By Shoney

My husband started saying, “Let’s go to Belize. Let’s take a vacation.” All I could think was why? Would I enjoy that? I did go to Belize — but I didn’t go in the water.

I have wanted to learn to swim forever. I felt I was missing a piece of life. I didn’t fit in society, in the world. It seemed like everybody could swim but me. I started looking online. Maybe they would have adult swim lessons, but it was always groups — that wasn’t for me. Past instructors and, trust me, I tried everybody — every time I’d get there, it’d be “Okay, everybody, we’re going into the deep end.”

Everybody? Who? Not me, I’m not going down there. I’m not doing that.

I was even willing to go to an Arizona swim school that guarantees students will swim in five days. I thought I would do whatever it takes. Then I stumbled onto Beth on the Internet. Reading her bio, she’s such an athlete, I thought, “Oh, she doesn’t want to work with me.”  But looking at the testimonials, I knew some of those people! I’ve been here my whole life, and it gave me kind of a licensure. “I’m just like you. I can do it too. You are no different than me.”

I called Beth but it took a while to get started, which was anxiety-provoking because I thought, I’ve already made this decision, don’t make me wait another second.

The Millennium Harvest House Pool? I’ve lived here fifty years and didn’t even know it was there. I was so nervous. “Here we go again.”  I almost chickened out .

My first lesson, Beth said, “Let’s start with what you know.”

I said, “I don’t know anything.”

She said, “Let’s talk about that, surely you can blow bubbles.”

I said, “Kind of.”

We started with me sticking my face in the water and blowing bubbles. She could tell something was up.

Beth said, “It’s okay, you can cry.” So I did. She wanted to know why I was this way. I told her, when I was a kid, I had a brother who was five years older. He used to hold me under the water and wouldn’t let me up. There wasn’t an adult around. It was a public swimming pool. Everyone thought this was just a brother and sister playing in the water. He tortured me and terrified me to the point where I stopped going to the pool at a very young age. I stopped going into the water at all. It took years and years before I put my face in the water.

Instead of telling me not to be afraid, Beth said, “It’s okay to be afraid. You should be afraid if someone did that to you. It’s no wonder.”

That was a big turning point for me because Beth gave me permission to be afraid — I felt she would be there for me. She wouldn’t let anything happen. That first lesson she never took her hand off me. That’s all it took.

I don’t think anyone else in my life has really understood. My sister to this day can’t figure out why that caused me trauma. My mother never learned to swim but she won’t speak about it. My friends think I’m more of a land-lover because I didn’t grow up around lakes or ocean, but I grew up with a pool down the street.

When you tell someone that you don’t swim they think it’s by choice, or that you don’t swim like a super star. You’re not Phelps. The absolute terror around water, especially deep water — friends and family don’t get it.

After that first lesson I thought, I’ve got to go with this. I’ve been working with Beth every single week for about a year now. I can get in the water. I can swim now.

Beth worked with me in a deep pool over the summer — working on being comfortable in the deep water and understanding what it felt like. She took me to the wall and said, “Just let yourself drop down. You can hold onto the wall the whole time. I’m coming with you. I’m not going to leave you.” It was fine. There’s still fear because I haven’t learned everything. She knows that. I need to learn about treading water and what to do if you feel panicky in deep water — but I looked forward to every lesson in the deep pool. I looked forward to what I was going to do next, what could I do next? I’ve come a long way.

Practice was scary at first because I was alone. I was embarrassed. I felt like everybody was looking at the stupid old woman who couldn’t swim. I told the lifeguard, “I’m learning how to swim. I’ll be in that lane.” He said, “That’s cool. If you get scared, I’ll help you. You’ll be fine.” By talking about my fears, my embarrassment subsided. I had built this wall — thinking everyone will notice, that everyone is going to see that I’m a dork in the water. And no one cares, no one cares — they really don’t care!

This summer I was at the pool with Beth and ran into a doctor friend. She gave me a hug and wondered what I was doing. I said, “I take swim lessons.” She told me, “You know, I never learned to swim.”  I asked, “Why don’t you learn?”  Here was this accomplished doctor, who does this amazing surgery all day, and she said,” I always wanted to learn but it’s embarrassing now. I’m too old.” I said, “No, no, you’re not too old.”

If you can’t swim at least have a conversation with Beth. She’s a superstar swimmer so you might think she wouldn’t want to teach people who are glugging around in the water. But she wants to work with people like me. Beth gave me a gift that no one else has ever been able to give me.

I walk with my head higher now. Learning to swim is a huge sense of accomplishment — it means more to me than all those pieces of paper on my wall — to walk around that pool and not have an ounce of fear.

We are going to Belize again in January. This time I want to stick my face in the water and watch the little fishies and play with the starfish. In Belize there are miles and miles of shallow ocean. I can go a long way and still be in water where I can stand up. I wouldn’t even walk out in that water before. I wouldn’t even go tubing down Boulder Creek. I went tubing this summer — my husband and I had a blast. My husband said, “You are having so much fun. You are so much more relaxed since working with her. You are enjoying life more, you can enjoy so many more things now that you’ve done this.”

 

Dear Julie: Your water spirit early on told me your life would not be complete without learning to swim comfortably. I had never seen someone beam as BRIGHT as you did after every lesson! When we had to take an extended break from lessons due to my accident in 2010, I felt devastated. You were someone I definitely did not want to put on hold. Fortunately, with the help of my assistant, you continued to improve and now have a beautiful backstroke and freestyle.  ~Beth

 

 

By Shoney

I grew up on a farm in eastern Colorado. We had a well for crops. Water came out of a big pipe and went into a rocky, sandy area. That was fantastic because it was so hot in the summer.  As kids we used to go and play in it, but I never learned the art of swimming.

For a number of years my time and energy was devoted to taking care of my elderly father. After he passed away, I remember thinking there’s one thing I really want to do — I want to get comfortable in the water. I want to be able to snorkel and not have fear. Throughout the years I had built up a big wall, a tough obstacle. I needed help.

I didn’t want to do group lessons again where they all launch into the freestyle. Or I’d start off floating really well and then the rest of the class would just leave me in the dust. It was always the same thing. The instructors never gave clear directions. I called around and sent some emails and was eventually referred to Beth.

I wondered, “Is this going to be the same old thing?” But I read Beth’s profile and thought, “ Wow, she is a fifty-something woman, maybe this is what I need.” Beth’s background and accomplishments were very physical. I liked that. I kept telling myself, “I can do this.”

I arrived 45 minutes early for my first lesson. Before when I would go to the rec center to swim if I pulled into the parking lot and it was full, I would say, “The pool is going to be packed so I’m not going in.” It was a good excuse.

I went to the wrong door, the opposite end from the pool — but I kept thinking, “I need to go, I need to go. I need to be there.”

I found the locker room, got into my swimsuit, and felt like everyone was watching because I was an adult and didn’t know how to swim.

When Beth said, “Hi,” and asked me how I was feeling – immediately I thought she was a good fit for me.

Beth didn’t know at that point how great my fear was. She does a good job reading body language. I could float and swim on my back but I didn’t know what to do on the front. I could float for a couple of minutes and then I had to stand up. As we went on – being in the water face down and breathing bubbles — I was holding back. I thought I wasn’t afraid because I could put my feet down, yet I had an inclination to pull away.

I had never learned how to relax in the water. Beth could see my fear. My reaction showed her this wall of fear. She helped me overcome that. She taught me to work on relaxation, to go with the water and not just wear myself out.

I’d go to the shallow end and practice, acquainting myself with the feeling of water in different ways — under the water, having fun with it, looking at people’s legs as they were swimming or doing water aerobics. I had skipped playing in the water other than in farm ditches.

Sometimes the concept comes to me much later. I woke up one morning and thought, “You know what? My practice feels like somebody is chasing me.” Practice is not supposed to be like that. I love going to my lessons with Beth. She’s so calm and she doesn’t rush me through it — and that’s how practice should be. You are not supposed to be going crazy and trying to be a master swimmer.

I don’t know how long it took before I felt confident enough to take a lane. It was huge. I would tell the lifeguards that I was learning and ask if could they watch me.

Some days I still lock up, I’m out of sorts, so I’ll go back to blowing bubbles under water, jumping off into the five-foot area, floating face down, and turning over. I’m working on freestyle, on the breathing piece. I always finish with my trusty backstroke.

Beth has a great voice, soothing and even. I stop and think, “What did Beth tell me?” I can hear her voice. She gives you time to make a mistake, then tells you how to fix it and gives you time to fix it. I go through my body pieces to re-connect, to make myself work as one instead of Pinocchio-style. Beth taught me that.

Beth recognizes when I’m ready to do something new before I do.

After each lesson I write everything thing down to help me remember. I laugh at some of the things I used to do. No wonder I didn’t go anywhere in the water.

I always thought the door was shut, that swimming was the one thing I couldn’t do and the one thing I really wanted to do. Beth uncovered so many things, has opened so many doors — over time the little things add up to a lot. She’s done an excellent job of peeling the onion.

Learning to swim is such a breakthrough for me, such an achievement.

 

Dear Cindy: You taught me the value in having students keep a log after each swim lesson. Your diligence and dedication to your swimming continue to amaze me! You are someone who has never been comfortable in deep water, yet the pool where you swim has a 10-foot deep end. You will not let anything stop you from reaching your goal.  ~Beth

 

By Shoney

The coolest thing is last September I could barely blow bubbles and in February I did the breaststroke for two and a half hours nonstop. My wife was ecstatic!

We’d gone on trips down to Mexico and it has always kind of been a bummer, everyone else is snorkeling and I’m sitting on the beach or I’m out there in a life jacket – I wasn’t really in the water.

My wife and I used to go to Lake Powell. There were all these coves and everybody else would be jumping off the boat or cliff driving. I was the one babysitting the boat, making sure the beer was cold.

Stigma was part of the reason it took so long – I’ll be the first to admit I felt embarrassed about not being able to swim. So for me to have to go to a swimming pool and take swimming lessons – that was an embarrassment.

I wanted to learn to kayak. One of the stipulations my wife had was I had to learn to swim if I was going to kayak, despite wearing a life jacket. I had always wanted to learn so this push helped. My wife got me a kayak for my birthday, so I researched swim instructors and came across Beth. Her website said she dealt with people who had a fear of deep water. She seemed like the one. I called her up and set up lessons.

I had a bad experience when I was a little kid. I was at the public pool and somebody pushed me into the deep end – I was close enough to the edge that I could grab on but after that I always had a fear of deep water. My parents remember I’d never go to the pool when I was a kid. My mom wanted me to take lessons, I took them one semester in grade school, but it didn’t click for me.

I wasn’t nervous or scared before my lesson. Even getting in the pool, I knew it was just four feet deep, so no worries there. She tested me and found out that I wasn’t comfortable in the water. When Beth had me try to sit down under the water and blow bubbles, I completely froze up. I couldn’t blow the bubbles at all. Beth had me do a couple drills – starting out on my stomach first, just relaxing. She had me stand up, bend over, and put my head in the water a little bit and start blowing bubbles.

I’m a perfectionist. I put undue pressure on myself, trying to do everything perfectly. After my third lesson, Beth had me describe my practice time and show her what I was doing. She said, “Don’t judge yourself – let me do that. You’re harder on yourself than I am.” It has been a great learning experience to stop putting so much pressure on myself.

A lot of learning is relaxing and trying to get comfortable with the water. We’re not all built the same. We don’t all react the same in the water or have the same mobility. The greatest thing I can say about Beth is that she adapts her teaching to what people can do. Lots of times she’ll have me do a drill and I just can’t do it. I’m tight in my shoulders or something and she adjusts the drill to fit me.

Try a couple of different instructors; the biggest thing is having a connection with your instructor. What I love about Beth is she’s very free-spirited. She’s not a drill sergeant. If you yell at someone that stresses them out – she makes it about having fun. That’s important.

One of the things I had trouble with is getting the kicks down. My wife’s a swimmer – last night we went to the pool and did a couple lengths up and down the pool. I was kicking on my back and my wife was so amazed, she hadn’t seen me swim for a while and she said, “I can’t believe you did that.”

My goal right now is to get the freestyle down. Next summer, or the summer after, I’d like to do a duathlon; biking and swimming.

The more I talk to people, the more people I find who admit they can’t swim. I’ve told people, “You’re never too old to learn.” That’s the great thing, but it’s true.

I went kayaking this summer in the lake. I would have done it before, but I wouldn’t have been very comfortable.

I’ve been thinking about learning how to ski next. Born and raised here in Colorado, everybody skis here. I’m going to try it, though right now my main focus is swimming.

Swimming is a relaxing part of my life now. If I have a hard day at work, I go to the pool. The exciting thing is going to water and being able to swim!

 

Dear John: Typically, I start off a new student with learning freestyle and backstroke kicks. After having you see a physical therapist, chiropractor, and massage therapist, I concluded that I had to change tactics. The tension in your hips was not ready to release. So, I taught you breaststroke first.  In a short period of time, you were swimming for two hours! Thank you for reminding me that the student’s body comes first, not the lesson plan.  ~Beth