Learning to swim at fifty-five: even the water-fearing deserve the water

The year I turned fifty-five, in the shallow end of a public pool, I swallowed my first mouthful of water in my life.

It started with a physical. The doctor looked at the report and said my knees were done with running, my heart and lungs still needed work, and swimming was the best option. I told him I couldn't swim and was afraid of water. The memory of nearly drowning in a river as a child had been sealed away for fifty years. He said, "Then start by learning not to fear the water. Get in first. We'll talk about strokes later."

My daughter signed me up for an adult beginner class. On the first day I stood at the edge looking down and my calves went soft. There were seven or eight of us, half of them around my age: people afraid of water, people with old shoulder injuries, people whose doctors had ordered them there. The coach was a young man of twenty-five, and his opening line took the weight off all of us. "This class isn't about speed," he said. "Your opponent isn't anyone here. It's the sentence 'I thought I couldn't.'"

For the first four classes I didn't dare put my head under. He didn't push. He had me walk along the wall, blow bubbles, dip my face in for one second, then two, then five. In the fifth class I opened my eyes underwater. The pattern on the pool floor swayed blue through the goggles. It was like a door opening: a man who had feared water for fifty years, seeing the light on the bottom for the first time.

Breathing was the hardest part. I choked, I panicked, I felt that lurch of my feet not finding the ground. The coach kept one hand under my back and waited for me to settle. He said something I've never forgotten: "Your heart is going fast right now, isn't it? Remember this feeling. Every time you beat it later, it will feel this real."

Three months in, I could swim twenty-five meters without stopping. The first time, I hung on the rail gasping, and a kid of seven or eight paddled past me. The coach asked the kid's father, "Guess how long ago this gentleman couldn't get into the water?" The father shook his head. "Three months."

By my first year I could swim a kilometer in one go. That autumn my daughter's family took me to the seaside. A man who hadn't dared enter the sea in fifty years swam out into it. When the salt water hit my face I was laughing in the waves. My daughter filmed me from the sand and said, "Dad, you're laughing like a kid."

What you learn at fifty-five is as new as what you learn at five. Age isn't the enemy of learning. "I can't" is.

I'm sixty-three now and swim three times a week. My knees are steady, my heart and lung numbers are all green, and most of my insomnia is gone. The coaches at the pool all know me and call me the old-timer student. For a while I worked as an assistant in the beginner class, specifically to get into the water with new students who were afraid, because I know exactly what weak calves at the poolside feel like. The line I say most often is this: "Being afraid of water isn't shameful. I was still afraid at fifty-five. What's shameful isn't the fear. It's letting the fear make your decisions. Get in. Practice handles the rest."

After a year of assisting I worked out three questions for the water-fearing, for the people standing at the edge and not moving. Are you afraid of the water, or of the feeling of drowning? Is there anyone beside you holding you up? Can you start with just putting your face in for five seconds? Most people take the first step after that. And of the ones who take it, none have quit halfway. The water's buoyancy holds up the people who finally agree to trust it.