Every now and then, in my children’s swimming classes I get a tumbler. By this I mean a child who seems to so delight in the freedom and weightlessness of being in the water that they just tumble about, twisting and turning, looping the loop and turning somersaults. These children do not mind at all being right under the water, and they do not mind that where I teach they can’t put their feet on the bottom. They seem to trust me to catch them in time for them to take a breath every now and again. Sometimes they hold their noses, sometimes they have goggles, but sometimes they seem to manage without either. Eventually, having fully explored the watery environment, and if you don’t bother them too much, they straighten out and start to swim along in a more conventional fashion.
Breathing
One of my pupils never learned to swim as a child because she grew up in a war zone. Now in middle age, she needs to learn because health issues make other forms of exercise difficult. She told me that her abiding memory of childhood is of running from the shelling and even now she has nightmares almost every night. She said to me
‘Now we are talking about sending people to the moon as tourists! Surely we can find some other way than violence to resolve our conflicts here on Earth.’
Her swimming is coming on well. She is concentrating on the breathing which is always the most difficult thing to learn.
Success
I was witness to two great successes today. One of my pupils told me that after only four lessons of front crawl (she had never swum the stroke before) she completed the swimming section of a triathlon. It was seven hundred and fifty metres, in open water; she did it in twenty five minutes, which is not bad at all. Another of my pupils who was a non swimmer, and did not like to put his face in the water, today, in his fourth lesson, swam a length of the pool.
Today was a good day.
Some of them were dreamers…
This photo taken in 1910 is by Jaques-Henri Lartigue – a wonderful photographer, who was ‘discovered’ at the age of 69, although he had been painting and taking photographs all his life.
One of my first ever swimming pupils was a friend. He had never learned to swim as a child mainly because his childhood had been disrupted and he had moved around a lot and maybe no one had ever taken him. I didn’t really teach him much, just went swimming with him during one very hot summer. We went to the local pool which was a beautiful open-air Lido, now demolished. It had a sweeping Art Deco staircase leading to the changing rooms, two fountains and pink paving stones surrounding the pool. It was beside the Thames just opposite Eel Pie Island. There was and is a footbridge over to the Island. The bridge is arc shaped, like a concrete rainbow with metal railings on each side. Once after we had been swimming we were sitting down by the river when we saw a man walk up to the top of the bridge, climb over the railings and execute a beautiful swallow dive into the Thames
Swimming in the Dart
Once when I was visiting Devon staying near to the river Dart I was desperate to swim in the river but I was a bit nervous to swim alone. I was not frightened of the current or the cold, but I was worried about looking foolish by not swimming in the right place or not knowing where to get in. I decided to be brave and so I put my swimming costume on under my dress and set off towards the river. I was staying at the top of a hill and the river was in the valley below. I could see the river from the road as I walked down but it was at the bottom of a steep field and I had seen cows in the field earlier. I am a bit afraid of cows so I did not want to cross the field. I walked to the bottom of the hill and I saw there was a path looping back towards the river. I followed the path a little way until I came across a group of women and children who splashing about in the shallow water.
I asked them if they would mind if I swam here as I did not want to swim alone. They said that they didn’t mind. I took off my dress and left it on the bank with my bag and my towel.
The water was completely clear and the river bed was all stones, no squishy mud or reeds. The water was fresh but not cold. I swam upstream. The current was not too strong and the swimming was easy. I swam for about ten minutes then turned to swim back downstream. As I was swimming back I heard a the sound of a steam train coming along the track that ran parallel to the river but high up above it.
It was close enough that I could clearly see the driver the and as the train passed he looked down at me and waved then tooted the whistle sending two puffs of steam into the air. I waved back as the carriages rattled past and several of the passengers also waved down at me. it was a beautiful sunny day and perhaps they were thinking that they too would like to be swimming in the river.
When I reached the women and children and my dress and towel I climbed out and sat in the sun to dry.
As I sat there two older, white haired women came walking along.
Was that you we saw swimming just now? They asked me.
I said it was.
You looked so elegant and so happy. They said.
I thanked them for saying I was elegant and told them that I had felt very happy at that moment, that I had been a bit nervous about swimming alone but that I had wanted to swim so much that I made myself be brave. They told me that they had often swum in the river as children and that people used to swim further up where there were deeper pools and no cows churning up the water but that people did not swim there so much now.
When I got back to where I was staying friends were amazed that I had gone swimming by myself in the river but it occurred to me I had not been alone at all.
Listening to the water
I have taught many people to swim, of all different shapes, sizes backgrounds and experiences. It is endlessly fascinating because although what I am teaching is always the same, every person I teach is different. Each person approaches the water, and the learning process in a different way. Some are very frightened, especially if they have had a bad experience that has put them off being in the water, some are impatient not understanding that to learn to swim, to really learn, can take years. Many adults are embarrassed that they can’t swim, or embarrassed about their bodies in some way. I am so focused on the teaching that I don’t quite see the body as such, just a way of being in the water, that is often reflected in the way someone holds themselves on land.
I have no proof but I do believe that learning to swim , or improving your relationship with water, impacts on the rest of your life. I try to teach people to listen to and to feel the water. One of my pupils said to me the other day ‘when I swim like that the water feels much softer‘. That is exactly what I am aiming for, and my idealistic self believes that learning to experience the softness of the water will help you to live a more contented, connected sort of life.
When I teach the children to swim I get them to listen to the water. After they have jumped in I get them to be very quiet and put their ears down to the water, to listen to the tiny bubbles fizzing.
‘The Reason I Jump’ by Naoki Higashida, translated by David Mitchell
‘When you swim it doesn’t matter what size or shape you are’
“When you swim it doesn’t matter what shape or size you are but somehow in the water you feel beautiful and melting and just the beautiful feeling of weightlessness and ease and you really become at one with nature.”
Ruth Corney talking on BBC Radio about swimming at Hampstead Ladies Pond – June 2013
Faroe Island Swimmer
The woman in this film has lived on the Faroe Islands all her life and since suffering from what sounds a bit like post natal depression, has been swimming in the sea regularly for 48 years.
Water wings
I rarely use buoyancy aids when teaching swimming as they upset the body’s natural balance. Certainly this poor boy is not going to be helped by his water wings and is definitely about to do a belly flop; the rule for diving being, of course, ears between the arms and head down.
But I do love this photo by Jaques Henri Lartigue
mindful swimming 