Hello Folks,

Welcome to the Swimming  Edition.  Small daughter had a swimming gala yesterday. One of several she has taken part in since she returned to Scotland full time. This one was a mini meet, whatever that means. In any event it seemed to be taken very seriously. The officials looked very official and the parents looked very nervous. The kids seemed to be having fun. So that was good.

Small the Fish

Small has always loved splashing about in the water, although it doesn’t seem that long ago that she didn’t like getting her face wet. She would happily splash about in the pool, her little arm rings and float keeping her upright, under our watchful eye. But try getting her to put her face in the water. No chance. Worse still if we accidentally splashed her. She would screech like a, well, like a drowned cat. I couldn’t imagine her ever participating in a swimming gala in those days.

A five month old Small getting her toes wet.

We decided to get her swimming lessons very early on in her life. Her first swimming lesson, or at least pool lesson, happened when she was only a few months old. Subsequently, living in Qatar, a lot of our free time was spent in or around the pool, plus our house backed onto a water way. Ensuring she was comfortable in the water and able to scramble back to the side seemed like a sensible thing to do.

Two year old Small with Grandad in the pool

And doing her own thing

Progress

She seemed to be doing OK. By the age of 2 she could doggy paddle with the best of them, but still wasn’t keen on the whole getting her face wet thing. We had tears and tantrums at lessons when it was suggested she try. Then, one day it just happened. Taking me by the hand, we ran out to the pool and with an excited cry of, “Watch this daddy” she jumped in and disappeared. I confess I was a little alarmed. She seemed to be under the water for a long time. Wifey restrained me from leaping in to save her and just smiled and told me to watch. After swimming a couple of underwater lengths, Small’s grinning face surfaced, beaming from ear to ear. It appeared our little girl had turned into a fish.

Since then, she has really loved the water. She also has some talent for swimming. Don’t know where she gets it from. I swim like a brick.

Hated the Water

As a kid, I always hated the water. An opinion that hasn’t changed. When I was at school, swimming occurred on a Wednesday morning and required a short bus ride to a local municipal swimming pool. I would come up with every excuse possible to try and escape this weekly torture.

I would far rather have stayed at school, sitting in the library with a good book than have had to endure swimming and so I got quite inventive. ‘Forgetting’ my swimming things was a regular occurrence. Or, I would feign a cold bordering on pneumonia. Once, I claimed to have a rare foot infection that would cause my leg to explode, should it get wet. As for the number of verruca’s I had, courtesy of a black Sharpie pen, well, it was quite staggering.

I got away with it a few times but more often, my excuses fell on deaf ears and I was sullenly frog marched onto the bus.

Energetic

Perhaps because my heart was never in swimming, I was a terrible student. Some of my peers excelled, rather like Small daughter. They saw the weekly swimming lesson as a great way of getting out of lessons. Lessons I would have far rather been sitting in. I was the skinny dweeb, lurking at the back hoping to be ignored. I must have been a right pain.

These days, I can swim a little. Sort of. Its not pretty. It seems to consist of lots of splashing and grunting and not getting very far. It is great exercise however, as I exert so much energy, trying not to drown. I don’t need to swim for miles and miles. A few minutes trying to swim a few lengths and that’s me, totally knackered. Because of my childhood reluctance, I never learned any technique. I have no idea beyond the obvious how your arms and legs are supposed to work in tandem. But I can get by.

A New Stroke?

Wifey is quite a good swimmer, thinking about it. She and Small seem to spend a lot of time in the water together, whilst I stay dry and take photographs. Wifey has tried to teach me in the past, but has now given it up as mission impossible. One time, she got me to use Small’s float in an effort to improve my leg kicks. She demonstrated for me. Arms extended, holding the float, kick and off she went motoring down the pool. I tried next and kicked and kicked and kicked. Neither she nor I have yet figured out how, but rather than make progress to the other end of the pool, I started to go backwards? I had invented a new stroke, albeit, one that shouldn’t possibly happen?

Wifey and Small swimming with dolphins at Atlantis Dubai

In The Food Chain

My Dad couldn’t swim, and He was a sailor. He was a marine engineer on the deep water runs, often away for months and months at a time. Yet he couldn’t swim a stroke. I did ask him about this seeming discrepancy and he had a rather fatalistic answer. He reckoned, if anything were to happen out in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from land, what was the point in swimming? You were only prolonging the agony. I struggled to agree with him about this as I have always been far more of an optimist.

Where he and I did agree was around the wisdom of swimming in the ocean. When you are on a ship, you are top of the food chain. Once you are in the water, you are suddenly prey for big fish with lots of sharp teeth. I would far rather be the fisherman than the bait. Actually, there is one time when I could have qualified for an Olympic swimming medal. Wifey and I were snorkeling of the coast of Lombok in Indonesia.  She had been SCUBA diving, but that was a step too far for me.  The sea was warm, there were turtles and all kinds of beautiful little fish. It was wonderful.  Then she pointed out some nearby reef sharks, just cruising the coral.  Smallish and doubtlessly harmless, I none the less broke speed records for getting back to the boat and out of the water. Oh, how she laughed.

And the freestyle medal goes to….. I was gone.

Elgin Amateur Swimming Association

Small with her 1st medal. Abu Dhabi 2015

When we lived in Qatar and in the UAE, a lot of our time was spent in the water. Small joined a very good swimming club in Dubai and took part in a few swimming gala’s and competitions there.  Her last school in Dubai also had a great swimming pool and the weather to enjoy it.

It’s not quite the same in Scotland, or even across the UK, in terms of weather. But swimming is still a popular pastime, much to my amazement. It seems that club membership, particularly amongst children, is on the rise. There are quite literally millions of them at it.

It’s not surprising then that Small has also joined a swimming team. The Elgin Amateur Swimming Club.

The squad of EASC. Great bunch of kids

There is a great squad of kids involved in the club and the coaches are also top notch. Being amateur, they all give up their time voluntarily and need the support of the parents to make it all work. I am sure there will be something similar near to where you are. If so, check them out and do support any of their local fund raising drives. Its all in a good cause.

Dedication

I knew swim coaching was hard work and requires commitment from everyone. The swimmers, their parents and the coaches. As I am not around very often, swimming duty falls to Wifey. At least 3 times a week, Small has swim training. Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. I believe it’s the Sunday morning session that both the ladies struggle with. Up horribly early on a Sunday morning.  I can understand  why.

But it’s paying off. Thanks to some hard work, by Small and the coaches, she did really well in her meet yesterday. Three personal best times and a tally of 4 medals. Wifey and I are very proud of her. Of course, Small takes it all in her stride. She enjoys swimming and she is improving. Its early days yet, she is only 8 after all. But, for as long as she enjoys it, we will carry on encouraging her and who knows one day, those medals might be Olympic.

If so, I will of course claim all the credit and assure anyone who will listen that I taught her all I know. It’s what we Dad’s do.

Graham Wannabe, September 29th 2019.