Hey all, another long stint between posts. Now that I’ve got this monthly gig on memultisports.com I find I post less often here, as there’s a bit of overlap. Visitors of this and that site will find that old Addiction piece, spiffed up a bit with some help from David Foster Wallace. Next month you’ll get to hear me tell triathletes how to race in a criterium. Yikes.
But enough of me, let’s talk about me. Headed off to swim practice last night and Hank, our coach, says we’re going to do some sculling. Now I’ve seen people sculling before, moving about the pool like crawfish, their heads above the surface and a kickboard under their hips, hands stirring the water. I’ve never done it (in the same way that, once, I didn’t focus on using my hip flexors or shortening my stride, while running; it was easier to rely on my engine to haul along the inefficient parts of my body), choosing to focus on longer yards to make myself faster.
So we started sculling, lying on our stomachs and kicking lightly (your legs sink, otherwise). You reach far out in front of you, putting your hands right at the point where, while swimming normally, you catch the water. Keeping your hands out there, you move your arms out and then back in, swiveling your hands to present the pulling (palm) side first out and then towards the center. By slightly angling the pulling surface (towards the back), you can move forward. I don’t think this even sounds easy, so I won’t ask you if it does. In practice, it’s even harder. I’ve grown accustomed, at practice, to leading the fast lane for every set. After this first attempt I was demoted a lane and sent to the back. Hank called me a dunce. The truth is, I barely moved down the lane, resorting, at one point, to gently pushing off the bottom when I thought no one was looking. We moved through two more sculls, one a deep water scull where your hands are still in front of your shoulders but at the point where, in your normal stroke, you’d really start exerting force on the water. Standing up, you sort of look like you would if you hung your arms over a mailbox. This one was easier for me, but I noticed my left arm started getting tired quickly. The last scull mimics the finish of your stroke, where your hand brushes past your thigh on the way out of the water. This one was pretty good too, although the left arm continued to hurt.
Then we tried them one-arm-at-at-time, and I got to remember what learning to swim felt like: flailing desperately in a dangerous, alien environment, one that I could hold onto as well as the open air. My left arm, when I tired to scull with it, moved oddly back and forth, thrashing the water. Have you ever tried writing your name with your non-dominant hand? It looks like all those signatures on the portraits your mom used to hang on the fridge, when you were little. This is what I looked like in the water: a five year-old, and a big one that likes to sink, at that.
When we went back to swimming normally, I could feel the water (with both hands) as more of a medium I could grab, something on which to pull. But the left arm thing wasn’t going away, if anything, it was getting worse.
“Hank,” I asked. “Is it possible I’ve been swimming with only one arm for years? My left arm is getting really tired.”
“That’s what this drill is for,” he answered. “Better start working on those left-sided sculls.” He gave me a long, bemused look, and walked away.
I know what you’re thinking: this sounds suspiciously like working smarter, but it isn’t. I’ve been working easier all these years, just slipping my left hand through the water, the way you feather a kayak paddle to minimize resistance. Building my left side up to the smug comfort of my dominant side is going to take a long time, I think. Sometimes we’re walking the easiest path and we don’t even know it.
