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Travails of a Non-Swimmer

I’m Turning into a Kickstatic

Kicking the sun

Did another session with my local gym’s group swimming class and it’s awful, as usual.

Chatting Sessions

I’m into my second month with the class but I still can’t do freestyle breathing. The classes consist of an hour of waiting for my turn to do drills on the kickboard and then be towed, relying on the instructor’s hands to keep my balance while going up for air instead of learning to do the necessary body rotation in order to inhale.

My classmates don’t seem to be serious about learning. They seem to want to stand in the pool and chat with each other and with the instructor, not necessarily about swimming. It’s quite frustrating! So much wasted time.

Mean Girl

There’s this nasty woman in her fifties who’s being mean to me, ignoring my greetings and simply pretending that I don’t exist. I think she resents the fact that I need more attention from the instructor because I can’t swim. She and the others can! But it’s a Beginner’s class, for heaven’s sake. From what I heard she’s been taking it for a year and a half already, but refusing to go up the ranks for God knows what reason.

Seems to me she insists on being in the lowest ranked class so that she can be the best at something. She likes to show off, as in “Hey look at me, see how well I can swim! I’m the best in class!”. Well, it’s still the best among the worst.

Anyway, since I stupdily signed up for a non-refundable three months of group lessons I will have to keep attending till end of March. Can’t wait to get out! The instructor and I are not a good fit, some of my classmates drive me crazy, it’s simply not the right environment for me.

Backstroke Googoo

Going back to swimming, we practiced the backstroke and the instructor insisted that we all need to kick as hard and fast and high as we can. She wants us all to become kickstatic. According to Swim Types, one of the characteristics of this type is that he/she has “Typically good body position but this is achieved through a strong and energy sapping kick rather than good balance in the water.”

I don’t want to be like that! I have watched footage of long-distance swimmers and they are absolutely not kicking like crazy, only going for a 6-beat kick when sprinting for the finish line. I want to learn how to swim long-distance, not win a 50m race.

Sigh.

I hope to negate the bad habits I am acquiring in this class through the individual lessons I have started at a city pool facility. Looking forward to my class there: it’s only 30 minutes per session but the instructor doesn’t torture me with a kickboard or lots of unnecessary chatting.



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