Pool Monsters
As anyone who follows me knows, I’ve been swimming a lot recently. I try to swim every day, but can usually talk myself out of it at least twice a week. Recently, I found a swimming buddy- so I know that on Tuesday and Thursday, at least, I really need to get my shit together and get to the pool because I have to pick up Anne, who’s expecting me.
Strange, how knowing someone is expecting you can make you go- even if you also know that you can call them and say “I’m bagging it today.” The act of having to “call in sick” to swimming is hard enough that you’d rather just go- as hard as that is.
And it’s really hard, it’s so hard that I actually start worrying about it the evening before. In fact, swimming is one of the hardest and scariest things that I’ve ever done.
I never learned how to swim
So, the paradox is that I’ve spent most of my life playing in the water. In pools, on the shore (i.e. Jersey) or the beach (i.e. every other coast in the world), I love the water and take to it naturally. I grew up body surfing, I love open water kayaking and canoeing, I was on the swim team in high school, I’ve been a scuba diver, I love snorkeling…
I love the water. So how can I say I don’t know how to swim?
Well, that’s probably a large part of the problem. You see, I never learned the whole “breath out under water” freestyle swim stroke. To me, that pretty much defines the line between “swimming” and “playing in the water.” I can tread water, I can dog paddle, I can even do a lifeguard side stroke, but I can’t do anything requiring breathing out under water. I’m trying to learn that now, and it’s threatening to beat me.
The source of my confidence
I’ve actually tried it before, a number of times. Some of the recent attempts were in graduate school when I bought swim gear and tried to go every day to the Oregon State University Athletic Center with my friend Brent. It ended up being closer to once a week after all the excuses, but I’m pretty proud that said attempt lasted 3 months before I pretended that it never happened and stuffed my trunks into the bottom of a drawer. I’ve tried while living in Hood River too, again, the attempts generally involved me talking myself into trying it again about once a week, and after about a month or two, I’d stop going.
The reason I’d stop is simple: There is little that can sap my confidence more than trying again and again to learn how to do something only to have it continually slip through my fingers, as a 7-year old in the next lane does it flawlessly. How’s your confidence when you’re a grown man with long hair and big tattoos who’s… standing in the shallow end of the pool putting your face in the water and blowing bubbles to try to convince yourself that you are not going to drown?
A main problem, of course, is just that: confidence. As unembarrassed as I am for anything- as much as I say that “you need to try and fail a lot to succeed- and failing is where you learn.” As much as I hold to the belief that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses and that it’s not something to be ashamed of, the fact remains: I’m a 40 year old dude who’s standing in the shallow end blowing bubbles.
And it’s actually not even really that which bugs me. I mean, I’m a 40-year old dude who can’t do a heck of a lot of things, who cares? I can’t speak Russian either, so what?
There’s a subtle fact about myself that leads to the problem with swimming. It is this: I’m perfectly fine failing at things. In fact, I like to fail. I have since I was a kid. Failure is, in a weird way, the source of my confidence. But the weird thing about failure is that if you’re okay with it, then you try more things. If you’re afraid of failure, you only do what you know how to do. If you’re okay with failure, then you do all kinds of things you don’t know how to do because it’s the trying, not the succeeding, that you enjoy. Screwing it up only means that you were able to learn, and that means you’ve gained something.
You don’t learn a damn thing doing only the things you know. Knowing is a near perfect barrier to learning.
So, I’ve spent a life doing things that I have no business doing, and screwing them up. As time when on, I failed less and less (or, rather, in smaller and more subtle ways). This is because everything you do has similarities to everything else. Cross country skiing was intuitive because I failed at hockey as a kid. Piecing quilts was similar to origami in a weird way. Everything builds on everything else.
And I gained this amazing confidence that was not based in the assurance that I know how to do everything, but based in the assurance that I don’t know how to do anything, but could learn pretty quickly with a wee bit of effort. In fact, I’ve gotten to the point where I often tell people that I know how to do something I’ve never even tried, just because I know I can pull off learning it on the spot.
I just get things now. Picking up new activities, whether physical or mental, is often easy. Partially because they make intuitive sense, but mostly because I’m okay with failing a few times, and recover from those failures easily.
This, it turns out, is a problem.
Here there be monsters
Swimming. There’s one place where it all grinds to a halt. The brash confidence I carry with me in nearly everything I do comes crashing down when I enter the pool.
For some reason, swimming is different. Most things I try and quickly become comfortable enough doing that they’re natural. Try once, fail, try twice, probably okay, third time, I can usually show others. Something just clicks. Nothing clicks in swimming- except the gnashing teeth of the pool monsters as they chase me across the pool.
No, seriously. If I close my eyes while swimming, I can sense the pool monsters right behind me.
I might walk around with the air of a devil-may-care rogue, head held high. But put me in a pool, and you see a tangle of thrashing arms and legs, gasping for breath, and barely able to hold it together without panicking until he reaches the other side.
Pool monsters!
But I do it, partially because it’s a really good meditative exercise1, but mostly because when I’m afraid of something, I need to face it full on. I need to tackle it, otherwise I become haunted. It’s taking a great deal of effort, both emotional and physical, but I’m doing it. And I’m getting better, but just really slowly- much more slowly than I’m accustomed to.
I’ve recently determined that going once a week is probably one of the problems that I have failed before. The improvement gradient is much shallower than the learning gradient. If I go once a week, I haven’t really improved at all, but I’ve learned a tiny piece more. Not going for another week causes me to forget that tiny piece, leaving myself in a constant cycle of “this is not getting any better or easier at all.” I noticed that 3 times a week is the tipping point. I found that going 3 times a week, I can feel a tiny-yet-noticable improvement. I can go more laps without stopping the next week. Maybe it’s 1 more, maybe 4, but it’s more. Maybe it’s not more, but the laps that I do are slightly less frantic. Maybe I get a tiny bit of water in my mouth and, rather than freaking out and standing up in a panic, I hold it there and blow it out with my next breath.
When I started, I could make it all the way across the pool once- I’d stop half-way on the trip back to catch my breath and convince myself I could still stand up and live. After a month, I was doing 4 laps. After two months, I can do about 12-14- though I stop often in between laps to rest, it’s still an improvement. I’ve even been doing some without fins and webbed swimming gloves.2 They are very good weapons against the pool monsters.
Coda
After the reaction to my first inadequacies post, I realized that I needed some explanation, but I also realized that I needed to talk about the real reasons I’ve lost some of my confidence lately. This is one of them. Swimming is, without a doubt, one of the most difficult and scary things I’ve done. I wasn’t joking when I say that I start worrying about it the day before- I often sit at home and get sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
Sometimes, I have to trick myself into going at all. I get up, telling myself that I’m just going to make a cup of tea- and then quickly grab my bag and jump in the car without thinking because I know that if I take a second to think about it, I’ll chicken out.
It’s scary, and it’s certainly one of the things in my life which makes me feel un-confident- mostly because I have no proof that I will ever really get good. But, I make myself do it for just that reason. I can’t live afraid of that. I know I look like a fool, I know it’s silly for me to be afraid of going to the pool, I know I’ll likely never be as good and effortless as I dream. But I also know that if I don’t deal with this fear, with this lack of confidence, then it will permeate everything I do. If let myself be afraid of this, then what will I let myself be afraid of next?
And so, feeling sick to my stomach as I write these very words, I know that tomorrow morning I will wake up, put on my coat, grab my swim bag, and head out to face the monsters in the pool.
- Well, might be, at some distant day in the future when I’m not about to scream for help, a good meditative exercise [↩]
- you can laugh, it’s alright- I did when I wrote it [↩]
2 Responses to “Pool Monsters”
I’m John Metta, writer, hydrologist, programmer, Irish flute and banjo player, cyclist, brewer, and a digger of all things tech, and all around friendly guy. Nestled snugly in the Columbia River Gorge in a town called Hood River, I survey the world as my own personal playground. Connect with me via email or circle me on Google+
When you learn how to do this, will you teach me? Because I'm in the same boat. (I have to be, I can't swim either!)
Try the Gorge Master's swim practices. Those folks took me from being an extremely challenged and all-around poor swimmer to someone who LOVES it. Seriously, this group is for all swimmers and is very supportive. I've now been in two meets and have done three triathlons in the last 2 years. You don't have to do any of that, but it will help you get to the pool and get a coached workout and you'll have the chance to learn from some great swimmers. You WILL improve! 6 am each day, and evening sessions mon-thurs. Check it out!