That was back when I was schooling two children and having babies and what not.

I found out that I can’t legally teach everything, (hello, driver’s ed!), and I physically can’t teacher other things, not the least of which is swimming!

I can’t do much more than get the kids to the pool and have them practice what someone else taught them. So imagine my relief and joy when I was able to coach my 9 year old to dive yesterday at my brother and sister-in-law’s pool.

It was a lovely scene. I’m holding the 3 year old, who’s doing her usual flailing and trying to get away, but don’t you dare put me down mommy dance, and I’m watching the 7 year old who knows enough about swimming to scare me to death as he inches toward the deep water. Meanwhile, my 11 year old, who knows how to dive, but refuses, was doing something I no doubt considered slacking, because she wasn’t swimming laps and she wasn’t using the diving board. At least she wasn’t drowning, either.

The 7 year old is very driven and competitive, and she wanted to learn to dive. I have so many children that I could have sworn we’d been through this drill before–last year, actually. That was probably with the 11 year old…

Anyway, I’m barking out commands the whole time, rocking my old lady cap again. “tuck your chin,…” “I know,” she interrupts, and she demonstrates what to do with her arms. “Streamline!” I am a drill sergeant with this poor kid. I command the 11 year old to dive and show her sister how it’s done. Eleven year old is not thrilled to dive, even though she is a born teacher if I’ve ever seen one.

I am watching 7 year old, holding 3 year old, commanding 9 year old to squat and do a granny dive/baby dive, and telling her big sister to demonstrate. We are the only people in the pool at the time, but there are several adults having a barbecue behind us.

I am embarrassed by my loud forcefulness, but that’s me in the pool with the kids. All fun and games.

After a while, 9 year old gets the hang of the baby dives and is ready to stand and dive off the board. She does it! We are thrilled. She tries again, and it looks like a flop to me. “Was that a flop or a dive?” I ask her. She doesn’t know. “Does it hurt? If it hurts, it’s a flop. If it doesn’t, it’s a dive.” One of the adults at the barbecue laughs at my assessment. It hurt.

Unfased, 9 year old continues at it until she can consistently dive. Then she was ready for a canonball.

Which inspired 7 year old to do canonballs in the shallow end, and I’m thinking, is it time to go yet?

But the Y was open. When school was closed. My daughter and I had to brave the icy roads and windy conditions so people could get their laps in.

My daughter couldn’t scoff as much about it as she’d like; we both know I’m one of those folks who likes to hit the pool, cold or no.

She worried about the possibility of snow bound kids flooding the pool doing dangerous stunts, but open swim didn’t begin until my daughter’s shift was over.

Instead she got a constant stream of small groups of lap swimmers. The true swim devotees. I got an email from the swim team stating practice would be tonight as planned.

Do you head to the pool when everyone else is snowed in?

When I went to visit the gym with the tennis program, I asked if they had a pool. They are affiliated with the university, and gym members use their olympic sized pool for lap swimming.

I signed up on the spot.

Then I proceeded to struggle with trying to schedule pool time. Last Wednesday, I finally took the plunge. I swam 1000 and was exhausted. My 100 IM time was 10 seconds slower than the last time I swam; I was struggling during that set.

But, I must say that swimming 25 pounds lighter than last year makes a difference in my stamina. I was tired because I’ve been working out with weights, and my arms and legs were a little sore, but I didn’t have the breathing issues I’ve had when I’m heavier.

I think I’ll get back on the bi-weekly swim schedule, now that I know which day works for me.

I watched as my son stretched his arms in front of himself, like superman.

He has a ways to go.

I think I should probably ride for longer than 15 minutes next time, because in 15 minutes, I ride just under 4 miles. I’d like to do at least 5 miles, and would prefer 10. As for the swimming, I still struggle with my freestyle. I feel an increase in stamina, but I still panic about my breathing while swimming freestyle. I would like to hope I could gradually put this behind me, blah, blah, blah, but I think I will have to force this change.

The pool was crowded, so there were three of us crammed into a single lane for lap swimming. I haven’t shared lanes in a while, and I self-consciously hugged the lane lines most of the time.

I was tired, but motivated to swim better in the shared lane. This meant that I swam 900 yards total–no elementary backstroke at all. That is quite a feat for me. My daughter still tells me that my freestyle breathing is wrong. She says I move my body too much. I must have created that tick by the constant breathing drills I do.

It was good training for Masters swimming, I’m sure. I never see those folks swim 1 per lane.

But I had to work out some issues before I could see clear to go swimming again. So, today, I tagged along with my daughter when she went to work. She was a lifeguard for three hours; I thought I could swim during one of those. I was so proud going to the lifeguard to ask which lane I could swim in. No matter that the pool schedule said there’d be just one lane available for lap swim; there were actually four available lanes.

My watch is broken. The watch face is loose and sometimes it pops out altogether. I could feel the pressure of the water on my watch as I swam my first lap. I took it off after that, and looked at it after every lap. I turned on the timer before my 100 IM and quickly pressed the start button and pushed off the wall for my butterfly. I pushed myself hard for the whole IM and then pressed the button when I was done. The time read 0.00. I hadn’t pressed start properly!

I have been out of the pool long enough that today was tough for me. I feel like I’m not floating as well either. Maybe, I think wistfully, I’ve lost some of my fat. Of course I asked my daughter to analyze my stroke. My swim insecurity is relentless. She told me that I move too much during my freestyle breathing. I am currently tilting my whole body on my freestyle breathing to get maximum air. I’ll have to tone that down a bit and see how that works. I still found myself panting like a dog after my first freestyle lap.

Later on in my set I had an easier time with freestyle, but I never try to swim 100 after my warm up. There’s still so much room for improvement. But I was very glad to make it back to the pool. I swam 1000 yards and got out, shoulders a bit sore.

It was a great start to the day, and I look forward to doing this again next Saturday.

Today, the Pastor made more than a passing comment. He made a long joke about not being able to swim. He was funny, too, talking about how folks wanted to throw him in the lake at the Church Picnic, but since he couldn’t swim, he had no bones with kicking someone’s behind for trying to throw him in. He even made jokes about drowning. “I didn’t know he couldn’t swim. . . ” Everyone, including I, were laughing.

But, having read the latest drowning study, I was disturbed by the attitude that you can protect yourself from drowning by just staying out of the water. That is what makes it highly unlikely that children of non-swimmers will ever learn to swim. How are you going to use the strategy of avoiding water on yourself and not your child?

The truth is, many non-swimming parents forbid their children from taking swim lessons. I don’t think my Pastor falls in that group. But he does influence those in that group. I just wish he wouldn’t joke about something so life and death.

A few years ago, our pastor announced from the pulpit that we as a congregation need to get in shape. To do something about that, the church offered a discount on YMCA memberships. I wonder what would happen if he announced that we as a congregation need to learn to swim. He could singlehandedly reverse the Black drowning rate in our city.

Just food for thought. Maybe I should tell him. . .

I think my days of unmonitored swimming are coming to an end. I plan to sign up for Masters Swimming as soon as possible, putting myself under a swim coach for the first time ever. Who knows? Maybe nothing will change. But maybe everything will change. Maybe that will get me closer to my goal of entering a triathlon, and my secret dreams of competing. But first, I want to swim for weight loss and fitness.

This should be an interesting journey.

A few years, and two babies ago, I was in the same position of getting back into shape. I did workout videos, running, bike riding, swimming, and classes at the Y. I remember when I finally made the shift from out of shape to more in shape. Suddenly, running was easier, circuit training was fun (?!), and swimming was easier. At the time, I attributed everything to swimming. I was finally realizing my dream of being a fitness swimmer and was definitely in the honeymoon period.

Lately, I feel myself transitioning from hopelessly out of shape to in shape. It manifests in ways like I’m able to get to the ball faster in tennis, and freestyle isn’t such a chore in the pool. I feel like I am getting my cardio together. Swimming is old hat now; tennis is the ‘new thing,’ so I’m not as likely to attribute my change to swimming.

In fact, I wonder if it wasn’t just that it’s so much easier to swim, run, etc., when you’re lugging less weight around. I wonder if that wasn’t the issue all along.

That said, I had a great swim today, and I was thrilled with how much more manageable the anaerobic stuff was. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the pool was shorter than standard, based on my 100 IM time. I managed to swim 1000 yards in 45 minutes. I was on the clock because I was in the pool while my 9 year old was in a tennis lesson.

My 100 IM time of 2:48.81 was almost 2 seconds quicker than the last time I swam, despite the fact that I felt like I was moving in slow motion towards the end, breathing an extra time, and taking forever to press the stop button on my watch. . .

I look forward to more observation about swimming with less weight. Have you noticed a change in your swimming when you’ve lost weight?