“I’m Jim,” says the guy standing next to me, pulling his goggles onto his head and leaning against the wall. “It’s a tough workout, toughest your first day,” he reassures me in a tone that makes me realize that he knows. I was hoping it wasn’t that obvious, but I am the sore thumb in the pool, standing out as the worst, slowest, swimmer absolutely struggling in the slow lane in a packed master’s swim class. Jim, alone before I showed up, talks to me about my form and all the while looks eerily satisfied with his newly elevated spot in the pool, cocky even.

Terrestrial by nature, my interactions with water over the last 20 years have been rooted primarily in getting from one landmass to the next, fording rushing rivers, traveling with ease through meandering streams, bathing in creeks on multi-day backcountry trips. I have, on occasion, puttered around in quiet, high mountain lakes, but this did not prepare me in any way for my experience in the pool.

In the pool, I wasn’t so much pushing my boundaries as maxing them out in the terrifying aquatic realm. In the pool, surrounded by beautifully muscled people, pulling themselves through the water with ease, only to reach the end where they flip-turned and launched perfectly in the opposite direction, I was suddenly morphed into a small child, starting anew. The lesson learned this day was one of humility, of abandoning ego altogether.

Starting a new sport takes more courage than I had realized, especially one so foreign to my body’s natural rhythm. As a life-long active, athletic woman, I am used to pushing my body and my personal comfort zones, actually seeking opportunities to do so out. I’ve run marathons and backpacked solo in wild places, but I have never had to wrestle with finding oxygen. Breathing is so simple and something I had, until this day, taken for granted entirely. As I approached the wall, instead of flip turning, I clung to it, heaving, trying to find air, relieved that I had made it this far without drowning. Somehow I had to find satisfaction in at least this much or forever be discouraged.

“You need to keep your head down Kathryn,” said the woman leading the class. “Follow the one eye in the water rule to know you are doing it correctly.” She demonstrates how in my desperation I am cranking my head to the ceiling to breath and how this throws off my stroke, slowing me down considerably. I nod, think this over and stand in the shallow end for entirely too long feeling utterly befuddled while my fellow classmates whiz up and down the lanes in a non-stop chain. I am still on the first exercise, while they have moved on to using accoutrements that help work on different muscle groups, to help perfect stroke. Even Jim is ahead of me, faster than me, using a kickboard.

I focus on letting go. I focus on my swimming, on keeping one eye in the water. As I move awkwardly through the water, I think about acceptance of myself as a beginner, starting completely over in a new realm. Celebrating every small victory, trying to turn what could be a nightmare scenario into a game, suddenly the sleek bodies speeding by disappear and I make it through the last half of the lane comfortably without gasping even once and with one eye in the water. I feel phenomenal. I feel like I have done something. A miniscule step, but I did it. I stuck with it.

When the class ends the friend who talked me into this madness emerges from the fast lane, having swum thousands of meters never stopping. “What did you think?” she asks. Silent for a moment, allowing my ego to slip away, realizing that I had faced a foreign, terrifying realm, “I feel awesome!” I respond. “I have never sucked so badly at anything in my life.” She laughs. She provides some encouraging words, explaining how she thinks group lap swimming is one of the hardest things to do as a beginner. Harder, I think, when you are an adult with a history of picking up sports quickly, easily and with extreme coordination.

To spend an hour feeling completely awkward, struggling and fumbling terribly was one of the best things I have done for myself in a long time. I had to let go and be entirely comfortable with me and what I was capable of, however pathetic and small that may be. I had to let myself be a kid again, exploring my body like I had just shown up in it. I had to accept that I didn’t dive into the pool and kick it Amanda Beard-style, though I’ll admit it was my fantasy while driving to the pool that evening.

I have stuck with it, swimming a few days a week with a goal to move out of the slow lane eventually, but not putting any pressure on when. I can’t flip turn yet, but I swim continuously without stopping to heave. Still, every time I get my swim gear together in the morning I think about how much I don’t want to go because I am so bad at it. I think about how when I tag the wall I long terribly to instead be somersaulting with speed. I think about how good I am at other sports and how I really just want to do those for the positive feedback. And then I realize this is exactly why I have to swim. Because it is such a big personal challenge.

Kathryn is a Missoula-based writer, editor and recovering field biology underling-- i.e., she did all the dirty work in the worst conditions. Call her a tree-hugger and she'll kick you in the shins. When she is not writing, she's out on the trails running her dogs. Good luck trying to keep up with her.
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