Remedial Swimming

Yes, I still cannot believe it, but I actually enrolled in Remedial Swimming. That is not the official name given to it by the swim/scuba business, but that is what it is. I refuse to call it Developmental Swimming or Transitional Swimming, as if it were a math or English class offered by an institution of higher learning. Such euphemisms have no place in this blog. The only reason I signed up for it is because my friend Yegan (who also teaches developmental math) talked me into it. Once again, I discover I am just like my students—I am going to school simply because my friends are! (Gee, we’re all humans…why shouldn’t we be alike?) Actually, while being able to share lessons with a friend is a nice plus and is the reason I chose this particular summer to learn to swim, it is in fact something I have considered before, because I always wished I could swim, but as with so many other things, I’ve just never gotten around to it.

I have managed (at least mostly) to get over my ego and not feel self-conscious about my total lack of skill in this area. I am even willing to practice in the lap pool at my gym, splashing around the shallow end and coughing up water, while other people gracefully swim lap after lap, or sit on the bench in front of the steam room talking (I’m sure they have more interesting things to talk about than the ineptitude of people in the pool). There is nothing whatsoever wrong with being enrolled in Remedial Swimming, or Remedial Anything (at least that’s what I keep telling myself). Remedial Anything simply means that you did not learn Anything at the time Anything is typically learned, so you have to learn it later. I have known outstanding students, excelling in calculus and above, who began their college careers in developmental math. Every time I teach a developmental math class, I remind myself that I may have a few future rocket engineers in the bunch, who are way smarter at math than me. I wonder if it has ever occurred to my Remedial Swimming instructor that perhaps Yegan or I will be a future Olympic swimming champ?

Yegan started Remedial Swimming at least a couple of weeks before me (talking me into it was a difficult and time-consuming project). She said that she was absolutely terrible at swimming, sank like a rock, and flailed her arms and legs without going anywhere. So I thought I would be ahead of her, because at least I could float on my back and dog-paddle across the short length of the pool. But this apparent head start did me no good whatsoever, because on my first day of class, the instructor didn’t ask me to dog-paddle across the pool or float on my back. She asked me to lay horizontally on the water with my face in it, and kick my legs. On the second lesson, she added arms. I am supposed to stroke through the water with my arms, turning my head to breathe with each stroke, all while continuously kicking my legs and staying horizontal. This is, of course, impossible. I have never even been able to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. How could I possibly move my arms one way, my legs another, and my head another, all while laying face-down in a substance that has been known to kill people? As I discovered last night, I cannot even run on a treadmill while watching Xtreme Skateboarding (whenever a skateboarder wipes out at the top of the halfpipe, I step off the side of the treadmill).

Remedial Swimming Lesson #3 is tomorrow. We shall see what it holds. After upping her Remedial Swimming attendance to four times a week, Yegan can now swim halfway across the lap pool without stopping. I am only attending Remedial Swimming once a week, so it may take me until Christmas to be able to swim across the pool. I certainly hope not—I don’t think my ego can take a beating for that long!