You must be wondering what Soldier, Monkey and Airplane has to do with swimming! I wondered too!

Well, this is the unorthodox way to propel forwards when floating on the back!  Think of standing like a soldier, arms straight like in attention. Then run your hands along the body, with fingers up to the armpit to look like a monkey. Then extend the arms across like an airplane. Lo and behold, I found myself gliding through the water and moving backward! What a wonderful feeling it is! While looking up at the grey sky, I repeated the instructions “soldier, monkey, airplane, soldier, monkey…”  and did my FIRST lap across the pool! I tried a few more laps and convinced myself that I was indeed beginning to make waves! Well almost!

Before we entered the water, we had watched a short video which demonstrated freestyle swimming. With the camera in all kinds of positions, the illustrations and commentary was superb. Armed with all the theoretical knowledge, I needed to translate it  into real life!

We tried another drill called “chicken drumsticks”!  This involved gliding in the water with arms tucked in. With fingers in the armpits, we tried to swim with only the arm stumps! Funny thing to try.  After we did this a few times, Mary asked us to try to swim freestyle across the pool. I tried to swim as far as I could go and then figured I had to breathe too! I tried to follow what I had seen in the video. With a few gulps of fresh air and a strong determination, I did my first freestyle swim across the pool (shy of a few meters!).  I was tired.  I attempted this a few more times but could not make it across the pool; I ran out of breath. Hopefully, I will figure out the rhythm and the technique to breathe in the next lesson. Lets see how it goes.

I feel like a little kid who has discovered to read small words!  The possibilities are endless! With the encouragement from the teaching assistants and our instructor Mary Donahue, I think the class is making big progress. More than half the class was making an attempt to swim.

I cannot wait to get back into the pool next Saturday!