swim test

I’m 41 years old and cannot jump into a pool without giving myself a chlorine sinus rinse. One out of every 5 or 6 attempts I can correctly coordinate the blow-out-the-nose technique with my entrance into the water. 

From an early age I feared going under the water. I think my parents attempted to enroll me in swimming lessons. I remember being in a life jacket on the low dive, scream crying and going ragdoll while some poor adult struggled to chuck me into the pool. Ironically, I loved getting in the pool but kept to the shallow end or plugged my nose until my head breached the surface and I could doggy paddle to the side. 

I avoided swimming with friends as I got older because I felt embarrassed to plug my nose in front of them. My sisters and husband tried at various times to teach me, with no success.

I wanted my own kids to be confident, competent swimmers. Swim lessons were out of reach financially for us in NYC, but I found a small swim school near my parents’ house in Utah we could visit in the summers. My then 2- and 5-year-old sons got 20-minute private lessons each day of our summer visit. First, they learned survival: fall in the pool, float to your back, kick to the side and climb out. This approach worked for me because even if they couldn’t swim, they at least wouldn’t die. 

Our first morning as we flip-flopped into the pool area, we saw babies learning survival. My boys were not fans. “I’m going to die!!!” my 5-year-old, Raschkes, shouted during his first moments floating on his back alone. Our patient and reassuring teacher, Adrienne, calmly helped them push through their fears and stick with it. By the end of the two weeks, they had survival down. 

Each summer we went back but missed two years because of Covid. We finally returned the summer after my younger son, Rainer, turned 6. He could do the basic skills, though nervous and hesitant.

Bri, his teacher that summer, had just the right temperament. She connected with Rainer’s negotiator/jokester personality and gently but firmly pushed him in the right direction. His strokes improved. The very last day, she taught him the race dive. He fell in love with the race dive, competing with Raschkes over and over, diving in from the side of the pool and swimming to the other side—maybe 20 feet.

Back home in NYC at the end of the summer, our friends took us to a pool in New Jersey where they have a membership. The kids were happily playing on the slide and diving board when the lifeguard flagged Rainer to take the swim test. He was performing fine, but our friend’s daughter was hesitant on the diving board so the lifeguard flagged all the kids. His friend went back to the shallow side, but Rainer insisted he wanted to take the swim test: swimming 25 meters freestyle without stopping. 

Rainer had never gone that far. I showed him the beginning and end of the course so he understood the distance, but he was undaunted. The lifeguard was clearly skeptical about this skinny, tousled-haired ginger with a splattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks. As we walked to the far side of the pool, the lifeguard said, “He can’t dog paddle.”
“Ok,” I said.
“And he actually has to put his face in the water.”
“Yep.”
“He can’t pause and tread in the middle.”
“Got it.”

Truthfully I didn’t know whether Rainer could or couldn’t, but he really wanted to try, so I acted confident.

The lifeguard jumped in when we reached the side, expecting Rainer to follow, since kids usually start the test when they’re already  in the pool. Rainer adjusted his goggles, put one foot forward and bent to grasp the side of the wall, curling his front toes over the edge, waiting like an olympian for the pistol shot. When the lifeguard shouted, “Go!” he dove in and swam the thing in 46 seconds, taking 4 or 5 strokes to the breath. When he reached the side and popped out of the water, his red hair plastered to his head, I felt like Michael Phelps’ mom watching her son win his eighth gold in Beijing. 

Rainer entered the pool that day a typical six-year-old and left a conqueror. 

The rest of the summer, Rainer and Raschkes, tried earnestly to teach me to blow out my nose. They eased me into it by having me jump in from a step at the side of the deep end. “You got this, mom,” they said, sitting on the edge with their feet in the pool. I improved enough to blow out successfully one out of three times. 

I’m still a nose plugger but don’t care anymore who knows it. I have other strengths, I tell myself. The little screaming girl on the diving board never quite made it. But my boys. They are rock stars in the pool, and I can be proud of that.