Text 38090, 73 rader
Skriven 2010-05-22 19:38:40 av Nancy Backus (1:261/1381.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Michael Loo
Ärende: Re: of many things 156
==============================
-=> Quoting Michael Loo to Nancy Backus on 16 May 10  13:26:32 <=-

 NB>> Probably.  I know that my mom had said that her college required them
 NB>> to be able to swim a mile (laps in the pool, IIRC) to graduate.
 ML> A mile is quite a distance. Considering that I'm so inefficient
 ML> that each stroke probably carries me two feet, that would mean
 ML> over 2500 strokes, an arm-damaging ordeal.

It may have been in multiple sessions, but done in a specific length of
time, say a week, or teo...  It's been a while since she told me about
it... probably on the order of 40 years... as it was likely when I was
having so much trouble trying to learn in college myself.

 NB>> She was trying to get me to do the Australian crawl...
 ML> Drink two bottles of best Barossa Shiraz. Fall over. Crawl.

lol.  nice.  I was underage at the time, though... ;)  One bottle might
have done it, being totally unused to alcohol... (G)

 NB>> and I could at best do two/three strokes before having to put my feet
 NB>> back on the bottom of the pool, stand up, choke and breathe...  ;)
 ML> Don't take this wrong, but are you denser than other people?

Probably not.  See below...

 ML> When I was skinny, my equilibrium point in fresh water was
 ML> low enough that if I relied on it, most of my face, including
 ML> that greatest of miracles, the nose, would be under water.
 ML> Despite my ample fat, my bones and muscles were dense enough
 ML> that this "oh, you'll float just fine" stuff turned out false.

As it turned out, floating wasn't the problem... my face in the water
was.  Backfloat works just fine, a modified side stroke works ok,
treading water with just my feet in a slow motion works fine...  But try
anything that gets lots of water in my face, and I freeze up, panic, and
need to know where the bottom of the pool is, and that it isn't too deep
there, so as to get face dependably out of the water by standing up. 
Now that I know that the floating options can be combined with arm and
leg movement to propel, I can be over my standing depth without panic,
and can rest even in deep water by treading or floating... Just don't
ask me to put the face in water.  ;)

 ML>> I used to like putting my face in the water - now I truly detest
 ML>> it, for which there is no explanation that I can come up with.
 NB>> Some sort of acquired phobia?  Result of brain injury?  Side-effect
 NB>> of aging?  ;)
 ML> Not sure. I think but am not sure that there was no particular
 ML> stimulus to get me phobic. And I think but am not sure that it
 ML> preceded the brain injury. Aging, I doubt it, who's aging?
 ML> Now, just thinking of putting my face in the water gives me
 ML> the shivers.

I know where mine came from originally... it was a smart-alecky kid that
could swim just fine, even underwater, that thought it was great fun to
pull a non-swimmer under water by her legs, then when she comes up
sputtering, to pull her under again before she could get any air to
breathe...  I was probably 10, the smart-aleck about the same age.. it
was at a summer camp, and close to my first experience with still water.
I'd hoped to learn to swim that week, but that did it.  Even though I'm
ok getting into the water now, and swimming and all, putting my face in
still is a problem... and yes, gives me the shivers thinking about it,
too..  :>   If anything, time just has intensifed certain aspects of it.
(And I grant you, of course WE aren't aging... [g])

 ML> BONELESS LAMB WITH MUSHROOM CRUST AND LEEK PUREE

Lambs to the slaughter, eh?  :)

ttyl         neb

... Young at heart... slightly older in other places.
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