Stroke, stroke

Last night was the first time that I've swum a significant amount of distance under my own power and maintaining a breathing rhythm.

I know that swimming is second nature for most people, but not me. I sink like a stone. Literally. I stop moving and I start to drift down, down, down. I even surprised Dev with my lack of buoyancy; she tried to teach me to swim one time and didn't believe that I would sink. I stopped moving and shot straight to the bottom of the pool. Dev said in all her years of teaching swimming that she's never seen anything like it.

To remedy my lack of aquatic prowess, I signed up for an adult beginner swim class through the Portland Parks and Recreation department. 10 classes with very patient instructors. After 10 lessons I still didn't know how to swim. I did learn to breath and to kick though. Enough basics so that I could start practicing on my own. And Practice I have. Twice a week I spend half an hour in the water (which has always felt like a foreign and alien land to me) and practice my technique. Last week I "swam" 25 yards for the first time; I wasn't using a steady arm stroke, just one stroke every time I breathed. Then this week I started learning the crawl. And last night I made 15 lengths under my own steam.

So maybe I won't remain quite as terrestrial as I have been in the past.