Flow like water

Over the last few months, I've been relearning how to swim. This has been both a physical and mental challenge.

Physically speaking, I've been surprised that my foundations from distance running have helped very little in swiming. This comes more than 20 years after the last time I took swimming lessons at the local YMCA, a period of high physical demand which frankly traumatized my younger self who had much less stamina than today.

Since then, I built up a better base from cross country (one season in high school and another in college) and several marathons as an adult. So it has been humbling to see that none of this helped intrinsically, and there is still much to improve in simply swimming technique:

1. Stay balanced (horizontal) in the water to minimize drag
2. Breathe without lifting my head up (which also contributes to balance)
3. Use arms more than legs for more efficient propulsion

The mental challenges are very closely related to the physical ones:

1. Relax my breathing -- while my body was physically capable of swimming with fewer breaths, I still inclined to breathing very often to quell my innate fear of the water
2. Flow with the water, don't fight it -- I'm still in the mindset of "don't drown" and have been prone to trying to take faster strokes, but that would reduce glide efficiency over the course of whole laps

These last points have felt reflective to work and life in general: it's much better to stay relaxed and understand where to go with the flow, than tighten and struggle in the face of seeming hurdles.

So as I continue my struggle in the pool, I also look forward to the continued growth that swimming brings to my adult self.