So I’ve started swimming every day.

My primary school PE teacher, Mr Vipond, sure would be surprised.

All through primary school I was fortunate enough to attend a state school with its own pool. Remember, this was Bundaberg in the early 1980s so the pool was quite a big deal (even if it was only 12.5 metres long). How I hated that pool and the swimming lessons we had to endure in it every summer. Once a week our classroom teacher would get the afternoon off as we went to three different classes – music, library and PE. Guess which one I hated? Guess which one everyone else loved? Yes PhysEd. In summer it was swimming. In winter it was the torture of athletics, ball games and other revolting things involving mini-trampolines and somersaults. And if it was raining we got to do bush dancing. One of my favourite memories is spraining my ankle on the mini trampoline and getting a few days off school.

Back to swimming. I was no good at it. I was the child with the continual swimmers’  ear infections, spluttering about in the shallow end for way longer than everyone else. The styrofoam kick board drills were okay but when we had to start diving in and swimming lengths that just about did me in. When we had to start diving in, in our clothes, treading water and swimming lengths in order to get some ridiculous certificate my hatred of swimming grew to monstrous proportions. The only good bit was the “free swim” for the last five minutes of each lesson. Sadly, that didn’t make up for the rest of the blergh-ness.

Fortunately, at high school swimming was very optional, as was PE and after the compulsory year of it in Grade 8, physical activity and I rarely met. I never attended a swimming carnival in the whole five years and by the end I was also having the “day off” for the athletics carnival.Luckily I used to ride my bike to school most days of the week (except when I convinced my mother it was definitely going to rain and she would drive me) so I still got some exercise.

So why is it that now in (ahem) later life I have come to choose the pool as my exercise of choice? It started with a helpful physiotherapist 15 years ago. On treating my whacked  neck (which managed to lock itself on both sides at once) as well as my shoulders and back his advice was for me to get in the pool and strengthen my core. So I did. At first I could manage half a length of breastroke without drowning. Freestyle? Forget about it. That was crazy talking. But slowly I managed a full length of breastroke. Then I would grab a kick board and go up and down. And eventually I forced myself to do a lap of freestyle. I didn’t die. I managed to regulate my breathing. It took me nearly 20 years to work out to breathe out when my head was in the water instead of just continually breathing in and then wondering why I was gasping for air. Some might say I’m a slow learner. I just don’t think I was ready.

And now I love going to the pool. I don’t go in for the fancy schmancy togs. I’m not racing anywhere. I swim indoors if I can in the local 25m pool because of the harsh summer sun and my fair skin. I can’t do a tumble turn to save my life. I can only breathe on my right side. My kicking is a little bit haphazard. But I have thrown away the flippers and can get myself fairly evenly up and down the pool for up to an hour at a time.

PS. I like to think that Mr Vipond would be proud.