Swimming lesson- Part ll

So last night I had my 2nd swimming lesson and lets just say it didn't go quite as smoothly as the first. Leaving a wk in between lessons is prob not the best idea anyway but hey, thems the breaks. I thought I may have forgotten everything I learned the previous week but once again kitted out in my ultra flattering (!?!?!) swimming gear, (I replaced the black swimming cap which made my Roy Orbison look complete to a nice pink one... i now look like Moby), I took the plunge. The first problem last night was that Aqua Aerobics had taken over "my" lane (and lets just state they could of used the bigger lane, what? the moves were big!)so I was stuck in the main area of the pool with what looked like, people training for flippin Olympic Gold. But I reckon they, at seeing the learner, (ya can't miss me, I'll be the one with the illuminious yellow tube around me) struggling to even keep my head above water, got some kick out of gliding past me at speed- f*****s!! As we all learned from last week I already have a problem with my direction, and having someone flying past you and creating serious waves doesn't help, so once again last night I spent most of the time banging into the wall. And when learning the breast stroke and having to move my legs like a frog, having a wall in the way proves pretty painful. But I'm going way ahead. First off we practised my breathing under water, this is bloody hard. I ended up swallowing so much water I honestly thought I was gonna start sinking. When I thought I had this down, Lisa (my instructor) introduced some arm movements (she may be trying to kill me!). Now I'm a woman so multi-tasking is second nature to me but this was taking the p**s. Kick my legs, exhale into the water and move my right arm up and around, while holding onto the board with my left hand. Works in theory. In reality, I kicked my legs and took off, exhaled into the water, moved my arm in the swimming motion but everytime I moved my arm my legs automatically stopped working, I started panicking, swallowed a load of water and crashed into the wall!!

Also at this point I had just noticed a steam room full of people right in front of me which I had failed to notice before, no doubt having a great laugh at my expense and taking bets on whether I would actually come out of this lesson alive. Eventually I did find some sort of co-ordination (divine guidance) and either stopped swallowing water or had swallowed so much clorine it had cut off my sense of taste completely- (note to self, check can Chlorine kill)

At this point we moved on to the breast stroke , which I managed to master quite quickly even ditching the hand board and working both arms and legs (ok so I had the yellow tube around me). Once again my instructor was full of praise, which at this point I'm starting to think may be a confidence building ploy as opposed to actual truth- and now that I think about it that steam room was awfully full by the end of my lesson- word must have gotten out- "roll up, roll up, watch the freak in the water, crash, flail and ingest her weight in water".


If I see someone selling popcorn next week I'm quitting!!