I cried my first day of swim practice. Everyone kept passing me in my lane and eight-year-old me had overestimated my own swimming skills. When I climbed out of the pool, and, fighting back the tears, ran to my mom holding a dry towel, a girl who had been in the next lane and was much faster than me came over and told me I did great at my first practice. All I remember about her was that she was blonde and was born in Saudi Arabia, but it was her kindness that gave me the courage to want to go to practice again.
Growing up on the coast, both the recreation and sport of swimming were very common. It was perfect for me because it gave me an outlet to individually apply my self-competition as well as to learn to be motivated and to motivate others as a team. While my times peaked when I was 12 (also when I stopped growing) and I only swam during the fall season during high school, the experience instilled in me a skill-set that I could pass on to others.
I started teaching private and group swim lessons last summer at the city's recreational pool and this summer I'm doing the same at my home pool. Since October I've also been an assistant coach for the same competitive swim team that I swam for when I was younger. I've taught a lady in her 70s, a 14-year-old who was afraid of the deep end, screaming two-year-olds with parental separation anxiety, autistic kids and overconfident kids that venture from the pool steps with no fear. Kids with pushy parents, kids who think the deep end is too daunting for everyone except "God and Jesus" (actual quote), kids who hate goggles and kids who forget theirs every week.
The one quality that every person I have been able to work with in the water shares is the desire to learn. It is the most rewarding feeling in the world to watch the faces of these swimmers-in-training light up the first time they fully submerge their faces in the water, the first time I take my hands from their backs and they float independently, the first time they push off my knees and swim to the wall without my arms around their waists. For many, it is significant because it is first time they have accomplished something without their parents directly intervening. It teaches both of us about individual growth, dedication and just how exciting it can be to consistently set goals and then reach them.
Through the fear, the tears, the swallowed chlorine and the tan lines, the opportunity to do what I love and to pass on that knowledge to others has been incredible. Dory from "Finding Nemo" really knew what she was talking about.
