I’m attending swimming lessons for the first time in 14 years. I was worried I’d be way out of my depth (no pun intended), lacking in both skill and fitness. While I was a little rusty (I forgot how to do a front stroke and also breathe, so I kept having to stop for air), I was fine. Despite my long break from the sport, I was able to tread water with my shoulders at water level for the full 90 seconds the teacher gave us and I was able to do a backstroke for 100 meters without a problem.
Don’t get me wrong: I still found it unpleasant. Personally, I don’t enjoy being submerged in water. It will get into your ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. It’ll go down your throat no matter how hard you try to keep it out. Public pools are also kind of gross. I mean, you’re in the same water that got into everyone else’s ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. Sure there are chemicals to kill the germs, but those are just another thing to worry about. The water burned my nose and eyes…although this might have had something to do with something malfunctioning and all of us getting kicked out of the pool early because they couldn’t guarantee the chlorine was at a safe level. Who knows?
Unfortunately, swimming is a great workout. I could feel my muscles burning from the effort; stronger, more widespread, and more immediate than when I do weights. Swimming is cardio and resistance training combined for your whole body at once, no “Leg Day” required. You can’t just stop whenever you want like you might at the gym—if you stop mid-swim, you’d die. That provides good motivation to keep going even when you don’t want to.
I signed up for the hardest of three difficulty levels available to adults only because the intermediate class was full, but it ended up being the best class for my abilities. Turns out it’s easy to underestimate what you’re capable of when you go too long without testing yourself. I’m extremely fortunate that Toronto provides these classes for free, because I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to do them, what with my upcoming job losses and all.
The last and most obvious benefit of swimming lessons is survival preparation. Being able to swim lowers your chance of drowning if you find yourself unexpectedly in a deep body of water. Of course, it may also increase your chances of drowning, just because you’ll probably spend more time in water than someone who never goes near it, but avoiding water all your life for fear of drowning is no way to live, is it? And if no one ever learned how to swim, who would save those who are drowning? The benefits of our skills go beyond ourselves.
Overall, swimming sucks. I don’t like it. It’s hard, it’s gross, it leaves me sore. Yet, there’s something to be said for powering through a difficult thing. You build up your resilience, your endurance, your strength. You grow more sure of yourself and your abilities, and less scared of possible dangers. This doesn’t just apply to swimming lessons, by the way. It’s writing an essay without using AI, starting a conversation with a stranger, travelling to a new place, or apply for the job you don’t think you’re experienced enough for. It’s the hard stuff that makes us grow as humans. We have to keep going with things that are good for us—even when we don’t want to and especially when they’re difficult—or else we’ll lose ourselves to stagnancy. We must swim, or we’ll sink.
