Swimming Lesson #35


After a rather frustrating twenty minutes trying to get a taxi (the singular joy of watching your driver via an app, driving straight past the road you’re waiting on and then not bothering to come back until you cancel the booking) I got to Swish almost half an hour late for my lesson, and then had 30 minutes of freestyle and breaststroke.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I went a few steps back this week; I was getting from one end of the pool to the other in the high 30s/low 40s and once or twice messed up my timing, inhaled a big lug of water and ground to a halt completely. So that wasn’t so great.

This week I was concentrating on trying to glide more: a bit longer between strokes, and kicking less. I had variable success with this: I think I could probably amend my stroke and get it a little shorter to increase my turnover rate, and I’m still getting the hang of kicking less. Possibly my arms are a bit tired from all the pull-ups (24.5 last night). Or maybe I just need to be smoother. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, but less time in the pool means less smooth, and once a week doesn’t cut it.

With breaststroke, a different set of problems. Firstly, my timing is dreadful for getting my head back down as I kick. The synchronisation of kick and arms is essential for efficient breaststroke.

Then my kick is really weak, although strangely it’s worst on the first kick. If I stay underwater and kick again, I’m much more forceful. I guess that shows I’m more than a little bit malcoordinated.

But I can stay under for at least two kicks and some gliding and without panicking (hooray for lung capacity) so again, I feel practice would really help. It’s just a matter of finding the time…


2 responses to “Swimming Lesson #35”

  1. You sound remarkably sanguine for your taxi driver woes. Cafe messed up my morning today by taking 45 mins to cook a breakfast – could hear them starting to cook about 25 mins after putting order in, and they when they came out, it was with someone else’s order. I don’t normally get cross but I feel a bad Tripadvisor review coming on.

    • That reminds me of the four hour wait I had for a grilled cheese sandwich in Seattle… A long and silly story, in which I had an argument with a woman who didn’t believe I attended our auspicious university and demanded I show her some proof. Although to be fair, no well-educated, right minded person would frequent a bar that took four hours to make a grilled cheese…

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