Thursday, January 21, 2010

Twist. Turn. Breathe.

Sounds easy, right? But oh my fucking jisus maximum swimming overload. Making the nice - the easy - turn in the pool with each lap just looks so easy when we see it on TV. I almost drown every time I try.

Take running for example. Plenty of people are faster/better than me. Meet them all the time. But it's an activity I feel that I can master. I go faster and do my best and either I catch up or I don't. But there's no technical issues that hinders me. It's not like swimming. So. To. Speak.. Where every stroke, breath you take automatically and immediately gives you away as a raging amateur. Like a fluff-cake. No real cake, just fluff.

This totally remarkable swimmer is in our pool from time-to-time and he pumps that pool without breaks (I have have several, regularly breaks, even if they're just mini-ones - they're vital). Even if I try my very best freestyle and he chills, he crushes me. It's pool-humiliation on a deep level. Today I seriously thought I'd drown/collapse, trying to keep up with him. Several times. So this time I decided that if I couldn't beat him, I should at least learn from him. So I used my Ninja-skills to study his movements; his agility when twisting and turning for the next lap.

Ok, spin, twist, turn, kick...cool, gotcha.

First I forgot to breathe so by the time I surfaced it looked/sounded like I had returned from a near-death situation (you know when someone is "dead" in the movies and they use those electric things and they rocket up with a shocking sound/expression/movement). Then I lost all sense of orientation and forgot where/what was up/down/right/left/bottom/surface - and then the exhaling/breathing part on top of that - yup. Total and utterly FAIL.

Thingie is if I stick to my regular turn: stop, pause, vertical-turn (standing and turning around) and smooth off on my next lap, I will always look like the darn poser I am. The one with the right equipment and very wrong technique. Thinking about lessons. Just to get the basics. This is a serious matter.

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