There’s a hot woman who has been swimming at the pool around the same time I do in the mornings. Unlike me and most of the other regulars, she’s in her 30s or 40s, has a fit, tan, tone body and swims like a trained athlete.
So of course, I notice her.
Her swimming is beautiful. She glides nearly silently through the water. Her flip turns are tight and dynamic. Under water, she moves like a dolphin.
No – I’m not in love with her.
I’m in love with how she swims.
I was inspired by how gracefully she swims to search YouTube for videos to improve my own technique. I could care less about how fast I swim. But I want to swim with grace. After 5 years of daily swimming, I’ve got plenty of stamina and energy. Sometimes I even feel graceful. But other times, it feels as if I am swimming like a fish flopping around the bottom of boat.
It took me just one evening to find the help I needed.
I am totally jazzed up to practice new techniques to improve my front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke. In fact, for the first time since my college days, I plan to relearn flip turns too.
On my first day, my swim times dropped by nearly 20% from adjusting my “pull” technique. There are many other changes I have yet to make and many new drills to practice. I will try them eventually. Correcting a lifetime of bad habits will take time. Right now, I’m back on the “plain of suckitude“. But after few hundred (or a few thousand) laps, I’ll swim past it.
It’s feels great to be back in learning mode.
