Personal Narrative: Raritan Valley Community College Pool

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.

The water was an icy shock. It made my muscles tighten as I began my eight lap warm up. Focusing on my arm movements, I struggle to keep up with the others in my lane.

You’re lining up now!” You turn and look at the whiteboard, and sure enough, a big 19 is spread across the top. Although it pains you to do it, you remove your heated, comfy layer of sweats, exposing your newly formed goosebumps, and head down to the pool. When you arrive at the table, a woman checks off your name and tells you to sit in the fourth chair down. It’s only been an hour, and the woman looks as though she has been working for three days straight. You don’t recognize either of the girls sitting next to you. It turns out that the girl to your right is from Watertown, and the girl to your left is from Cortland. You strike up a conversation with the girl from Watertown, and it turns out that you have a lot in common. Gradually, the line would inch forward, and you would be stuck sitting in someone else's chair, in which they had left a pool of water in, so you resort to sitting on the very edge of the chair. About two races before your own, your coach walks by, and starts talking to you, knowing that you are very nervous. “Don’t worry about it, you will do fine! Just remember, the faster you swim, the faster you’ll be able to dry off and get warm again.” You nod and laugh shyly and continue to anxiously wait for your race.

"Swimming instruction, which in time became swimming practice, was grueling, but there was the deep pleasure of doing a stroke with increasing ease and speed" (Martell 10).

During the spring of 2015, I missed all of the time cuts to make Speedo Sectionals, forcing me to compete in a much slower meet at the end of the season. There are few things I have experienced that are more crushing than trying my hardest and falling short of my goal. Despite the heavy disappointment, I used the opportunity to harden my resolve and use my strengths to my greatest advantage. Along with my coach’s help, I used my ability to think strategically and hone my technique through focus on the smallest details from how I would approach a swim mentally to how I would warm up. My coach had many important and useful suggestions and lessons from his past experience that required me to be an active learner that could apply his information.

Even though I had swum on a relay with my lane mates at the MHSAA D1 State Championship Meet the season before, come in seventh place out of the entire state with them on that relay, and shattered the Varsity record with them, I still doubted my ability to make the required pace times. “Get ready girls, this should be a super fun set!” Our coach jokingly shouted. In my mind, I was writing my will, dedicating the set we were about to swim—which I thought was going to be my last—to my teammates, and preparing for the absolute

When the other group caught up, our arms were already tiring and we began to paddle even harder than before. As we kayaked further out, I could feel my arms getting heavier and what I wanted to do most was just give my arms a rest. But I knew that if I took a rest, our boat would be pushed off course and that it would cost me even more to get the boat back on course. So, I kept paddling, my arms lumps of lead, the pain running through them was like being branded with a hot iron. Along with paddling, I was also in charge of steering the boat which on that day, was slightly easier than staying on a bucking bull. As we got closer to our destination, imagining giving my arms gave me motivation to push myself even harder than before, speeding us towards the beach. At long last, we pulled up our kayaks on the beach and I finally put my paddle down, giving my arms a well-deserved

I opened my eyes at the bottom of the deep end and saw water swirling around me. “How in the world will I ever reach the top?” I thought. I repeated Emily’s words in my head, “You can do this, Clover, You can do this Clover, You can do this, Clover!” I did what years of swim teaching at Daland had taught me. I pushed the bottom of my feet against the bottom of the water.

This paper begins with my own existing knowledge of swimming, followed by questions that I wanted to find out in my research that were answered in my paper. It then gets into my research and what I found out while conducting my senior paper. After that is

It was a cold October day. The closer I came to the fogged up windows, the faster my heart would beat making my breath quicken. I step into the locker room to prepare for the pool. As soon as I step out the humidity hit me. I’ve been scoping out the competition for a few hours now and they are good. I say to my friend” I sure hope that I don’t have to race against them” . Then my name gets called and what do you know I have to go against a state winner and 6 more excellent swimmers. Suddenly my number gets called.”Swimmer's step up!”.My heart racing. Adrenalin pumping. Me trying to calm down so I can actually go. “ Swimmers ready?”...The whistle blows.

Stay positive, this is one of the hardest things you learn in swimming, but once you get it, you got it and it’s so easy.” “I don’t understand I’ve always been good at learning things fast and catching on really quickly to things, but I’m scared and it’s holding me back.” “Haven, trust yourself and try again.” “Okay, I can do this, trust myself.”

The piercing blare of the buzzer penetrated deep within their ears, and with a flash of light, the swimmers dove off their blocks. “The first thing that goes through my head when I dive into the water is to keep pushing myself to the best of my ability,” explained senior D.J. Beebe. “Even if I don't come in first place, I’ll know that I tried my hardest,” added Beebe. The swimmers combined their love for the sport, with each of their talents to create a dominating team. These boys not only used tremendous amounts of physical strength, but mental strength as well. “I keep myself mentally focused by counting each length I swim,” described junior Jarod Morse. “Counting the lengths helps me stay calm, and focused on winning.” It is clear this

"Half way through the 900m swim as I started doing backstroke, I couldnt help but giggle as I saw my body exposed to the sky, my post baby breasts bobbing around in the water, my child bearing hips and my legs jiggling as they kicked behind me. At that moment I felt a rush of appreciation of my body, what it has been through and what it enables me to do.”

The crash of the waves hitting the sand, the crisp scent of salt in the air, the soft grainy texture under the toes, the vast blue water stretching out in front looking endless, as I step into it ever so carefully. I descend into the refreshing water, with just a snorkel sticking above the brink. I am surrounded by neon colors of corals, fish and many other sea creatures. Encompassed by the sea life, I felt like they accepted me as one of their own as they whirled around me. The strategic way of swimming is new but life changing. Swimming amongst many other living species was difficult because you really couldn’t use your legs; if you did you could possibly disturb the life around you. Swimming without using your legs is quite difficult because you are then force to use just your arms to project yourself forward.

The next part of the training turned out to be the toughest. We were required to dive ten feet to the bottom of the pool and retrieve a ten pound weight. Once the weight was brought to the surface we were supposed to tread water for two minutes while keeping the weight above the water line. This appeared to be simple so I dived in, expecting an easy time. I had no trouble getting the weight to the surface and proceeded to tread water with a feeling of undoubtable success. But once again my anti-floating physical quality began to take effect. At one minute and thirty seconds I began to sink and within the next fifteen seconds my head was submerged and I was fighting for air. The water from the pool began flowing into my mouth with each desperate grasp for air; it felt as if an ocean were draining into my body. I remember hearing from under the water the instructor's muffled voice counting down the last ten seconds of the exercise. When it was all over I slowly made my way back to the pool's edge where I was informed by the two young girls that they had no difficulty