Fast Fish

I've joined the master's swim team. This is my first formal foray into swimming since the high school swim team more than 25 years ago!!

It's very different for me because previously I've done all of my training alone and it's very different swimming with a group of people. At my other pool, there was one person to a lane, or at most two, and very little splashing. Once, I accidentally touched someone and she looked offended and found another lane.

This group is the complete opposite. There's about six lanes to the pool and about five or so people in each lane. An older gentleman behind me tapped my feet several times when he got too close. Definitely a high-contact group. It was all I could do to keep up with the frothy kick-foam of the swimmer ahead of me. It's challenging because I'd prefer to do the drills slower than they're swimming them so that I can focus on the stroke details. I'm also weak at just about every stroke except freestyle, as I haven't really practiced these a lot in the last few months. Overall, I'm a reasonable swimmer -- and I've met my match.

I really like the challenge. They have different groups: A (fastest; longer workout), B+ and B (faster; longer workout), and C (slower; shorter workout). The first night I swam with the B group. These fishies are fast!! I was so very glad that I'd worked up to swimming 2,000 yards in close to an hour because that is what the B group seemed to do. The second night I swam with the C group, just to try it out. I was the fastest swimmer in that group. But it also seemed like a good fit because I'm only used to swimming once a week and I didn't want to suddenly double my swim yardage. So, for the next several weeks, I plan on swimming with both the B and C groups on alternating days.

I was really nervous before each practice. I worried that ... I'd suddenly forget how to swim. Or, I'd sink to the bottom of the pool. Sort of like my first job when I was worried that I'd walk into the office without any clothes on!! Each day for the first year or so, I'd check to see that I had clothes on before I walked into the office. At the pool, once I got into the water everything was fine.

Another big concern was my hearing loss. I told the coaches that I'm deaf. I felt that if the coaches provided leadership in demonstrating acceptance, than others would follow the lead. Before I joined the team, I had a strange premonition that one of the coaches would know sign language. This turned out to be true! One of the coaches is a certified perofessional interpreter. He signs really fast, and my comprehension is not that great. I have a very vague idea of what we'll be doing next, and then I try to follow along. I worried that my speechreading skills would not be that great, since I don't rely on speechreading that much now that I have the implant. This also turned out to be an unfounded worry. I was able to speechread my teammates discussing the upcoming exercise and in conversation. Not only will I be able to improve my swimming skills, I'll be able to improve my communication skills.

I was also a little worried about the cochlear implant. It looks like a hearing aid, but then there's the magnet that sticks to the side of the head over the swim cap, which is quite a different look. I decided that I was going to wear the cochlear implant around others right away so that they could get used to seeing it. This didn't seem to overtly faze anyone. I'll be trying to experiment with ways that I can get to know other people and converse with them while I have my implant on, since it's much easier to follow a conversation.

I pray that everything continues to go well.