This is the story of the first time I ever quit something significant. You'd think since it was the first I should have written it first, but the band story really had a much more significant impact on me. Id quit other things obviously, somethings I had put quite a lot of time into. That isn't to say this story isn't siginficant, it was the just first time the switch ever flipped. What I mean by that was I had no intention to quit swimming lessons right up until it happened, then I immediately knew I never wanted to do it again. I can't say how long it actually took but I knew before I had even left the pool that I was never coming back, and I didnt even have the slightest feeling of that when I arrived at the pool that day. Anyways enough preamble here we go.
I started taking swimming lessons when I was a young child, probably around six to eight. They had a coloured level system. Now I had done them for a few years, but I definitely quit before I was ten, and I definitely didn't start them before I was five. However I did seven different classes, so I must have done multiple in a single year, but I can't honestly remember. Anyways the first three were yellow, orange and red, they were in the small pool. After that I graduated on to the full olympic sized pool for maroon, grey, blue, and then the final colour I attempted, green.
Up until now all the classes were basically just to teach you to swim. Now that may seem obvious, but what I mean is practical swimming, the techniques most effective to move you through water in a way you are least likely to drown. Green on the other hand is now geared more on how to teach you how to endurance swim. Think olympic swimming, not at the beach swimming. To be honest I can't even remember most of what we did, but I do remember two main lessons that influenced the results more then anything else. The first of which was the deep dive.
Now this particular pool had an end for diving with a three meter board, and at that end the pool was very deep, easily thirty feet. The lesson for today would be to just swim down to the bottom and back up. It wasnt so much a lesson as just go and do it. I must have looked hesitant because the instructor then said you don't have to if you don't want to, cool I dont want to, I'm not even going to try. Was I scared? Probably, but the reason I chose not to was very clear. Even diving to the bottom of the five feet deep shallow end would give me a headache. I didn't know how or why, as an adult I now know there was/is something wrong with my sinuses. I still to this day get sinus headaches, it's just pain in my forehead at a single point directly above one of my eyes. I also use to frequently get nose bleeds, and I was probably correct in assuming they were related. In hindsight the worst part about it probably wasn't that I didn't do it, but that I didn't even try, I didn't even get in the pool.
The second lesson was the endurance swim. We had to do eight laps, with as much time as we needed, the only stipulation was that you had to use a different stroke for at least one of the eight laps. Now each lap is 100 meters, so eight of them in a row is actually quite a feat, and I doubt anyone in the classes had ever attempted to swim more than a pool length at a time. The idea behind this exercise was just to see what it felt like, and to do it casually. The point of the two different stroke rule was just to prevent everyone from doing all eight laps with the backstroke, because its just the easiest and not really a challenge to slowly back stroke the entire thing. I on the other hand did not like the backstroke at all. I didn't have goggles so with every stroke water would drip off my arms and hit me in the eyes, and it stung like hell. There was no way I was voluntarily going to do any more backstroke then I needed to. I elected to do the front stroke for the first four, a backstroke lap to take a break, then finish the last three front stroke. Now the front stroke is inherently faster than the backstroke, but I decided to really put the extra effort in and swim as fast as I could. I blew through all eight laps way faster than everyone, it wasn't even close. When I got out my instructor didn't believe I was done, they were very skeptical I had done all eight, but I counted them and I was very sure I had done them all. I stood there for another few minutes before the second person finished and the rest slowly trickled in after that. It would be easy to see why someone would think I did not complete them all, they all finished in a similar time frame and I was way ahead. Why would a ten year old try to go full Michael Phelps on their first attempt at long distance swimming? I couldn't tell you, but I did it and I never regretted it.
Finally came the last class where'd be given our final grade. There wasn't a test or anything the instructor just would call out the names of all the people that passed and they'd get their badges. When the time came for this the instructor announced that three people had failed. There wasn't even an inkling in my mind that I could have failed. I was clearly a strong swimmer, if not the strongest in the class. The names were called and gone, and mine was not called. I don't honestly remember what happened now, but I remember I decided then and there I was done with swimming for good; as I mentioned earlier, the switch had flipped. I knew how to swim, there was no practical purpose to continuing the lessons really, and I didnt know about competitive swimming or really have any interest in it.
At the time I was quite angry with my instructor, but I didn't say anything to them I just left. Initially I had though the deciding factor was that they thought I cheated at the endurance race, but it was almost certainly the dive. As an adult now I realize now that they were just a teenager and it really isn't their fault. It's almost certainly better to fail someone who won't even attempt a deep swim, something that may be required to save themselves or someone else in a drowning situation, then let them pass the course. I'm still not certain though and in hindsight I probably should have just gone and spoken to my instructor and asked them why, especially if I intended to repeat the class, but I already knew there was a 0% chance I was going to do that so why bother.
Do I regret quitting this now? Not really. In high school my school had a swim team, I had considered trying out for about 30 seconds before reaffirming my decision that I still don't care about swimming at all. I had already moved on to new sports and never looked back. In between those two events I had one last swim test. I had gone to a summer camp in middle school that had a pool day at the same swimming pool. Everyone was required to take a swimming test down the side lane of the big pool. If you made it a quarter of the way you wouldnt have to wear a life jacket, if you made it halfway you were allowed in the big pool. I was one of three people to swim the entire length of the pool. There was no need to for the test, I just wanted to see if I could still do it, and it was effortless. I haven't swam a full lap (length of the pool and back) since then, maybe it's time to get back in pool. I don't even own a bathing suit, but I can still remember a time when I did actually enjoy going to swimming lessons.
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