The fourth member of the workout squad showed up for swimming Saturday, and now I know why he bowed out with a feeble excuse the prior week. He's afraid of swimming. He's got a good reason to be afraid, though: he can barely swim.

Three of the four of us are grad students, and I'm almost there, so there is no shortage of teaching enthusiam. I'm the second-worst swimmer, so I let the other two take the lead in technique. By the end of the day, we had taught our inexperienced swimmer a second stroke.

Strangely, the only stroke he knew was the sidestroke. We taught him how to dog paddle, on the principle that every human being should know the doggie paddle. It is beyond me how he learned a more advanced stroke without getting the doggie paddle first.

With too many teachers, there was some discussion over the next step. We seem to have settled on breaststroke next. There are also ominous mutters on making me learn how to do the forward crawl in a way that involves less thrashing.

Downside is, I've got a terrible earache this evening, and I'm wondering if it is an infection. Tomorrow afternoon, if it's not better, I'll head to the campus health clinic. They make me buy insurance, I may as well get something out of it.

Posted by: Boviate at 09:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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