Learning how to swim well is good analogy for learning how to live well. In both, every part of your body has to move ‘just right’ to go through the water – or through the essence of water – as efficiently as possible. In that sense, swimming well is much more complex than I initially thought. But it is very rewarding!
First, if you refuse to swim, if you don’t move at all, chances are that you will drown under your own weight. If you move a little bit, chances are that you will stay afloat and drift with the water’s current. But to move as little as is required to survive is not really swimming; just like existing is not quite living. In both cases, if you dare to choose a direction, chances are you will get there eventually: but maybe not before you exert yourself past your physical limit and stamina.
In learning how to swim, you have to recognize what is going on; you have to be aware of your body and how it is positioned in the water. The water is the force resisting you, the force which you must harness to move forward. You make yourself healthy and svelte; so that your mass of flesh – your embodied intentions – is as dynamic as possible. You lengthen your movements; so that with every stroke, you reach as far as you possibly can. And you don’t reach only with your arms, but also with your shoulders and torso. And you can’t forget your legs, which must continue to paddle while you focus elsewhere; each part of your body obeying a different rhythm and yet acting all at once.
In swimming, you want to stay centered – mindful – and perfectly aligned with your chosen direction: for every movement that is even slightly misaligned is a waste of energy. To counteract a misstep, you end up flailing: your correcting movements straying further and further from your natural stoke. If you find yourself lost in this loop of over-compensating moves, you are better off slowing down, find your inner axis, and aligned yourself with where you want to go. Then move afresh as you naturally would.
To learn how to swim is also an intense breathing exercise. In other sports, you’re told to focus on breathing to make sure that your muscles have enough oxygen for their tasks. In swimming, you must plan ahead every breath simply to avoid choking yourself! But even something as essential as breathing can unbalance you. For when I breath, I sometimes get off-kilter. After three strokes, there is still too much air in my lungs and I need to exhale and then inhale, which takes way too long ! And by the time I am done, my arms and head are in the wrong spots. And I’m flailing again.
When that happens, it is tempting to simply stop. Chances are that the water is shallow enough to just stand in place. At last, you can take deep breaths and let the water massage your skin. There is no shame in standing still. But that is not exercise. That is not swimming. That is not living to the fullest.
In swimming, success or failure is not black-or-white. To be sure, if you get to where you want to go, then you certainly achieved your goal. It might not be the goal you ‘ought’ to have pursued, but that is a different question altogether. You can also be successful if you swim faster than you could before; the few shaved seconds proving that you have learned something new about yourself. Any knowledge gained is worthy too. If you are Micheal Phelps, you won the genetic lottery. His success is not so much all the gold medals that he earned, but the fact that he was smart enough to find out what he was best suited for, and training hard to become all that he could be. But if you too are swimming to the best of your abilities, putting as much stamina in each stoke as you have in you to give, then your swimming is a success. In both swimming and living, success is to make the most of the body and energy we have to work with.
I enjoy being in the water because of how it makes me feel: calm and serene. Like in my mother’s womb, I can feel my body’s weightlessness and yet I know that I am surrounded by resistance. I start where the water ends, and I end where the water starts. I know that I am not of the same essence as the water, because I need the air and the land above it to live. Yet the endless repetition of movements creates within me a deep meditation: my mind wanders but can’t act because my body is already busy with its swimming. So the mind wavers between focus on the task at hand – the body, the water, the movement, the direction – and random thoughts emerging from pure unconsciousness.
For a few months now, I’m working on swimming well. I share a coach with other drop-ins at the Aquatic center. I like when Jim explains swimming to me. When I change a movement and it makes other muscles hurt, then I know that I getting better. He likes to teach me because I am able to intellectually ‘see’ what my movements should be. And I am mindful enough to embody his advice, in my arms and legs and lungs…
Learning how to swim well is not done instantaneously, but Jim is a patient coach. So once a week, Jim drills me – and my fellow ‘retirees’ – to expand our energy as efficiently as possible. What Jim values most is consistency: swimming the last 50m with as much heart as the first. So I keep going back: to learn how to swim well and to do more with the body and the time I have on this Earth. Because, with a good technique, a commitment to be mindful of both what you do and what you should do, and a sustainable pace, one can get very far indeed!