Swimming is the Best!

Today I thought I will relax and let my hair down – not that I have long hair to do that, but you know, figuratively, speaking. Went for a leisurely swim in the morning and came back refreshed, having enjoyed the cool waters in the pool. It was nice to have a hot bath thereafter, hopefully setting the blood vessels on double duty.

I reminisced the days when I learnt to swim; I was in Birmingham, UK, in 1988, for a one year study, where I managed to get a Masters in Social Sciences. The University had a lovely covered and heated pool in the campus and in a 10 days’ course on swimming, I learnt my first strokes. I just about managed to learn the basic strokes. I remember meeting a burly old man in the pool, who said, ‘Oh, you are just a kid,’ for he was 80 years and above and was strong and healthy. I wondered where will I be at that age, if at all I manage to live that long!

On return to India, I joined Bowring Institute, Bangalore, which had a swimming pool and every day during lunch hour, I used to go and practice swimming for half an hour. Don’t ask me didn’t that obstruct my office work! I was given a light posting, so there was a lot of time available, but notice that I ventured our not during the office hours but only during the free lunch hour.  

I was so desperate to learn swimming and the right breathing that goes with it, that I used to fill up a bucket with water at home and dip my face in it to breathe out into the water and lift my head up to breathe in! I never told this to anyone then, lest someone might call me a nut-case, with a few nuts loose in my brain! At this length of time it is okay. Anyway I mastered the breast stroke and continued for a few more months, before I was transferred to Mysore as Divisional Commissioner. Very close to the office there was a pool in the Hotel Star and I went for a morning swim, before the start of the office. Next day an old journalist came and told me, ‘Madam, cameramen are getting ready to capture the Divisional Commissioner in the swim suit and flash it across the local newspapers.’ Not wanting my reputation to be spoiled in the local area in that manner, I beat a hasty retreat.

There was no going back to lunch-hour swimming after that, even when I was transferred back to Bangalore after a two years’ stunt in Mysore. That was 1992, the year I lost my father to chicken-pox. Then in 2009, came the reality of a swimming pool in my colony, just within one minute walk from my house, almost after 18 years! Oh, praise the Lord, and do you think I will let go of this opportunity! To top it all, there was a full time coach, who will be in the water and teach you! I honed my breast strokes and relearned free style and floated on my back in back stroke. I even tried my hand, or should I say, body, at butterfly stroke. Wow, it was wonderful. For a few weeks, I watched every day the U tube recordings of Michael Phelps swimming postures and style to learn the nuances of swimming the right way. It was great!

It is a great pleasure to go swimming in the morning hours, which I continue to do even today, excepting during the winter months, when the water gets very cold in Bangalore. One enjoys it not just as a fun thing to do, but mainly as an exercise. Wonderful!

As I effortlessly breathe in and out while I swim, I think of the Lord, who has given me this privilege, the motivation and health to do what I really like most to do. So what are you waiting for? Go, get up and do it, not necessarily swimming, it can be anything, something which you like and enjoy. God given nature and abilities one should never miss. It is given so we enjoy and glorify His name.