Everything is Practicing! How Being a Bad Swimmer Helped Me With Performance Pressure

Learning to swim as a grown-ass woman in her fifties is no joke -

or rather, it is, but it’s not meant to be - well, it might be, but it’s not funny - okay, maybe it’s a little funny, especially if you’re the lifeguard or my lap-mate, or maybe it’s just mildly concerning, like,

“Is this woman in distress, or is she just practicing her mud-wrestling-with-an-imaginary-alligator moves?”

Anyway, you get the (unfortunate) picture. It’s hard for me to pair the strokes with the breath. It’s hard to be uncomfortable getting water in your mouth and nose and still believe that you’re not going to die.

But mostly, it’s hard to learn something that you’re not immediately good at. 

Everyone else seems so accomplished - perfectly executing those pretty little twirly-underwater-things at the end of the lane so they seamlessly change directions. Why can’t I do that? And what are those fancy flippy things called anyway?

When you’re a grown-ass adult, your ego-identity is already fully formed. Your ego says, “I am a (insert descriptive qualifier here).” And flailing around like someone who just ran face first into a spider web is not one of the ways that we usually like to picture ourselves. 

So anyway, there I was, trying hard to do something new and feeling intimidated, uncoordinated, and alone. I was embarrassed that it wasn’t coming easily, and that everyone else seemed perfectly capable. And I was alone. Swimming is a solitary endeavor, and there was no one that I could turn to to make a self-deprecating joke and laugh with to take the edge off. I like to think that I love learning new things, but the truth is, I was intimidated - and frustrated. I was doing the best I could, but it was sooooo far from where I wanted to be. I noticed my body getting tight, and I was mortified as I felt tears behind my eyes. At least, I thought, I was in the pool and I could pretend it was just pool water leaking into my goggles.

The first thing I did was to get mad at myself. I told myself it was ridiculous to be upset at something like….swimming! Like, it didn’t even matter! It was just something I was learning to do for myself! 

That led me to my first discovery: my stages of stress.

When I’m performing and things aren’t going well, I do the same things I found myself doing in the pool. Cue the frustration, tightness, and teariness - then I get mad. “No one ever died from a wrong note!” I yell at myself.  (I guess you could make the argument that there are instances where swimming is life and death, but 8:00 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, in the lap pool of the local Y, with a life guard present, isn’t one of them.) 

Then, I feel sad. “If only my teacher, friend, colleague, etc. would tell me how amazing I am, then I could feel better about myself and I wouldn’t feel like this!” In the pool it was, “If only someone were here encouraging me and telling me what an amazing person I am for trying something hard and learning something new - then I’d feel better!” 

Next comes pushing the feelings down. I reason that I am a PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN for Pete’s sake, and I shouldn’t be feeling this way - that I should be so over this kind of thing. Then, I decide to stuff everything down that I don’t want to feel and deal with it later.

The problem is, everything in my body starts to get tight and fatigued from holding everything in.

This happened in the pool, too.  When you shove everything down so that you can complete a concert (or a swim practice) it allows you to finish, but everything gets hard. For me, that can mean tightness in my shoulders and throat, less control of the ends of my phrases, stilted technique, less endurance, etc. 

Back to the pool: Eventually, my mind drifted to Alexander Technique, like it often does. I started noticing how I was feeling in my body. I made a conscious effort to give myself small, easy directions to release tension. Can I get support from the ground (or water)? Can I release my shoulders a little bit? Can I lengthen my spine, allow movement with my breath, free my neck, soften my eyes? While this didn’t turn my frown completely upside down, it did allow me a very important thing.

At first, I thought it was gaining control, but now I realize that I was giving myself the support I needed to continue.

I made a deal with myself - I promised myself that I could fall apart later - maybe in the car on the way home. I would release a little bit of that emotional tension - enough to continue - and then if I was still upset on the way home, I would allow myself to do whatever I needed to do to get those pesky emotions out. I felt like this was an intentional release - not an explosion, but honoring my body and my emotions by giving myself support, acknowledging my frustration, and giving myself a specific time and space to “fall apart” later. 

And then I made a connection: what if I did this on stage? There are many times when performing is uncomfortable - both physically and emotionally.

What if next time I allow myself to intentionally release some of that discomfort - by giving myself small, easy, directions to physically release tension, thereby giving myself support. What if I acknowledge my emotional discomfort and say to my feelings, “I see you. Let’s take a little physical release now, and I will give you the space to be fully felt at a specific moment in the future.”

Once I did this, my frustration didn’t completely go away, but it was enough to finish my swim, and it allowed me to be open to support from myself and the world around me.

-Robyn

Postscript: Later, while I was in the locker room changing to go home, I met a lovely 75 year old woman who was in the lane next to me. Her swimming was fluid and consistent. She asked me if I had a good swim and I said yes, but also had to add a little laugh and disclaimer about being “so bad at this.” She told me she didn’t start swimming laps until she was 60 and encouraged me to keep trying. She gave me a smile and said I could share her lane anytime. 

The Takeaway:

There are kind people everywhere.

I didn’t need to fall apart in the car. 

I was the teensiest bit better at swimming today.

I was able to talk about this experience with my AT student later that morning.

I was able to solidify the experience more by writing this post.

I have a new experiment to try when I’m next onstage.

And that is how being a bad swimmer helped me with performance pressure.