Shannon Costello

Teachers with characters make life interesting.

Bob, halfway through class:  If I don’t work on your breathing I’m going to feel guilty.

Bob, end of class:  Next week I’m going to come with a 2 x 4, and if you swing your head around again like that I’m going to whap you!

I should note that when Bob makes comments like that all the other people give vaguely sympathetic chuckles, because if they haven’t had his ire directed at them they have at least seen it aimed at countless other hapless swimmers.

Two weeks ago I couldn’t do rhythmic breathing at all.  Now I can do it, but badly.  I don’t have tons of swimming experience, but I imagine the occasional periods of lap swimming checkering my past have created a solid enough foundation for my bad habits.  I’ll try to describe what I am doing incorrectly.

It seems that one’s head is supposed to rotate about an axis that is parallel to the surface of the water.  The swimmer spends most of her time looking down at the bottom of the pool, rotating her head only briefly to take a “bite” of air.

My head lolls about.  I like to look at where I am going so I look straight ahead.  Or I am looking way up to the top of the wall when my gaze should just skim the surface of the water.  That is partly due to my fear of swallowing yet another gallon of pool water.  I open my mouth too wide (typical, did I hear you say?).

I am also having some trouble correctly coordinating my stroke with my breathing.  I can’t yet verbalize this problem.  I think the deal is that my head should turn while I am stroking with the breathing-side arm.  I don’t get that part at all.  I’ll have to see what descriptions I can find…and youtube has got to have a slow-motion video of someone doing the crawl, right?

I am uncoordinated, which is why this is a struggle for me.  Bob is no doubt coordinated, which is why watching me is a struggle for him. The main argument for me being coordinated might be what I can do with the violin.  Surely that takes coordination, I ask?  It does.  And I’ve been playing for over twenty years.  Bottom line:  keep plugging away.  Eventually Bob will stop yelling at me about my head and start picking on something else, a sure sign of progress.