… so I am taking swimming lessons. I am committed and giving it my all, at least as best as I know how. Sometimes it is really frustrating because all around me, I see very strong swimmers and I just seem to be taking baby steps, literally! It is interesting that the time of my swimming lesson coincides with a class of pro swimmers. Just observing them is sufficient reason to pack up my efforts and leave or maybe not! Maybe convince and gear me on, to keep trying, believing that more is possible. The race is not to the swift or the strong, afterall time and chance happens to all.
Anyway, the first time I attempted back stroke, the take off was not bad, I wouldn’t say impressive, but nothing disastrous happened and I actually moved or swam as the case maybe. The landing was the problematic part, I couldn’t figure out how to stop, how to end that lap, I flapped around mercilessly, not knowing what to do with my body and how to get myself into a standing position in the pool. My instructor came to my aid by throwing in a rod of some sort that I grabbed on to and use to steady myself. He told me, next time you need to stop and stand, all you do is tilt forward, fold your two legs together behind you, the instruction was pretty clear and I heard it clearly, there was nothing to add or clarify.
So I took off again, reasonably good take off. When it was time to stop, I remembered every word of the instruction, so I told my upper body to tilt forward and my two legs to fold behind, for all you cared, I could have been speaking to a deaf person, either I was not speaking clearly or my body was not hearing clearly, all I know was that my upper body was not tilting forward neither were my two legs folding, one of the legs would actually attempt to bend why the other decides to do whatever took its fancy. So there I was again struggling in the water, and the Instructor at this point was shouting from the edge of the pool, “tilt your body and fold your legs!” and I had to shout back ” I heard you and I told my body, but my body is not doing it!” At this point the instructor went quiet and just dropped the rod, there was nothing else to say. If the head heard and passed the instructions to the body. How do you get the body to comply? Why is the body taking long? I know what tilt means, I know what fold both legs means, and I want to do it. So why is it not happening? I guess the ‘ears’ of the body are different. The reactions time and speed of the body is different. I guess we can only just keep sending the message and trust that at some point it will reach the destination. The body has to be trained to do what it needs to do.
The legs will fold in its time, be patient!
We don’t need more shouting, more teaching, more knowledge, we just need more practice and we would get there. Yes, the legs will fold!
Beautiful Ivory 