Learning to Swim, Essay Example

Learning new skills or ideas has always been a scary experience for me. All my life, I have always admired swimmers and wished that I could learn the art myself. The thought of being in water without drowning has always amazed me. How can someone go into a bottomless end of a pool of water without drowning? That has always been my primary question. Swimming is one of the hardest things I have ever had to learn. Since I was a child, my parents always encouraged me to learn how to swim, but I always brushed that view aside because of my fear of water.

One day I decided that swimming was a great skill, which I had to learn by all means. This is because it was fun to watch people swim and the activity would form a good exercise for me since I needed a way to work out so that I could be able to keep fit. However, it did not dawn on me that swimming could increase my self-esteem and make me such a confident person.

Learning new activities has always made me uneasy; this was the same case as with my first swimming lesson. I took my time to change into my swimming costume, said a prayer in the locker room and then walked to the poolside. I stood timidly by the poolside as I waited for the swimming instructor to take me through my first swimming lesson ever. This was the biggest moment for me, and I could not let my fear of water or anything else ruin it for me. After some minutes, the swimming instructor emerged from the locker room. She smiled at me warmly and introduced herself. She then called three other ladies who had enrolled for the swimming classes to join me. I was scared initially but on knowing that the other ladies would join me in learning how to swim, I felt confident. We started the swimming lessons by doing a few warm up exercises and finally got into the shallow end of the water.

The instructor carefully took us through the swimming basics. She helped us try a few easy swimming techniques like how to breath and hold your breath in water. I was amazed to see that the other two ladies who were older than me were not embarrassed at all about not knowing how to swim. They made me feel at ease, and together we learned how to swim with the help of the instructor. After a couple of swimming classes, I had learned how to float on water. This was very encouraging. It took me several other classes to master the skills of swimming and learn various swimming styles. After a couple of weeks, I was able to do the backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle from one end of the pool to the other without difficulty. Surprisingly enough, I was even able to swim at the pool’s deep end, something I never thought I could do.

With my good swimming skills, I decided to join my school swimming team where I perfected my swimming skills and even participated in the school swimming competitions. Today, I can stand and brag about being one of the best swimmers my university has ever had. I have participated in various competitions where I have emerged triumphant. My room is full of trophies that I got from winning swimming competitions. I was missing so much before, and I am so glad I learned how to swim.