Swimming
I was realtively ancient when I first learned to swim. A certain german friend seems to have deduced from polling that a large percentage of Irish adults don't know how to swim. I attribute this to ball shrinking sea temperatures, equally reductive dangerous lakes, and a pitiful lack of public swimming pools, or school-initiated classes.
In consequence, most haven't learned to swim by the time their natural instincts have been replaced by aquaphobia, myself included. I think I was 12 when I went to lessons for the first time, and freaked out entirely, ending up in the very shallow kiddy pool with a bunch of leaky toddlers. I moved soon after, to the classes of the indoubtable Mrs Smith, who lived in an old English country house close to my home, replete with indoor swimming pool. A 9ft deep swimming pool (around 3 metres). When you can't swim, 9ft goes down to Davey Jones' locker. Nessy could have lurked down there.
Her method was old school, and bullshit-free: swim over once or twice with water-wings to get some confidence, then - on the first lesson mind - she forceably removed the floats, and commanded you to swim a width of the pool, then screamed at you till you got across. Many didn't survive the abject terror of the first lesson.
I'll never forget that feeling the first time, letting go of the rope, letting go of solidity, and pushing out into "the void" - it felt dizzying, like falling, looking down from what seemed to be on high. It was all brought back to me with astounding clarity this Sunday, when I took my first tandem parachute jump - from 4000m. I've been trying to describe the experience ever since, from the shocking sight of people exiting the door and just *plummeting*, to the mind-warping experience of following them, to the bizarre relative calm after the shute opens.
And that metaphor is the best I can do. It's like the first time you venture out into deep water, before you know how to swim. Except, y'know, wow.
2.5 kilometres in 50 seconds' freefall.
50 metres per second.
180 kilometres per hour.
I highly recommend it
www.laskuvarjokerho.com
posted by delta at 12:54 a.m.
1 Comments:
Sean told me about a boy guides sort of thing he went to as a lad in Athlone--they learned boating and swimming and lifesaving. It was a bit serious and all, so Sean got little out of it besides the swimming (the scanger.....)
Maybe they take adults? Or you could shave, wear short trousers, and claim to be "all glandular".
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