet, but I have noticed lately that when I put my head under, I no longer get water in my nose. Instead, I subconsciously have started to blow out through my nose and make little bubbles, keeping the water out.

Unfortunately, this has another effect. I was swimming on my own mostly, not even the fat suit, and I made it two-thirds of the way down the pool. Then the teacher, who was walking next to us on the pool's edge, said something, and the volunteer, who usually stays behind my head, came up next to me and said, I can't tell. The teacher turned and said, I'll get a towel.

The volunteer said I had a bloody nose. I never have bloody noses.

The teacher came back with a rubber glove, tissues and paper towels. I was standing there holding the wall. She put the tissue on my nose and when she pulled it away, we saw it was a booger not blood. (I horrified my niece when I told this story last night.)

How'll I blow my nose if I am in the deep end of the pool?

Tales of a brassy monkey

I was talking yesterday to the volunteer working with me at swimming about how few of us showed up at class. He said when it gets cold out, people often don't show. I told him I was tempted not to show up. He pointed out that a lot of people were more than tempted.

It's too bad because the water was really nice. I like working with this volunteer because once I put the swim vest, or fat suit, on, he let me go. Most others may let me swim on my own, but they are real close. This guy stays six feet away, close enough to grab me if I inhale part of the pool but far enough to make it seem like I am swimming.

I did inhale a couple of gallons of chlorinated water, but mostly I swam. Even the lifeguard said so. Not that I needed him to save mw. He was passing by after I got out and he complimented me.

My big problem was swimming into the lane ropes. I don't swim straight apparently, but I can do nothing straight.

And freezing. That was a big problem.

No tossing me into the pool

I like my swimming teacher. She has an infectious spirit and genuinely seems to care about folks.

I still have no idea, though, whether she was joking when she asked if I'd be OK if she just threw me in the water.

Hardly any volunteers showed up, so I know it would have been better if I could swim on my own. And I had on the fat suit so I floated fine and was pretty sure I'd be OK.

But I didn't think being tossed in would be cool. I mean, if I ever got to the Paralympics, that is totally my plan for getting into the pool: just wheel up to the side of the pool and either just fall in or have someone tip me in. Psych out the competition, I hope.

But I am not there yet, so I said, maybe not throwing but if you gently released me into the water ...

She decided to work with me then.

Actually, she didn't do much besides reminding me to breathe and look backward. She didn't hold me much. Maybe that is why I am so tired.

It might also be because I went rock climbing Friday. I'll write about that when I get the pics.

Back to the pool

Apparently, swimming could not some fast enough.

I was so tired in the pool today and now I hurt. Well, the parts of me that aren't really, really tired, they hurt.

My right knew did not want to bend either. I don't like that.

Swimming or maybe rock climbing?

Swimming started yesterday, but I did not go. The co-ordinator called last week and said they were moving the 4 p.m. class to 5 for the first four weeks. A 5 p.m. start means I would not be home and changed until nearly 7 (yes, it takes me that long). Plus, there might be opportunities to rock climb on Sundays, and that is really fun. But it is hard to get together the people needed.

I decided not to swim until they brought back the 4 p.m. class.

But the swimming teacher knew nothing about the time change. No one told her until I e-mailed her. She told me she is still there at 4, whether the class starts then officially or not. Come on out, she told me, it'll feel great.

Learning to breathe

Turns out that I have been breathing wrong for 38 years, 11 months and 11 days.

All right, not quite. I am just breathing wrong if I want to swim.

Mom is off the hook for this one as I guess I can blame evolution for making breathe like a land animal.

I am not quite sure how to breathe yet, but as my swimming teacher bluntly put it: Yeah, it is something you learn or you take in a lot of water.

I had just admitted to the teacher that while I was being pulled a length of the pool in five-second bursts on my stomach, there was a lot of water in my nose.

It was an interesting experience. I held someone's forearms. When I was ready, I took a breath and put my face in the water. She walked backward for five seconds. I let her pull me off my legs and when they were horizontal in the water, I tried to kick.

I survived. I did take in a lot of water. It sort of rested in my nose and if I did anything nose-wise the water rushed in.

It was tiring, too. But I'm still alive.

A coughing return to the pool

My first hint I was swimming alone was when my head went under water. WTF, I wondered as I sputtered back into the oxygen.

The second clue was that I kept running into the lane markers. Who is the crazy person steering me? Oh, me? Whoops. My head as rudder needs work.

All the volunteers in swimming have different ideas about what to do with me, or to me. This one let me swim on my own once I got the vest on, which was awesome, just unexpected. To be fair, I am sure he said something and I didn't hear but was like OK.

Once I figured out I was holding my head up, I still got a fair amount of water in my mouth. It was just open as I breathed, so water splashed in a bit.

The only time it caused me trouble was when I was working on this "recovery move." You bring your legs to your chest and lean forward. Then you just stand up. So yeah, it would be a modest recovery for me if no one was around. I'd go to stand up, my legs would flail around goofily, then I'd sink down to Michael Phelps' Locker (not Davy Jones' because I am in a pool).

As it was, the volunteer helped me once I was standing, so it worked. But have you ever tried leaning forward while wearing a flotation vest, albeit a modest one? That thing fought me, it fought me hard. And when it realized it was losing and I was going to keep leaning forward, it made me roll. I didn't sink because I was wearing the vest, I just took a face full of water and coughed.

It reminds me of the time at Lake Anna that Gram made me try her swimming belt. It is so great, she assured me. You just lie there and it keeps you afloat, my loving grandmother said. She then turned away, cackled a sinister laugh and rubbed her hands together as her fiendish plot came to fruition. OK, maybe not the last part, but I put that thing on and tried to float.

It did keep me from sinking. It just rolled me and sat on top of me, and me about six inches under the surface.

Swimming was not that bad.

I am going to drown, no way around it

In swimming yesterday, I was trying to go from standing at the wall to a back-float and then from a float to the wall.

It was ridiculously easy to go the float because I had on my swimmie, the fat suit. But when I tried to go back to the wall I had some issues.

If I bend my legs at the knees, I tend to go into a standing position, and the first time it worked perfectly. The second time I sort of rolled a bit. I should have gone under, but because of the float suit, I just rolled a bit back and forth and then reached the wall.

At this point, my teacher, who was watching, said: Yeah, when you are worried you might be going under you should close your mouth. I laughed because I had realized my mouth was wide open, too. Not just open, though.

Apparently when I think I am going under I try to take a last breath for good luck. Of course, I am not fast enough so I just inhale water.

The dead man's sink

If I am in a boat wreck, I am done for. That's a given. Today, I learned that my rotting carcass won't feed the birds. Even if I just lie on the water, I sink, so I guess fishies will get my toes. Maybe an octopus will eat my eyeballs. Unless, of course, my corpse bloats and provides buoyancy, which would be ironic because who needs to float when dead.

All right, no more grossness.

I did try the dead man's float and I did sink pretty fast. I remember that the dead man's float was about all I could do after my summer of lessons when I was 10. Well, that and going underwater, which I did to hide from JoAnne and the other girls in the next lesson.

In addition to sinking, I sucked in a lot of water. A LOT.

I am not sure why. It was through my nose, and I was saying to myself: DON'T. But I did. I am blaming allergies.

Swimming upside down (for me)

For seven-second intervals today, I was swimming on my stomach. If you count someone pulling you through the water as swimming. I'm going to count it.

I started off with five pool lengths of swimming without my float vest. I did pretty good, but I still lose it some and collapse. I doubt I'd drown in real life, but I guess I do still need someone with me. Not that they are going anywhere. We have lessons through March to make up for the snow days.

After my back-floating, we walked five pool lengths, then I swam with the vest for a while.

I forgot my goggles today and could have used them as I was being pulled through the water or before that when I was just putting my face in.

The stomach swimming took a lot out of me. I don't know why it was so hard, but it was. I just did a few more laps on my back with the vest and was done.

Everyone thought it was a good lesson and that I'd sleep well. I am sure I will.

I didn't forget how to swim

After four weeks off -- three for weather and one for a bad car battery -- I got a chance to swim.

I made it almost a whole length of the pool without any floatation device or anyone holding my head. The teacher was so impressed, she called Mom to watch. I then proceeded to suck down a mouthful of water. Totally, Mom's fault!

The rest of the lesson was good, too: walking, swimming with a float vest, exercising my legs.

Take me to the pool, drop me in the water

I made my triumphant return to the pool today, complete with optical googles so I could ditch my glasses and still sort of see.

They worked well, but I kept forgetting I was wearing them so when I ducked my head under the water I closed my eyes. Then I was like: Oh yeah. IO opened my eyes and I saw people's feet. the bottom of the pool is not that interesting.

I also need to work on blowing bubbles. One of my helpers didn't like that I was just holding my breath when I went under, not blowing bubbles. I told her I'd try, but I knew what would happen: When I blow bubbles, I always breathe in through my nose. It's silly, I know. But sure enough it happened.

I did eight lengths with my fat suit on so the helpers weren't holding me much, then I walked two lengths.

I had forgotten how much fun it is.

Taking the plunge

I finished my second session of swimming last night with a bang. And I don't mean the dinner after class that I went to.

We went to lane 2, and I started off with 10 lengths of swimming. I had on the vest, and they weren't holding my head at all. I know this because I kept running into the lane's side ropes. When they are holding me, I glide pretty straight. But last night I was all over the lane.

i know your head acts as the rudder of your body so you turn the opposite of the way you want to go, and I was trying. It was easier to just push off from the lane ropes.

After the swimming, I walked three lengths. That was really tiring.

Then I just did different leg exercises while a volunteer held me up.

I was done for then. But I still put my face in the water a few times, and then had one of the volunteers pull me through the water, so I get used to being on my stomach. I was supposed to kick but I couldn't. It is surprisingly hard to get pulled through the water.

Finally, instead of lifting up the lane rope, I went under it. Whoo!

As for the dinner, it was nice. It was at a local pizza place, and I couldn't hear. That was why I was so tired yesterday, I think. Too tired to write.

Getting my fat on helps me swim

Apparently, all I need to swim like a pro is a fat suit.

Not like a Monica from Friends fat suit or the one Barney wore recently on How I Met Your Mother. Just a little one, "to give you the fat you need," my teacher said when I saw it.

It was awesome. I swam some well and so independently, the two volunteers had plenty of time to talk to each other about things like SATs and what college they want to go to. Oh, man, I am old.

I did two and a half pool lengths on my own. In the middle of length 3, the teacher was hollering something to us and I thought we were stopping there so I stopped swimming. But we weren't stopping there, and actually I caught the volunteer off-guard and went under for a second. Surprisingly, it went well. I took a quick breath before going under and then held my breath.

After that I did more swimming with the fat suit using my legs. I also walked up and down the pool, but that was hard because of the suit. It tended to ride up on me when I wasn't floating.

We even took it off and I swam on my own for a length or two. Pretty awesome.

Finally, I was blowing bubbles in the water and to make that more interesting my teacher had one of the volunteers and I lock forearms and then he walked backward down the pool, pulling me off my feet, so I was floating and felt like I was really swimming on my belly. He stopped every five seconds so I came up for air. That was fun.

But then the teacher got a bigger volunteer to give me a bigger challenge. The teacher told me to kick, too, and I just lost it. We stopped and started again and he said "ready?" I said "OK" but left my mouth open, got a major mouthful of water and then we decided to call it a day.

It was a good lesson and I almost didn't go because Mom and Dad had gone out and my sister was real busy. But she sucked it up and took me. She even came to pick me up after I said "shit" and "ass" in front of her son.

5 yards down ...

In keeping with last week's "do the hard stuff first," I actually did a little swimming right from the get-go.

Mom can even vouch for me. The teacher watched me swim about five yards, told me to take a break, went and got Mom, and had me do it again.

Then I did some walking and some swimming with the floatation belt.

The main problem was that it hardly gave me a chance to warm up. Not that it was even cold today, it was beautiful, but I still get cold in the water.

Also, when Mom got out to watch I started laughing and almost sank.