How We Learn How to Learn, Part II

“You can’t swim,” the camp director says.

Apparently, she hasn’t heard. I’m a little legend, a regular mermaid. (Read that story: go to October 11.)

“You’re out of breath,” she says.

I am. I have just completed a quarter mile of front crawl.

“You’re afraid of the water,” she says.

Excuse me?

I have earned every Red Cross swimming card this summer camp has to offer, including junior lifesaving and advanced survival. Thanks to the latter, I can jump off an aircraft carrier without breaking my nose. Surface through a burning oil slick and swim through the flames. Remove my jeans underwater and turn them into a life preserver as deftly as a clown can turn a balloon into a dachshund. Cross a deep, fast river without getting my gun or ammo (i.e., broom and backpack) wet.

Now I am taking the entrance exam for the capstone course: senior lifesaving. I am 16. Becoming a lifeguard would upgrade me from Kitchen Girl. I like working in the kitchen, but there is something more important to consider.

There are two kinds of Cool Counselors in camp: those who play guitar and those who work the waterfront. Only one person does both: Finnegan. She is the Coolest.

I already play guitar.

The only thing standing between me and double-whammy coolness is the camp director. She lets me finish the exam before delivering the news:

You can’t swim. You’re afraid of the water.

You have good form, the camp director says, but you’re uncomfortable with it.

How can she say that? It’s true, but how can she tell?

When I do the front crawl, I can’t get a full breath. There’s not enough time. I can swim that way for quite a long distance, but I always feel like I’m drowning. Still, I have good form. So how can she tell what I’m feeling?

My body insists on moving to its own rhythm, at its own pace, she says. The intrinsic rhythm of the front crawl is quick and steady. Most swimmers conform to the rhythm of the stroke. Because my body resists, the front crawl is always a battle.

I have not been taught badly, she adds. Red Cross instructors teach the stroke as they learned it. That’s what they know, and it works for most people.

The problem is that teachers teach from their own experience--but their experience may not be your best teacher.

The standard form will work for me, the camp director says, if I do it in a way that respects my natural rhythm. Instead of fitting myself to the stroke, fit the stroke to me.

Now when I swim, I always do the front crawl. It enhances the meditative mood that swimming creates in me. I inhale on a long, slow eight-count while my left arm saunters through its orbit, exhale on ten or twelve or sixteen counts while my right arm powers through. My legs lackadaisically flutter to no particular beat. I am the slowest swimmer I know, but I can do this meditative front crawl forever.