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imomus
Yesterday, I swam for the first time in my life.Okay, maybe "swimming" is not the exact technical term for what I was doing. Lying back in the water of the Winter Bathing Ship, clasping a buoyant blue and yellow multi-ply polyester floatation board under my chin, and propelling myself backwards with a splashing commotion around my feet may not qualify as "swimming". But it certainly felt like an amazing new experience for me. To be mobile in water, using muscles I didn't even suspect I had... and not drown!
Type "learning to swim" into Google image search and all you'll see are images of children. But somehow I never learned to swim when I was a kid. Terrified of getting water on my face, wary of the bullying that went on in changing rooms and shower rooms at my tough boarding school, I opted out of every physical activity I possibly could, preferring to lurk upstairs in the Senior Common Room with David Bowie and T. Rex records. Even when we lived in Greece and made regular trips to Athens beach Xenia I somehow failed to learn to swim, preferring to lie on a lilo (and when I got tipped into the brine I basically just swallowed gulps of salt water and sea weed and lashed out for the shore as best I could).
So it was pretty amazing to find myself, for the first time, as a mammal suspended in water, transformed into a kind of kicking frog, an amphibian. It felt very natural to coast backwards through the water, as a naked Hisae shouted encouragements. Unfortunately, someone else was shouting. It was a member of the Badeschiff staff. "Hallo! Hallo!" (Being halloed is always bad in Germany, it's the liberal democratic Achtung!) "Can you swim?" Stupidly I answered in the negative. "Then I'm afraid you must come out immediately. This pool is 2 metres deep. Non-swimmers are not allowed."Argh! Catch 22! I can't swim, so when I try to learn I'm stopped because... I can't swim. What I should have said, clearly, was "Yes, I can swim. After a fashion, and in my own style. Actually, I was taught by otters. I have certificates of proficiency from the otters -- I reached Otter Level 6 -- but don't usually carry them with me when I'm naked."
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:50 am (UTC)You're not the only one
Date: 2006-12-07 12:23 pm (UTC)No wonder I can't swim well. And now, whenever I go swimming, concerned swimming pool staff ask me to move to the shallow end (where I usually join the children's session)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 01:08 pm (UTC)This can save your bacon with tricky crosswords.
The things we learn not to do.
The chlorine IS as offputting as self exposure with cruel peers in enforced social conditioning.
Like yourself I got notes to avoid school swimming, ending up doing amateur dramatics with the other freaks.
We know how to fake it.
In my twenties, in the laid off Thatcherite 80s, swimming was discounted to 50p a session, so I went daily, primarilly to wash, and learned the beauty of the non competitive breast stroke. Then they brought in lanes. Arghhh.
I did get to see my mate hone his skills in picking up other men though.
One day I will publish the tale of the shy penis.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 01:43 pm (UTC)Swimming is one of my absolute favorite things in the entire world. I grew up in Ramstein, Germany and remember going to the waterparks in the area a lot. I've also lived in Okinawa, Japan... Probably the most perfect place in the world for swimming. And California, too.
I've been in Massachusetts for 9 year now and I don't swim enough here because the water is frigid and there aren't any nice pools... Boo.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 03:03 pm (UTC)They say people were originally rather like amphibious mammals- that's why we are hairless and like washing and bathing in water. And then there's the theory that swimming reminds us of the womb. In short; ho for swimming. Take lessons!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 04:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 05:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 07:34 pm (UTC)I still treasure the memory of my first skinny-dipping.
seepherdchen
Date: 2006-12-07 08:09 pm (UTC)Momus, please consider earning your "seepferdchen"! After diving into the pool and swimming 25 meters, and after going under to retrieve a ring, you will be rewarded with a patch to sew onto your bathing-suit. Oops, forgot you would most likely be nude...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 08:50 pm (UTC)Sounds like a clear cut case of discrimination to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-07 11:32 pm (UTC)swimming is being human
Date: 2006-12-08 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 01:20 am (UTC)And I can't ride a bike. My Berliner friends are of course astounded and reply with "Really? I know a few people who can't *swim*, for example, but you can't ride a bike? That's a first!"
The description of you splashing and Hisae cheering is wonderful. Makes me... want to buy a bike.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 05:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 05:14 am (UTC)Except flying.
And that's hard to do unassisted.
For very long.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 09:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 09:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 09:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 11:44 am (UTC)come on in, the water's fine
Date: 2006-12-08 12:16 pm (UTC)http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1673646,00.html
and in summertime Berlin and surroundings are dotted with innumerable swimming spots where you can get your otter on!
William Thirteen
http://www.squirm.com
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 12:57 pm (UTC)"So many people saw my penis in its glass case
They recognize my penis now before my face"
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-08 01:49 pm (UTC)Now a naked Bademeister, that would make all the difference!
Swim like a fish
Date: 2006-12-09 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-10 10:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-10 10:35 pm (UTC)