On Swimming
Copyright 2009
I was a swimmer. Not a very good one. But I always had a liking for breaststroke (nudge nudge wink wink) and the only stroke I was good at
So there was this one time in form 4 when I had missed the house swimming trials for the yearly house gala and so had to swim a time trial at a later day after school hours, with one of the teachers. There were 2 of us swimming against each other and the clock. I do not recall who the teacher was with the stopwatch but I do remember the look on his face when I climbed out. Disbelief as he looked at me and again at his watch. Gasp! I had smashed the school record, and the provincial, and possibly the national and Olympic ? and as much as I tried to convince him that he or the stopwatch were at fault, he was totally convinced.
I was not. I was just happy I had made the house team.
I was a silent type, you see, trying not to be noticed, and quite unprepared for what greeted my arrival the next day. The news had spread like wildfire and I walked into class to a standing ovation, and had girls pointing and tittering and blushing as I walked through the corridors.
And then came the call ? The Boss wanted to see me. It would have been better having been caught bunking or smoking. At lease I would have known what was to come, but this time I was really nervous. Into the office and it?s all smiles, even from his dog. Well done! What a surprise! We never realised!
And as much as I protested (I really did, I swear) the more it seemed I was being modest.
And then came the punch line ?We have an interschool gala coming up next week and I want you to start training with the school team from tomorrow morning.?
I had never been to swimming training in my life. I had heard about it of course. All these big swimming okes, with these biceps and triceps, and shoulders and bulging chests, (come on you know who you are). The even had abs long before the term had been invented and they swam miles a day morning and evening. And they get up at 5.30 on school mornings!! Are you kidding?
But the boss had spoken, and 6 the next morning saw me at the poolside with these swimming fiends. And the coach (I?m bad with names) looks at me as some sort of upstart who had crawled from under the tundra. She got the picture ? immediately.
Then training started ?Swim 10 lengths ?freestyle?? and I kid you not, I did not know the term. When I had gone to lessons years earlier, it was called crawl, and had only recently changed. Anyway, what my brain told me was free style which meant, well, anything. So in we dived. By the time I surfaced, the okes with their biceps and triceps and shoulders and abs were already turning at the end of the pool?. So I swam breaststroke and by the time I reached the end of my lengths the okes had had a rest and were off again.
And so it went on and on and on. The most exhausting and painful morning of my life up to that point
Freestyle was breaststroke. Breaststroke was breaststroke. Butterfly flattened out was kind of breaststroke. And backstroke, well what can I say ? I swam breaststroke anyway.
And by the end of an eternity, I could hardly climb out of the pool. Or breathe. Which was when the swimming coach, who?s look of disgust and disbelief had almost turned to pity, announced that two of the main okes and I had to have a swim off (breaststroke) to see who would swim in the interschool gala that week.
Had I won, the movie would have stripped Rocky at the box office. But thankfully, I trailed I a very distant third, did not make the school team, and never trained again.
But that?s not all. There?s more ?.
The next year, matric year, when swimming season comes around, I get appointed as Weitzman house swimming captain!!!. The other main swimming okes were in other houses and I was a shoe-in for the job.
And Wetizman won the gala nogal!! Talk about poetic irony!!