Skip Ready, Set…

When I was a boy on the swim team at the YMCA, few things scared me to the degree that getting up on a diving block at a swim meet did. Even thinking about it now makes my hands moisten and my neck stiffen. Imagine, it’s a Saturday afternoon and you’re 10 and because you’re a good kid, you’ve got an immense amount of pressure on yourself to get this swim meet thing right, to do well. If the event is a 100 freestyle, we’re looking for your best time, if it’s the IM, no disqualifying in the breaststroke, and if you’re daring for the distance event, make sure you only go fast enough to ensure you’ll make it back alive. So, there you are with your performance anxiety, and you’re on a slippery deck at the deep end of the pool, next to people who are soaked, looking up at a block that is also likely soaked and very slippery, perspiring because your body doesn’t know anything better to do with its nervous system in that moment. It’s a lot of water. You imagine more than once slipping off the diving block and breaking your neck, getting tangled in the lane line with your head trapped underwater, or much worse, stumbling and looking like a fool in front of a hundred people. The heat announcement cues you to get on the block, and with your feet gripping on unreliable surface, you lean down, lace your fingers around the edge the block, and are asked to be perfectly still. 

Take your marks.

Then comes the shrill and obnoxious blast of sound signaling your turn to go. You’re off. 

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the anxiety and panic goes away quickly. It disappears when you hit the water. I often wasn’t so lucky, however, and for me, the process of letting go was a longer one. One reason I ultimately excelled in distance swimming was because I loved the moment around yard 300, 400, 425, when there’s nothing inside but: “Land this body. Survive.” Like a runner’s high, in a long distance event, you get to the point where all the other voices inside stop. The places in your body that held all that anxiety, narratives from slipping and falling on the pool deck, to make sure you make it out of here alive must cease, because your body needs you here, now, in this. 

Oh, to be needed by your own body and the privilege to have a way to meet that need. How much it brings 10 year olds, 24 year olds, 56 year olds, 105 year olds, right here. Back to the present moment. Our hearts are saying: I need you.

I’ve spent so many years of my life behind the block. Everything is slippery. Palms are sweaty. Narratives of falling to my death are lingering too long. Preemptive embarrassment is all but waiting for me that it might protect me with shame. I’ve spent many years carrying the narratives, aches, lies from behind the block with me into the first stages of the event. I want to cut to yard 300, 400, 425. 

If I could go back now and have my way, I’d go up to the official on the mic. I’d ask to borrow the mic, politely ask for 5 minutes of everyone’s time. I’d find my 10 year old self wherever I might be. Distracting myself at the food stand, playing in the locker room with friends, or stiff with foggy goggles put on too soon in the line behind the block. Once I found young Andrew, I’d lean down to myself, whisper in my ear: “It’s me, and I want to know one thing. Do you really love this?” I’m betting he’d say yes and if so, I’d pick him up, carry him to the pool edge. 

“Don’t you worry about a thing out here, how about a 500 for the hell of it? We’ve all got your back.”

“Now?” 

And I’d answer this child with an action. I’d throw him in the pool and get the crowd to cheer like hell. At the very least, I sure would. 

No getting up on the block. No extra time worrying. Not one moment more, not if I can help it. Just know this, my young friend, you are needed. Get in the water and find out. 

What if we skipped ready, set? What if we skipped take your marks? What if we threw ourselves in with too little chance for our body to hear anything but: “I need you to do this now.” 

Is the you 20 years from now throwing yourself into a pool of water, with the expectation that you swim like hell? Didn’t you see them talking to the officials, getting everything quiet and focused for you? Can’t you feel yourself being lifted up and that pinch of fear when you know you’re being thrust forward into the air? Can you see the water beneath you? Can you feel yourself crash through the surface, contorted, unprepared, suddenly hungry? More alive than you were only a moment before?  

What next?