Personal Narrative On Regional Swim

My parents tell me that I took to swimming like... a fish takes to water. It is a safe place where I can float free of worries. Driven by passion and dedication, I decided to begin swimming competitively. Competitive swimming requires an intense level of determination and discipline. Forcing myself to get out of my warm bed at 5:30 in the morning to put on a still-slightly-damp swimsuit and stand in 40-degree weather waiting for practice to start. Putting up with limited lane space and irritating swimmers who think they are faster. Making a conscious effort to work on my stroke form, turns, touches, and techniques. The water becomes a whirlpool of injuries, losses, wins, friendships, enemies, and sickness. The water becomes home.

In high school I liked to be very active. One of my favorite activities was soccer. I played numerous years before high school. While playing for the high school team, my timed mile was not where it should have been, I was so perseverant that I practiced a great deal of times. Finally I had reached my goal, but in doing so, I received many stress fractures. I was in so much pain but I refused to let it show, until I could not take the pain. The doctor said I had broke both of my legs with stress fractures and some larger fractures. He had informed me I could no longer play soccer competitively and I was not allowed to participate in any of athletic actives that year.

It was sometime around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday night in the middle of January 2016. There was a swim meet going on and it was just about to start. The teams were warming up and getting ready for the meet that was due to start in the coming hour. I was warmed up and concentrating on the race listening to music in my newly acquired platinum studio beats. The music was loud and the nerves were setting as I walked into the locker room with my friend and teammate. As we passed I said good luck to our teammate who I was racing against in the 200 free style. Then out of know were he pulled my friend to the side and whispered something in his ear. I didn’t hear what was said as I had continued to walk. My friend came over to me and I asked what he had said and he told me. He told me

Instead of focusing on the pain, I’d focus on my goals of being a leader and captain of the swim team, becoming a four year varsity swimmer, breaking a minute in butterfly, and making it to states. These goals motivate me to work harder, push through the pain, and set a good example for the team. As time progressed, I have gotten better at handling the anxiety of meets and now I barely get nervous for my events. Over the years, swim taught me a lot about myself and life. It has shown me that when you think you can’t go on you really can; all you have to do is keep pushing because the outcome is always worth it. It’s helped me with time management as I do have a lot homework during the season and very little free time to complete that homework. Swim has also made me much stronger mentally: I’ve learned how to stay positive even when everything is going wrong. It has shown me to be a leader, even when I questioned my own commitment. Swim has proven to me that I am powerful, and I can do whatever I set my mind too. My dedication to this sport has made me a much better athlete and more importantly a better

“Get up now,” My mom yelled down the hallway. “Hurry or you’ll be late!” My brother and I dreaded waking up early to swim, but we had chosen to commit. Even though I’ve competed every year since first grade, I still struggled. That summer swimming taught me to have stamina, the ability to not quit even though it was hard.

My freshman year of high school I broke the Scaphoid and growth plate in my right wrist while playing in a basketball game. I didn’t know that it was broken for two weeks and I played in three of four basketball games with my broken dominant hand. I found that is was probably broken the Monday before Christmas. On Christmas Eve I was told that I would be put in a cast for the entire Christmas break and on January 3rd we would find out if it was really broke. Sure enough we came back and told that I would have to be in a cast for six to eight weeks. I was pretty devastated and upset that I would be out for the rest of the season, it had barely begun. I was staying pretty optimistic about it because it would give me a chance to work on my weak hand, it was my left, and make it stronger. I still went to practice and worked as hard as I could hoping that the coach’s

When I was five I joined a swim team, District of Columbia Parks and Recreation (DCPR). At that time every swimmer was Black which was an anomaly even for the chocolate city. Diversity eventually came about three years later when an Asian and a Croasian swimmer joined the team. However, fact that the team was for all intensive purposes made up of Black swimmers is what made this team so special. Swimming is a predominantly white sport. It is a rare to see 95 plus member team of Black children. Of the hundreds of swim teams in our region, only two were made up of Back swimmers. As Black swimmers, we come in all genders, ages, and sizes, but the one thing we collectively hold in common is the color of our skin. We do not look nor could we begin to replicate, like the

Westfield High School swimmers practiced for one last day on January 6 before the Hoosier Crossroads Conference, which would be the following day hosted by Brownsburg and would also mark less than a month before the team’s most important meets, sectionals and state, begin.

People need self-motivation to succeed because not every problem can be solved by others, some have to be solved by oneself. When conflicts arise, individuals need to seek out the path of best fit to conquer the issue at hand. Throughout my entire childhood, I aspired to be a great swimmer. When I was a young adolescent, my favorite sport to watch during the Olympics was swimming. How could someone move so fast through the water? The extremely close races and extraordinary comebacks always excited me. I wanted experience the thrill for myself.

When I was five I joined a swim team, District of Columbia Parks and Recreation (DCPR). At that time every swimmer was Black which was an anomaly even in the chocolate city. For all intensive purposes this made up of the team so special. Swimming is a predominantly white sport. It is a rarity to see the 95 plus member team of Black children. Of the hundreds of swim teams in our region, only two were made up of Back swimmers. As Black swimmers, we come in all genders, ages, and sizes, but the one thing we collectively hold in common is the color of our skin. We do not look nor could we begin to replicate, like the stereotypical swimmer, the hipless, silky haired, bird-liked framed white maleness and females that are iconic in the sport. With

In elementary school I had stopped playing soccer because I hated running and I was unwilling to play any other sport my parents would ask me to try. Basketball and baseball seemed to have too many rules and were too complicated for me. At the end of the school year we would always get a flyer to join the Haymaker Swim Team. I hated this flyer because my mom would ask me every year to join the team and every year I said no. I was too nervous and unsure about joining a team with new people and experiences.

Cross country is a sport that can change the way people see themselves. I can only say this statement because I have been affected by this myself. During this satisfying sport I would constantly find myself lost in the moment. Not realizing how much this sport has meant to myself. Now that I have seen just about everything this sport has to offer I can relive some of the valuable life lessons that cross country has taught me.

It all started when my track coach had said “You should go out for cross country next year.” I had thought about it long and hard because I’ve never pictured myself as a runner. So thought to myself and decided that I’m not a very good volleyball player and took the chance to join cross country at the beginning of my eighth grade year. At first it was a little weird and we had to run more distance than we did in track season. We ran about 3 miles and lifted after we arrived back at the school. Of course I was sore the next day because I was not in shape and haven’t ran since the beginning of the summer. After the first practice was out of the way, I had to sit and think about what I was doing. “I have to do this every day” I thought to myself. I was thinking about dropping out because the first practice was hard enough and doing it every day made me want to give up.

By this time I had started to go through puberty and became taller which enabled me to swim faster. The morning group was full of dedicated swimmers who were crazy enough to get up every morning to go jump into a pool and practice. Of course I was no different, but during April of that season I had started to lose my motivation. I began to skip practices and gave my parents excuses, which then they told me to take it easy. After two months of periodic practices, I realized that swimming was an activity that I wanted to do and that I loved, and I decided that I would not allow myself to quit, no matter how hard it became. When the new season started, I started to push myself, trying to keep up to the faster swimmers. I became close with my team mates as people who go through pain together get closer. We started to have more fun together from going out, to having funny conversations in the locker rooms. I also began to do travel meets where we would spend a few days together, eating, sleeping, and swimming. I spent more time out of the pool with my friends and even became romantically involved with one. Now, swimming has become one of the most important things to me, it has been the activity that has the most influence on my life. From my work ethic, sleeping habits, to my choice of friends, all of them are tied to

My hands dangle in mid-air, my googles snug against the border of my eyes, my mind empty as I stare into the sea of blue before me. The announcers voice echoes over the seemingly quiet deck. The faceless voice proceeds, “On your mark,” this sent the anxiety, and butterflies through my entire body as I gripped the rigged block. As my hands rest now on this pleated surface, I think of all the time and effort I had put in just for today. I knew that if everything went smoothly, I would drop a satisfactory amount of time. “Get set,” the changeless voice declares. My body now shifts my weight to my legs, my head moves into position, and my hands grip the block so bearish that my knuckles turn white. I repeat to myself, “two hand touch, it’s a