From Non Swimmer to SWIMMER

Finally the journey of learning how to swim comes to an end. It has been a quite exhilarating experience in last two and half months. The journey from a dumb swimmer to a template swimmer is enthralling. Though I love to continue to swim daily the motivation to do so is not there. My trainer had taught me all that he knows: free style swimming, back stroke swimming, under water swimming and lifeguard training (this is basically how to save somebody when they fell into the water). Now it will be just a maintenance work going to the pool again. There is no learning anymore at least from my trainer.

Born and bought up in a desert, I always wanted to learn swimming and never in my life had I taken a step towards learning it. Every time I go to a beach or to any river side, I envy watching my friends do the swimming. Every time I ask them to teach they will hold my hands and ask me to kick my legs and after 5 to 10 minutes, we will be out of water and the story repeats when I enter the water again.

The desire to learn swimming became irresistible when I did my Discover Scuba Dive in Andaman Islands on January this year. After tasting the underwater life I was mesmerized by the beauty beneath the water. Once I came out of the sea after the dive I decided to learn swimming at any cost. Within 3 months I joined the HAL Sports academy and by end of August I learnt Swimming.

The best part of the swimming is my trainer and my desire to learn. My trainer is old so are his techniques to teach. He taught me swimming without touching me or without even asking me to take any help of the devices / people around. He taught me so naturally and eloquently as if we both belong to an Island and we do not have access to any devices to learn swimming except our own hands and legs. I can never forget what he taught to me though he did not know the science behind the techniques I figured it out with the online material and discussion with advance learners.

Learn swimming can be categorized into 4 stages:

Floating (this will take away the fever of drowning)

Leg beating (this will allows to float on Water)

Hand Movement (this will help us in moving forward and changing the direction)

Breathe Out (this will help us to move longer distances)

One should consider himself a swimmer when he knows how to breathe out in water and this is toughest of all stages. It took me nearly two weeks to learn this particular skill. When I am at this stage I used to observe the people around, some people used to master this very quickly especially children. My trainer used to scold me like anything whenever I did not do whatever he said not that I do not want to but it is not happening. He even humiliated me. Every day I used to go the pool feel sad as I am unable to make out how to breathe out , come home watch videos on that , discuss with my friends who I know swimming and even walk on the streets practicing the breathe out with hands moving as though I am doing swimming. People used to see me and laugh at me. I did not care about it as I wanted to learn swimming. Suddenly one day while I am chatting with one of my friend he told me “We need to take air with mouth and release it with our nose inside the water.” Till them I am trying to do both inhaling and exhaling with my mouth only; this is causing the timing differences with my hand movements causing the water to go inside my mouth and causing breathing problems. Once I am able to apply what my friend has said within no time I cleared the final stage of swimming. From then on there is no looking back till today.

The journey has its own bumps and rides. There is a fear one day, and then overcoming it made me strong the other day. The saying “The one that does not kill u makes u stronger” is true. At least now I do not fear water with higher depths. If there is any achievement in my life that I consider worth celebrating that should be SWIMMING.

PS: Thanks to Vishnu, Harsha, My trainer, videos on Youtube and myself for making this happen.