I believe in a thing called love! Just listen to the rhythm of my heart!
On Friday I returned to my old stomping grounds; Aquarena, for the first time in more than 4 years! A swims been way overdue, I remember quitting in first year of year eleven (year 10), at the same time as Monica and Shathees who were both in my class at some stage for the last two levels.
I still recall the conversation I had with mum a week or two after I had quit:
Mum:
You used to have this V shape going…Now you look more like an “H”…
Paul’s Inner Monologue:
Thanks mum, that’s exactly the type of moral support a 16 year old needs!! *sobs*
Paul:
…Yes mum (obedient Asian boy voice)
For those that may not know, the levels for classes were roughly as follows but I have no idea what they call them these days, so feel free to correct me if you know the correct order:
Tadpole, Goldfish, Octopus, Light Salmon, Deep Salmon, Flying Fish, Eel, Tuna, Dolphin, Shark followed by Development Squad and Junior Squad, which were 1 hour sessions instead of half hour sessions.
So after Year 12 was all finished, I figured it’d be a pretty good idea to get back into swimming as I was really unfit, but then something happened to my stupid hand! It all started around the time when LOTR 2 premiered at the big screen, and I was making my way back to the cinema after leaving to go to the toilet during one of the post-battle-character-development-cool-down scenes. So picture the two doors that are at the entrance of a cinema, and instead of your usual cinema doors, these ones were 10 centimeters thick, with steel plating.
And to get back in I had to open the doors, but when I opened them, I had pulled these deceptively light doors way too fast, and to compensate I tried to stop the doors from banging into the walls, by grabbing the handle. Unfortunately for me and being the klutz I am, I completely missed the handle bar and ending up having my right hand’s wrist making contact with the edge of the steel plate resulting in this 3 centimeter gash across my wrist. In hindsight, I realize that all my efforts was probably in vain, as most likely nobody would have heard the door banging into the wall while Smeogol was screaming his lungs out at Frodo.
Now this isn’t the reason why I couldn’t swim for another year, the above incident is actually just something that happened at the same time and a convenient way for me to remember it.
The real reason why I couldn’t swim was because I had this stupid Eczema (inflamed skin) thing on my other wrist, which coincidently also resulted from a slashing of wrists incident! I still have no idea how I got the other cut, and for a few days, both wrists were bandaged and I probably looked like some dude who had just failed to take his own life.
After I took off my bandages, the cut on the left wrist had expanded into something much larger, from just a small patch on my wrist to something starting from just below my thumb to about 5 centimeters below my wrist. ARGH, lots of pain! Until then I hadn’t had eczema since I was in primary school, and for some stupid reason it wouldn’t go away even after I applied my usual cream! I decided to persist with my trusty Sigmacort for a while, until the skin became super flakey and itchy and I could barely write without irritating it. Eventually, I came to my senses and went to see my local GP, who prescribed me Elocon (0.1% Mometasone), and after a week on it, the eczema was pretty much all gone. About friggen time! DIE ECZEMA DIE!
Anyway, back to the swimming. Surprisingly, I could pull off all the strokes (including life saving backstroke and Side stroke) except for butterfly, which I’m much too unfit to do, but could still do the tumble turns, and the tricky eggbeater kick. If you’ve never heard of Lifesaving backstrokes or side stroke, they’re basically strokes used when you, surprise surprise, save people’s lives and are only taught at the squad levels, owing to them being generally unexciting and not very inspiring names to be introduced onto the competitive level I imagine.
For life saving backstroke, you lie on your back doing breast stroke kicks while flapping your arms (I assure you its much more elegant than it sounds) simultaneously with the kicks. For side stroke, you lie on your side, pulling off scissor kicks, which are an utter pain in the ass, while you have one arm extended forward the entire time, and the other arm making a pulling motion. For most people, this is probably the hardest stroke to learn, as you end up sinking most of the time if the scissor kick isn’t timed right.
The tumble turn is seen quite often on TV, there are basically 3 tumble turns, one for freestyle, one for breaststroke and butterfly, and a different one for backstroke. I’ll spare you the full explanation for those as I have a feeling this is on the verge of becoming a "rant". And the Eggbeater is basically a “hover” kick, and allows you to stay upright with your head reasonably out of the water.
I realize that I’ve left out the person that’s being rescued in the first place in both explanations for the lifesaving strokes. And frankly, I’m not too sure! But I think for both strokes, the general idea is to have the person’s head lying on your chest and your own body underneath theirs, while you have one arm wrapped around their necks, and the other performs the stroke.
So I ended up barely reaching my target of 2 kilometers that I finished in an hour, which is way below the 8-12 kilometers I used to have to do in the same amount of time for squad. I’m so damn unfit, my ears are clogged, and I have close to little or no endurance! So my “holiday resolution” for this break is to get reasonably fit before Uni resumes. An hour or two a week should easily fit into my schedule I think, and there’s definitely no excuses during holidays. We’ll see how it all works out shan’t we?
I still recall the conversation I had with mum a week or two after I had quit:
Mum:
You used to have this V shape going…Now you look more like an “H”…
Paul’s Inner Monologue:
Thanks mum, that’s exactly the type of moral support a 16 year old needs!! *sobs*
Paul:
…Yes mum (obedient Asian boy voice)
For those that may not know, the levels for classes were roughly as follows but I have no idea what they call them these days, so feel free to correct me if you know the correct order:
Tadpole, Goldfish, Octopus, Light Salmon, Deep Salmon, Flying Fish, Eel, Tuna, Dolphin, Shark followed by Development Squad and Junior Squad, which were 1 hour sessions instead of half hour sessions.
So after Year 12 was all finished, I figured it’d be a pretty good idea to get back into swimming as I was really unfit, but then something happened to my stupid hand! It all started around the time when LOTR 2 premiered at the big screen, and I was making my way back to the cinema after leaving to go to the toilet during one of the post-battle-character-development-cool-down scenes. So picture the two doors that are at the entrance of a cinema, and instead of your usual cinema doors, these ones were 10 centimeters thick, with steel plating.
And to get back in I had to open the doors, but when I opened them, I had pulled these deceptively light doors way too fast, and to compensate I tried to stop the doors from banging into the walls, by grabbing the handle. Unfortunately for me and being the klutz I am, I completely missed the handle bar and ending up having my right hand’s wrist making contact with the edge of the steel plate resulting in this 3 centimeter gash across my wrist. In hindsight, I realize that all my efforts was probably in vain, as most likely nobody would have heard the door banging into the wall while Smeogol was screaming his lungs out at Frodo.
Now this isn’t the reason why I couldn’t swim for another year, the above incident is actually just something that happened at the same time and a convenient way for me to remember it.
The real reason why I couldn’t swim was because I had this stupid Eczema (inflamed skin) thing on my other wrist, which coincidently also resulted from a slashing of wrists incident! I still have no idea how I got the other cut, and for a few days, both wrists were bandaged and I probably looked like some dude who had just failed to take his own life.
After I took off my bandages, the cut on the left wrist had expanded into something much larger, from just a small patch on my wrist to something starting from just below my thumb to about 5 centimeters below my wrist. ARGH, lots of pain! Until then I hadn’t had eczema since I was in primary school, and for some stupid reason it wouldn’t go away even after I applied my usual cream! I decided to persist with my trusty Sigmacort for a while, until the skin became super flakey and itchy and I could barely write without irritating it. Eventually, I came to my senses and went to see my local GP, who prescribed me Elocon (0.1% Mometasone), and after a week on it, the eczema was pretty much all gone. About friggen time! DIE ECZEMA DIE!
Anyway, back to the swimming. Surprisingly, I could pull off all the strokes (including life saving backstroke and Side stroke) except for butterfly, which I’m much too unfit to do, but could still do the tumble turns, and the tricky eggbeater kick. If you’ve never heard of Lifesaving backstrokes or side stroke, they’re basically strokes used when you, surprise surprise, save people’s lives and are only taught at the squad levels, owing to them being generally unexciting and not very inspiring names to be introduced onto the competitive level I imagine.
For life saving backstroke, you lie on your back doing breast stroke kicks while flapping your arms (I assure you its much more elegant than it sounds) simultaneously with the kicks. For side stroke, you lie on your side, pulling off scissor kicks, which are an utter pain in the ass, while you have one arm extended forward the entire time, and the other arm making a pulling motion. For most people, this is probably the hardest stroke to learn, as you end up sinking most of the time if the scissor kick isn’t timed right.
The tumble turn is seen quite often on TV, there are basically 3 tumble turns, one for freestyle, one for breaststroke and butterfly, and a different one for backstroke. I’ll spare you the full explanation for those as I have a feeling this is on the verge of becoming a "rant". And the Eggbeater is basically a “hover” kick, and allows you to stay upright with your head reasonably out of the water.
I realize that I’ve left out the person that’s being rescued in the first place in both explanations for the lifesaving strokes. And frankly, I’m not too sure! But I think for both strokes, the general idea is to have the person’s head lying on your chest and your own body underneath theirs, while you have one arm wrapped around their necks, and the other performs the stroke.
So I ended up barely reaching my target of 2 kilometers that I finished in an hour, which is way below the 8-12 kilometers I used to have to do in the same amount of time for squad. I’m so damn unfit, my ears are clogged, and I have close to little or no endurance! So my “holiday resolution” for this break is to get reasonably fit before Uni resumes. An hour or two a week should easily fit into my schedule I think, and there’s definitely no excuses during holidays. We’ll see how it all works out shan’t we?