For eight years of my life, I used to be in a swimming club – which makes it sound much more grandiose than it has any right to. In reality, that means I got dragged into it at age seven, kind of liked it for a few years, and grew to dislike it the last two years. I remember joining the local swimming club, and how that conversation went. At the end of the swimming training, which isn’t all that serious anyways when you’re a kid, we earned a few minutes on the water slide. Fast-forward to when my mom asked if I’d enjoyed my time there, trying to make up her mind if I’d join this particular swimming club, I simply went, “Yeah, it was great!” still thinking of all the fun I’d had on the water slide.
I’m not going to lie, the first couple of years were great fun. For starters, it’s much more competitive than it seems at first glance. The coaches would have their training schedule all worked out, but for us, it was all about being faster than the other guy. If you could pass someone by, you felt like a god amongst men. Sometimes, someone would pass you by and ‘accidentally’ kick you in the ribs. So, you’d have to find the energy to overtake him, and do the same back. Yeah, the brochures leave that part out, don’t they?
Really, the most fun happened after the training. When I say ‘waterslide’, what I really mean is this massively long, enclosed dark-orange tube – a dark void filled with Christmas lights. They had this safety measure, a traffic light, right before you entered the tube. Of course, we all ignored it. We made a sport out of going as fast as humanly possible, trying to crash into the next guy. It’s a miracle no serious accidents ever happened (that I’m aware of anyways). Afterwards, we took a hot shower, went into the changing room and talked for an eternity.
Being there for eight years, a lot changed. People came and went, coaches included. By the time I quit, there weren’t too many boys my age left, which is probably why the atmosphere had changed for the worse. It felt like everything had become deadly serious, no laughs allowed moving forward. What remained, I found to be dreadfully boring: swim one way, swim the other way, repeat for about an hour and a half. In the meantime, I’d constantly be looking at that yellow digital clock on the wall, hoping the training was nearly over and done with.
The death blow was finding martial arts. From then on, while I still went swimming about once a week, my heart wasn’t really into it anymore. Something had to give sooner or later.
Eventually, the coaches noticed I didn’t do competitions anymore. One of the coaches, an overweight blonde woman, someone with a good sense of humour, and someone whom I liked and trusted, asked whether I’d be interested in doing competitions again. I replied that I simply preferred martials arts over swimming nowadays. No big deal to me, a massive betrayal in her eyes – her body language said as much. Afterwards, they deliberately put me in a younger age group to train with. It was their way of sending a message, and the completely wrong way of going about it: from then on, I only did the bare minimum.
At fifteen years old, things came to a head. Bob (not his real name) was coaching that day. He was an overweight, grumpy hard-ass. Blowing that whistle he always kept on him, Bob seemed more like an army drill sergeant than a swimming instructor, wearing his red club T-shirt like it was some sort of army uniform. That day, he was walking around as usual, pushing us to go faster. Meanwhile, in my head, I’d be like, “When was the last time you ever jumped into a swimming pool? The 1980s?” Standing near the edge of the pool, Bob looked at me, and decided I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough. He was probably right, but working himself up into a rage, doing his best gunnery sergeant impersonation, probably wasn’t the best way to go about it. I left early that day, and never returned again.
Looking back, the coaches certainly knew their training schedules, but they didn’t know much about basic human interaction. Here’s a kid who’s been a member of your swimming club for eight years, and, lately, he’s become demotivated. Why not go talk to him? You might find out something. Who knows, you might come up with one or two ideas to motivate him again. It might not’ve worked anyways, but, as a coach, I believe that you have the obligation to at least try. Just don’t try to be a mind reader, it usually doesn’t work out.
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet