If you’re a non-swimmer, you’re unlikely to start out believing the water will support you, so you’ll see it as an obstacle to overcome. Swimming lessons are likely to reinforce this feeling by focusing on movements that get you across the pool. By teaching you what you’ve got to ‘do’.
If you’re a confident swimmer, focusing on the following goals is likely to stop you enjoying the support of the water: stroke improvement, cardiovascular improvement, weight loss, distance, speed. If we’re not careful, we ‘do’ too much.
Respect for the water means not fighting it or taking its support for granted. Respect for yourself means refusing to get over-excited: stiffening your neck, pulling your head back into your back and compressing your spine.
A good clue that we’re going wrong is finding ourselves gasping for breath, or blowing bubbles too strongly. This shuts down the possibility of air coming out naturally underwater. Another clue is when any part of the body hurts! These responses indicate that we’re forcing things.
Getting into the calm, contained water of a quiet swimming pool is an opportunity not to react. Not to fight the thing we’re learning to trust or, worse, the thing we love.
The water is a unique source of support and it helps us most when our main goal is to let it support us and enjoy it. Any other agenda gets in the way.
If you let it, water will help you free your neck, open your back, loosen your limbs and breathe. These things are, potentially, easier to allow in water than any other environment, because of the way it takes our weight. To go swimming and deny yourself these benefits is a missed opportunity.
Even for the most fearful learner, valuable therapeutic experiences can be enjoyed right from the first lesson. The moment you allow something new to happen when you change your reaction is significant.
It all comes down to making decisions that make us happy in water, so that even as little as five minutes’ swimming is calming, therapeutic and enough. Otherwise swimming over excites and we miss the magic that happens when we connect fully with the water and let movements come from that.