Reading: Learning to Swim as an Adult

When I was eight, I fell into a river near my grandmother's house. A neighbor pulled me out quickly, and I was fine, but after that day I never went into deep water again. For almost thirty years I sat on the beach with a book while my friends swam.

Last spring my company planned a team weekend at the seaside. Everyone was excited, but I felt worried. I did not want my colleagues to see that I was afraid, so I decided to take lessons. I found a beginners' class for adults at the local pool and signed up for ten Saturday mornings.

The first lesson was harder than I expected. There were seven people in the class, and I was the oldest. While the others practiced in the shallow end, I held the wall with both hands. My teacher, a patient young woman called Ms. Hoa, did not laugh. She asked me to put my face in the water for just three seconds. My heart was beating fast, but I did it.

Progress was slow. In the third week I learned to float on my back, and in the fifth week I swam across the pool for the first time, with a board. Sometimes I wanted to stop, but I had already paid for the course, and I did not want to waste the money. My classmates also started to feel like friends, and we often had coffee together after the lesson.

By the last lesson I could swim one length of the pool without any help. It was only twenty-five meters, but it felt like an ocean. At the team weekend I did not swim far, but I walked into the sea up to my chest and stayed there for ten minutes. A colleague took a photo of me, and I am smiling in it. Now I swim every Sunday morning. I am still not fast, but I am no longer afraid of the water.