Learner Dad: My sad old breaststroke is just one step up from the doggy paddle

Picture: iStock 

“Is your child a better swimmer than you?”, asks the ad on the way into my kids’ swimming lessons.

The advertisement is for adult swimming lessons and I could do with signing up. Because the answer to that is yes, they probably are.

I say probably because I haven’t seen my kids in the water for a while. My wife does the swimming run on a Wednesday, helping them into their swimwear when they get home from school and driving them 40 minutes so they can learn to be a better swimmer than their old man.

I think they might already be there. Over breakfast this morning, my son was showing me how he times his breathing between overarm strokes, now that he’s swimming in the deep end. I think it might be called the front crawl these days, but it was overarm when I was failing to learn it properly back in the day, and I can be slow to change.

Anyway, long story short, my seven-year-old son can do the overarm and I can’t. I’m delighted for him, but that leaves me doing the breaststroke. I like the breaststroke, it’s a nice sedate way to swim, but it takes ages to get anywhere. And it doesn’t look as good as the overarm.

I love watching good overarmers, with their slow, confident rhythm as they glide through the water. My guess is that they look down on someone like me, with my sad old breaststroke, which we all know is just one step up from the doggy paddle.

I could do with upping my swimming game. Particularly now that we live about five minutes from a decent beach. Anytime we’re down there for a walk, there are at least two or three people (usually women) plunging into the icy sea. 

Sea swimming in January is probably outlawed by the UN Convention on Cruel and Unusual Punishment, but this lot always look really pleased with themselves.

And so they should. My wife and I used to go body-boarding in all-weather before the kids came along and stole our freedom (it can feel like that sometimes). The few minutes of cruel cold is nothing compared to the all-day glow you get when you come out of the water. There is just something about the sea.

So, it’s time to join the sea-swimming crowd. If I can get started at all, I know I’m going to love it.

I’ll need a dry robe. I don’t know what people have against them. It’s almost like there is something un-Irish about being warm and comfortable when you get out of the sea. The true Gael should pat himself dry with an old towel, while almost shivering to death, before making a fool of himself trying to change back into his underwear. Enough of that – I’m getting a dry robe.

And I’ll learn to do the overarm. I might even call it the front crawl in front of my new swimming buddies because you don’t want to look like an eejit. The breaststroke is grand for piddling around a pool, but there is a lot more exercise and good vigorous vibes to be had from a proper overarm in the sea.

I’ll probably wait a bit though. I reckon those women swimming near us in mid January might be from the extremist wing of the sea-swimming crowd. When I mentioned I was going to take it up to a sea-swimming fanatic friend last week, she said “I wouldn’t start now”.

So let’s see if I can get going in late March. The air and sea temperature should be up a few degrees by then. It should give me enough time to get at least a bit competent before we go to France on

holidays in late June, and I can stay in a bit longer because the Mediterranean feels like a warm bath when you’re used to getting down in the Atlantic.

The only thing I need to do now is to find someone to show me how to do the overarm. I suppose I could always ask my son.