In the water

I went swimming at Alki Beach, on today’s sunny morning, for the fifth time since August 15. The water temperature was 53 degrees, down from 57 in August. Today’s air temperature was around 50. The difference in air temperature post-swim, from about 64 degrees on August 15 down to today’s 50 degrees, didn’t seem to make much of a difference in how cold I was while drying off and getting dressed. (I have not swam on a windy or rainy day.)

Why do I like to do this? Because one of my fitness-training friends started doing it weekly, back in November 2020. Her enthusiasm, week after week, made me so curious that — in warm weather — I finally had to try it myself! Though the water was cold, it felt great to be in it (for 25 minutes) with my wetsuit and my snorkel. Looking down into the gently waving eelgrass on the bottom, watching for pink-and-purple crabs tiptoeing and camouflaged flatfish lying still, seeing small fish streak by, even noticing a feathery, undulating sea-pen after my friend pointed it out — it was like a vacation. Thank goodness for enthusiasm and curiosity.

Sometime between these five saltwater swims, I took an intensive course at Orca Swim School here in South Seattle. Taught in a family’s 15-yard, in-ground, backyard pool, the course had us three students in the pool for three hours at a time: six three-hour sessions in two consecutive weekends. The focus wasn’t on sport or adventure goals such as triathlon, snorkeling or scuba, or wild mountain lake swims. Instead we spent about 80 percent of our pool time working patiently on gentle, playful skill drills in order to get really and truly comfortable in the water.

I am sure I had never before spent three solid hours in the water.

Several things astonished me after the first class. (1) During all that time in the (nice and warm) pool, I hadn’t even looked at my watch until there were only 30 minutes left. (2) It was starting to feel normal, in a whole new way, to be in the water. Not exotic, not edgy, not unfamiliar or dangerous — normal. (3) The simple skills, practiced and repeated for as long as any of us needed, really did make me confident of my safety in the pool. Each skill needed to be totally “old news” before we would move on. The idea is to let one’s curiosity drive experimentation. You only do what feels like the safe next step, even if that means you aren’t yet ready for, say, doing the freestyle in a lap-swim lane. The only goal is to be able to breathe and rest in the water more comfortably than before. The value of this patient approach in this pool, for me, is impossible to overstate.

We were asked “what are your goals for this course” and “what are your wildest dreams for your future in swimming?” My answers: (1) spend several minutes swimming, floating, bobbing, and playing, breathing and feeling fine without touching the sides or the bottom, and (2) to swim safely in beautiful natural places — lakes, springs, swimming holes, rivers, saltwater coves.

I’ve “swam” in plenty of outdoor places, but because of anxiety in deeper water I was only able to submerge myself with my feet on the bottom or swim a very few strokes before turning around and getting shallow as quickly as possible. I was too anxious; I thrashed when “treading” and exhausted myself.

In class I learned to rest and breathe in deep water, and that’s what I did today at Alki. Instead of relying on my snorkel, which seemed to leak, I back-floated until ready to swim some more strokes. I didn’t venture into water truly over my head because the small waves created the sensation, in chin-deep water, of being much deeper. This felt safe. I trust what I learned in class, which is to stay with what feels totally comfortable. In flat water, I would have gone deeper and stayed longer.

Even while maintaining a conservative approach, nevertheless, what is comfortable for me has expanded significantly already.

Where else in life can we learn and grow while staying comfortable and safe? I think we can do this in many situations, even with hard physical skills or with stressful relationship difficulties, if we can cultivate curiosity. Openness to curiosity and patience — wondering about what else is possible, or what else is present, or what else we can do when we are ready — is one way we can be our own gentlest coach and leader.