I remember it still. Tumbling into the Thames, aged six, unable to swim. I
could hear the panicked screams of my friends on the bank as I bobbed up
briefly, before being sucked back into the peaceful bubbliness of the muddy
depths. I remember feeling big hands hauling me out and losing my Clarks
shoes, then being hosed down in the Barbie-pink bathroom of a stranger who
had taken pity on my sorry, sodden situation.
From then on, I approached swimming with trepidation. At school, I managed a
few widths of breaststroke, executed with my head outstretched, like a
turtle. As an adult, I splashed about in the shallows on holidays, but never
went out of my depth — and I always exited with a dry head.
Once, I did galvanise myself sufficiently to try a lesson at the Grand-Hotel
du Cap-Ferrat with Pierre Gruneberg, the renowned encourager of the rich,
famous and aqua-nervous, such as Picasso, Ralph Lauren and members of Sir
Paul McCartney’s clan. His tack? You sit, poolside, with your face in a
plastic salad bowl of water, to master the mechanics of breathing, which
helped. For a week. Then I stopped practising what he preached and went back
to holding my head high, as if I was trying to keep a cigarette lit. Proper
swimming, I believed, was for more confident water babes.
The breakthrough came on a recent holiday in the Maldives, thanks to my friend
Deb. Between her shark-ogling dives, she taught me, aged 40, to snorkel. It
took her a day just to get me to wear a mask in our plunge pool — aquaphobes
need understanding and patience before moving on to instruction on
technique. But by the end of the week (admittedly with me wearing a slim
buoyancy vest), we snorkelled, hand in hand, out to the edge of the reef,
hovering over a sheer drop. There, surrounded by fish, I made friends with
water for the first time. And got my face wet, at last.
This proved to be the catalyst to sign up for swimming lessons. My teacher
deemed it a smart move if I didn’t want to spend my life sitting on the
shore, looking after my friends’ valuables and missing out on the fun. “Show
me what you can do,” she said. I swam a width of what I thought was
reasonable breaststroke. It wasn’t. I had a screw kick (where you twist one
leg inwards), I ploughed too wide with my arms, I didn’t dip deep enough and
I wasn’t breathing correctly. But, she assured me, all that could be put
right. And it was — surprisingly rapidly.
At first, textbook breaststroke felt plain weird: the flexed frog feet,
ridiculously awkward; the small, scoopy arm movement, energy-sapping. But,
in a couple of lessons, I learnt to breathe calmly and to keep my body level
and the stroke smooth. Then it got easier. And speedier. And as I passed
others doing the turtle-neck thing, I had to resist spouting coaching tips.
Next, it was front crawl. Okay, taking that one-sided breath is tricky, but
once I had cracked it, cutting through the water was thrilling. As was
simply plunging down, flippering my feet and enjoying the wonderful mermaidy
lightness of being underwater.
“Get out of the way, love,” said a father to his child when I was in the pool
a month after my lessons began. “That girl’s a good swimmer.” I had to hide
a smug grin.
For years, I had felt embarrassed by my lack of aquatic ability, but it is not
uncommon. “In reality, it’s the norm not to swim well,” says Steve Cutt, who
runs Swim Inns’ residential courses. Admitting you are an adult nonswimmer
doesn’t come easy, though. “People often keep it hidden,” says Frank
Kennedy, the director of Swim2000, which specialises in one-to-one courses
to help real aquaphobes.
What is often forgotten is that lessons are not just for those who cannot
swim, but for anyone who doesn’t swim with ease and style. Let’s face it,
even Olympic champions are coached every day. “The truth is, the majority of
people are not great swimmers — they’re just comfortable swimming badly,”
says Cutt.
This can cause physical problems. While swimming can increase flexibility,
tone muscles and provide a great cardio workout, Steven Shaw, the author of
The Art of Swimming (Ashgrove Press £12.99), who has developed a method
based on the spine-lengthening Alexander technique, points out that you can
injure yourself if you’re not moving correctly. “Poor breaststroke can
affect the facet joints in the spine, and a screw kick can damage knees and
hips. If you do the crawl badly, you can develop shoulder problems.”
In fact, Shaw thinks there are advantages to learning to swim later in life.
“Once adult learners get over their fear, they often make the best swimmers,
because they haven’t established bad patterns. One woman I taught used to
scream when she first entered the pool. Yet, after a few weeks, someone
watching her thought she was a former competitor.”
What’s more, crushing a long-held fear of water can boost confidence on land.
Shaw has even known clients who have been motivated to change career. One
man, who was bullied at school during swimming lessons, finally got the bug
in his forties, decided to close down his business, went to university and
became an Oxford don. I can understand that — swimming is now not only my
favourite way to work out and relax, it also reminds me that I have the
capacity to change. Which is why, if you want someone on the beach to look
after your vintage Rolex, I’m no longer your woman.
WHERE TO LEARN
- To find lessons locally, visit the Swimming Teachers’ Association website
(www.sta.co.uk). Qualifications to look out for are the Full STA
Teacher’s Certificate or Level 2 Teacher qualification with the Amateur
Swimming Association (ASA).
- If you are very nervous in water, try a residential course where you will be
psychologically nurtured. One of the best is Swim2000 near Cheltenham
(01242 620950; www.swim2000.co.uk), which offers one-to-one residential
courses (and the pool to yourself) that cost £480 for two days and
nights, or £630 for three days and three nights. Equally good is Swim
Inns, near Chester (01352 781 1666; www.learn-to-swim.co.uk).
- For beginners and stroke-improvement courses, Steve Shaw holds courses at
Champneys (0870 330 0300; www.champneys.co.uk), including crawl and
butterfly programmes, from £150 for one day, and £250 overnight. He has
teachers across the UK and runs luxury swimming holidays in Egypt and
Gozo, from £1,250 (020 8446 9442; www.artofswimming.com).
