Learning to Swim
/What would be possible, if you embraced being a beginner?
Naomi Mellor (photo by Naomi Mellor)
“I didn’t want to be ... starting from the beginning with something that seemed so simple. Swimming, to me, was like riding a bike or learning to drive. It was a rite of passage for young people, not adults.”
Season 4 // Episode 7
Learning something new as an adult can be daunting, especially when it’s something that a lot of people have been doing since childhood.
On this episode, Naomi Mellor takes us from a beach in Australia to an archipelago in the UK and explores how she got past her fears and pushed herself to take a big plunge.
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Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.
VOICEOVER: Hub and Spoke audio collective.
WILLOW: To start things off today, I’d like to give a big thankyou to our presenting sponsor. This is a company that’s been with us all season — and in fact, they’ve been supporting Out There for years. Which means a lot. That kind of loyalty is so, so helpful to a little podcast like us.
The sponsor in question is PeakVisor. PeakVisor is an app that helps you make the most of your time in the mountains. You can use their 3-D maps to plan out hikes. Once you’re out on adventures, their peak identification feature is great for figuring out what you’re looking at. And after the fact, you can keep track of your accomplishments with their peak-bagging feature.
PeakVisor has information on more than a million summits all over the world, so basically, wherever you’re headed, they’ve got you covered. And in case you’re wondering, the app does work even in places where there’s no reception.
If you’d like your own personal mountain guide, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.
Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.
This is our last episode of the season. After this, we’re going to take a break for a while. My whole team has worked really, really hard this past year. And we need some time to recharge.
So we’re going to take some time off. Like OFF off. As in, no email, no phone calls, no work — just down time.
After Labor Day, I’ll start mapping out our next season. I don’t yet know when that will launch. But I do hope to release some bonus episodes this fall-slash-winter, while we’re working on producing the next season. So stay tuned for all of that.
And now, on to our story for today.
This story is about learning something new as an adult. It’s about being a beginner. Which can honestly be pretty daunting. It’s scary to start from scratch. Especially when the thing you’re trying to learn is something that a lot of people have been doing since childhood.
So how do you get past all that? How do you push through the fear and motivate yourself to take a big plunge — both literally and metaphorically? And is it really worth it?
Naomi Mellor has the story.
NAOMI MELLOR: It might start with a buzzing in your head. Or just a feeling that something is coming, a dark, looming feeling on the horizon. There might be an aura, with flashes of light around the periphery of your vision. You may feel dizzy and nauseous, occasionally actually vomiting on a really bad day.
And then it starts. The pounding, like wave after wave crashing onto a shore. The unrelenting pressure in your head that feels like someone is slowly and ever-so-painfully crushing your skull with both hands, whilst simultaneously stabbing around in your brain with a sharp dagger. All light is blinding. Everything is just too bright, too insistent, too loud, too much.
All that most people can manage in this moment is to lie in a dark room and endure. You’re waiting for the wave to pass.
As a child, migraines such as these were commonplace for me. Memories of a cold flannel on my forehead, of my mum’s cool hands and her murmuring, soothing voice, of curtains drawn against the daylight in summer. These loom large when I think back to these times.
And the primary trigger for my migraines as a kid? It was swimming.
I know, right? As a nature-loving, sports-mad, adventure-seeking little girl, I wanted to like swimming. I wanted to cruise up and down the pool like the adults and older children I saw, to make it look effortless and easy, and most of all, to enjoy it the way other kids seemed to. Instead, I hated every minute. I argued with my parents about going swimming. And each lesson ended with me feeling physically spent, like a wrung-out wet rag, struggling to breathe, and with the inevitable migraine on the horizon.
By age 11, I gave up altogether.
And yet.
Throughout adulthood my failure to be even a half-competent swimmer niggled away at me.
To be clear, I could keep myself afloat of a fashion. I vaguely understood the mechanics and methodology. But attempting it was…well, as one teacher dryly observed, like “watching a giraffe go swimming.” My body and limbs were technically present in the pool but were by no means coordinated. I flailed and spluttered, floundered and gasped, and felt like I was drowning after just a few meters.
Living in Australia in my early twenties, friends and boyfriends swam at the beach whilst I read books or ran along the sand.
Each year, they trained for and completed a famous swim race, reveling in their achievement whilst I celebrated their success from the support boat, feeling a part of things and yet not a part of things either.
It wasn’t that I avoided the water completely. My housemate and I went to the beach most days post-work in summer, walking, chatting, enjoying a beer, or messing about in the shallows. But I always stayed right by the shore, where I could touch bottom.
Then, on one of these evenings, a Tuesday of no particular note, things were thrown into sharp relief.
Like so many moments in the outdoors, it began with one small, ill-judged decision.
That evening I was alone. I mostly just walked in these situations, enjoying the long stretch of emptiness which allowed me to calm my mind and unwind. But it was hot — very hot — that day, and I had a bikini with me, so I opted for a little swim.
We knew about the currents at this beach and the propensity for significant swells. The waves are often big, hence it’s an area renowned for surfing. But on that day, the sea was calm, and all looked well. The water was cool and welcoming, and I floated on my back, very near to the shore, looking up at the vivid blue, cloudless sky, bobbing around in the waves as they came into the beach and thinking about the day gone by.
Ready to head home, I reached down with my toes, feeling for the sandy ocean floor to wade in. But my toes couldn’t touch down. I was out of my depth. And looking up, the beach seemed all of a sudden much, much further away than I had thought.
I felt the grip of panic clutch at my chest. Somehow, I was drifting out towards the back of the surf break. The swell was stronger out here, and I started to be tossed around a little. A few waves broke over my head. I tried to head for the shore in the strongest fashion that I could, but I wasn’t going anywhere and I was rapidly running out of energy.
I stopped for a moment and treaded water to assess where I was. Roughly in the same position as I was previously.
Another wave over my head. The sharp bite of sea water in my throat. The rush of noise in my ears as the ocean was turning over. This was my first experience of its true power, and I was terrified. I had no control.
Another couple of minutes went by. Breaths became gasps. Muscles were burning. Arms were flailing. It doesn’t take long when you’re trying hard and going nowhere to become very tired in the ocean.
All I could see were sets of waves rolling towards me, ready to break over my head, and my rising sense of fear created a tightness in my throat that I’d never experienced before. How the hell was I going to get out of this mess?
The negative thoughts crowding into my brain were interrupted by a voice at that moment. It wasn’t God, or an angel. It was a young blonde haired surfer.
“You need a hand?” Those were the only words he uttered before hauling me up onto his board, hopping off the back, and effortlessly riding multiple consecutive waves to land me onto the beach.
I sat there on the sand, eyes shut, coughing. By the time I found my voice and muttered a thank you, he’d gone, surfboard under his arm, dashing back into the white water and diving under a wave.
I was lucky. But the experience left me bruised and chastened. The ocean had shown me her dark side. For the first time in my life I had been genuinely scared I might drown.
But I was so embarrassed that this had happened to me. I was ashamed I’d been stupid enough to go swimming alone. So I told precisely no one about my frightening experience, not even my boyfriend at the time. I simply backed away from the ocean.
Deep down, I knew I needed to address my lack of capabilities. I’d had a major wake up call, and I really wanted to do something about it. I wanted to feel at ease in the water, to be a confident swimmer, to know that I could cope out of my depth without the clutches of dread grasping at me.
But I was frozen and just couldn’t get started. I was standing in my own way, which is strange, because I am someone with an innate love of the outdoors, and an even bigger love of a physical challenge. I’ve run an ultramarathon, but for some reason, I could not convince myself to learn to become a competent swimmer.
The reality was that I didn’t want to be seen to be starting from the beginning with something that seemed so simple. Swimming to me was like riding a bike, or learning to drive. It was a rite of passage for young people, not adults. I couldn’t imagine telling people that I was learning from scratch. That would be mortifying! And the longer I left it without grasping the nettle, the larger the mental block became.
The following year I left Australia, returning home to the UK after several years away. Swimming wasn’t embedded into the fabric of daily life in England the way it is in Australia, mostly because the weather is, well, inclement at best a lot of the time. The water is cold here, and whilst the sun sometimes shines in summer, that’s unpredictable to say the least. I mean, come on. You all know we Brits love to talk about the weather all the time, mainly because we’re jealous of everyone else’s long lazy summers basking on the beach.
I ran, and cycled, and hiked, and practiced yoga, and life went on. Until that is, an unexpected moment occurred.
It happened over a cup of tea.
My closest colleague at that time was a woman named Katie, who is one of the kindest, most focused and capable individuals I have ever met. She’s a highly intelligent and empathetic veterinarian, beloved by her clients and their animals, a woman who had ridden horses to a high level previously, and she was looking to get fit.
One morning, she asked me whether I’d consider a triathlon.
“No”, I replied, “I’m just not sure it’s for me.” I left it at that, I didn’t want to go into details. “How about you?” I asked.
She sighed and said, “Well, I fancy it. But I can’t swim.”
She said it so simply, with no apparent embarrassment whatsoever.
How did I not know this? Standing in front of me was this brilliant, capable woman telling me that she couldn’t really swim either. I felt ashamed at my own lack of transparency, the fact that I’d never had the guts to be so straightforwardly honest with other people, that I’d hidden my ineptitude beneath excuses about being on my period, having forgotten my swimsuit or heading out for a run instead because “I needed the miles under my belt.” How ridiculous that seemed now.
“I mean, I vaguely know the theory,” she said, “I sort of learnt as a child. But I can’t swim a length in the pool, and I don’t like being out of my depth.”
What? This was exactly the same as me! A kindred spirit in the crappy-swimmer stakes!
Words spilled out of me as I found my voice and described how similar my situation was, how I was in the same boat, that although my brain knew what it perhaps ought to do, my body had never performed the movements enough to normalize them for my limbs. The panic and extreme exhaustion that swimming induced. And the migraines. Oh, the migraines.
We commiserated with one another about having kept this secret bottled up inside for so long. We shared the shame we felt about being in our thirties and not being able to do something that a lot of kids could do pretty competently, and we laughed at our own ridiculousness. We gently unpicked the fact that what actually underpinned our reservations about learning something new was a fear of failure. What if we tried to learn, and we were no good at it?
And that was the moment. It was so simple. There was no great fanfare, just a cup of tea in a quiet moment, and two friends realizing they were in the same boat.
Just before she left, I blurted it out. “Do you want to find a teacher and learn together?” Katie smiled, and said, “Why not. Let’s do it.”
What struck me about this moment was that failures aren’t so embarrassing if other people are experiencing them too. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to share this story: to remind others that there are lots of people out there who can’t do the things that you expect that they can, and when we share our vulnerabilities with others, it’s amazing how many you’ll find in the same boat. Katie had been open and shown her vulnerability to another person. I, in turn, had bared mine right back.
There was something about that shared moment, and the prospect of the shared experience of learning that made the idea of taking swimming lessons seem much less daunting, a shared power between us as it were. The apprehension was still there, but I had a buddy to keep me accountable, to make sure I turned up, and in whom I could confide.
And contrary to my expectations, it was fun.
We found a patient, empathetic teacher named Kathy, who listened carefully to each of us, digesting our individual stories. She acknowledged our fears, and told us that none of what we said was particularly uncommon, because actually, a lot of people can’t swim the length of a pool.
To start with, she asked us to just swim — to do what we could, for as far as we could. That way she’d know what she was working with, or, to be more precise, what she wasn’t working with.
I attempted a few strokes of front crawl, then surfaced, spluttering and gasping. My feet pedaled, toes searching for the floor, and I stood up, relieved that the pool was standing depth throughout its length.
“OK,” she said. “Let’s begin.”
By the end of that first lesson, for the first time in my life, I was hopeful about swimming. I started to think that there might be a time when, with a good deal of practice, I might actually enjoy it.
Adding to the optimism was the fact that Kathy had a theory about my migraines. She suspected my breathing, or lack thereof, might be the trigger. Due to my poor coordination, I didn’t breathe well enough or often enough, and my short inefficient gasps might be leading to lower oxygen delivery to my brain.
Now that we thought we had an explanation, the breathing practice began.
Kathy had me doing all sorts of drills with floats, and paddles, and fins, and strange pieces of apparatus I’d never seen or heard of before. I learned to turn my head properly, to keep my ear on the surface of the water and to take powerful, efficient breaths to re-oxygenate myself effectively.
Kathy was kind and understanding, but that didn’t mean she didn’t push us. She did. Every session was so tiring, but slowly, gradually, week by week, I improved.
I started to be able to coordinate my head, my arms and my legs into something that looked vaguely like a recognizable stroke. First, I managed a length, with a decent rest when I got there. Then I could swim two lengths, then four. There were headaches, yes, but nothing unmanageable. I felt tired, yes, but not a crushing tiredness I couldn’t cope with.
It was so hard, but it felt worth every ounce of the effort. If you love sports, you’ll understand the rush of endorphins — that “good” tiredness that comes after enjoyable exertion. And I swelled with pride each time I touched the end of the pool and turned to go again. The tide was turning gradually, and my confidence turned with it. The water had become a haven, a place where I was alone below the surface, away from my smartphone and people talking to me.
But although I had become comfortable in the pool, I still felt a sense of dread at the vast wildness of the ocean. The whole point of learning to swim was to feel capable out in open water. And I yearned to be outside, to be swimming in nature. Achieving “success” for me was to see the sky as I swam, to feel the tingle of salt in my throat, and to swim out the back of the surf break without being paralyzed by fear. I wanted to tame the beast that had terrified me so thoroughly that day in Australia.
And then I discovered Ötillö, and the sport of swimrun.
Ö-till-ö translates as “island to island” in Swedish. This sport is about adventure and being in nature. In a swimrun race you swim, then run, then swim a bit more and run a bit more, getting in and out of the water up to 40 or more times. Everything you wear you carry throughout the race, meaning you swim in your trainers and run in your wetsuit, which, quite honestly, makes you look a bit strange when training alone on the edge of London. It’s a friendly, inclusive sport, where everyone is welcomed and encouraged, and the emphasis is on the journey, not the time it takes you.
There are good swimmers and good runners, and people new to both. There are old people, young people and others in between, and there’s a rainbow of nationalities at every race. The events are held in some of the most beautiful corners of the world, in national parks, archipelagos of islands and remote stretches of coastline. The events embrace the wildness and unpredictability of nature and often include technical trails and bits of bouldering. Ötillö was founded by Swedes, and everyone’s a little bit bonkers. It sounded right up my street.
I knew that completing a race would be a chance for me to prove to myself that I could conquer the ocean, once and for all. I set my sights on a solo race in the Isles of Scilly, a stunning group of islands off the coast of Cornwall. If I was going to challenge myself in the sea, it might as well be in a beautiful place.
Then I had to pick how long a race I wanted to do. The World Series category had 30 km of running — no problem, I thought — and 8 km of swimming. Ah. That was far too much. The middle distance option entailed 13 km of running and just under 3 km in the open water, which I decided was realistic but sufficiently ambitious. I signed up.
In preparation, I started swimming at our local lake several times a week, against a backdrop of pink early-summer skies. The ducks swam alongside me, and weeping willows bowed to the water on the shores of the lake, casting dappled shadows across the surface. It was bliss, and for the first time, I started to feel at one with the water. Smooth. Strong. In flow. Connected to nature. I was still overtaken by other swimmers very regularly, but who cared? I was a swimmer too, and it didn’t matter how fast or otherwise I was. I belonged.
The day of the race neared in June, and we traveled down to the Isles of Scilly in high spirits.
But the day of the race dawned wild. It was so windy, with gray clouds scudding across the sky, and a big swell in the sea. The waves looked brutal, the ocean was unleashing the power that I knew she held. Familiar feelings of fear niggled at my insides.
There were mutterings and rumors about whether things would go ahead, which only served to heighten my nerves. But the safety crews were in place, and after a few minor course amendments, we began.
The gun went, and the pack set off. First run, check. Into the water. First swim.
It was cold, and I was enveloped in a maelstrom of arms and legs. In the confusion I headed in the wrong direction, subsequently swimming far further than I needed to. I was having trouble sighting, and failing to employ the skills I had assiduously honed over months of practice. Dammit. I was flailing. Why had I thought this was a good idea? I was in the sea, miles from home, fighting my way through several feet of swell and legs, and struggling, big time. The doubts crept in. This was just the first swim, and there was a long way to go.
Someone once said to me, “How do you run? You just put one foot in front of the other. It’s all in your mind.” This thought occurred to me as I felt out of my depth, and out of my comfort zone. How do you swim? Just keep your arms turning over, and your legs kicking. It’s all in your mind.
I refocused on my stroke and my breath. One, two, three, breathe. One, two, three, breathe. This calmed my mind and settled my body. I slowly found a rhythm.
Coming out of the water after the first swim, I was near the back of the pack, but I’d made it, and we all hot-footed it off around the coast path.
Gradually, though, I got into it. Run a bit, swim a bit, judge the swell, negotiate the rocky exits, watch your footing, follow the flags, run some more, swim some more. I found myself smiling, and by the time I stood on the precipice of the rocks at the entry to the next swim, with the wind whipping my hair, I was laughing. This was madness, and I was loving it. I felt free, and I knew I’d be ok. I was. I climbed in and out on the rocks of the islands, riding the waves on the way into the shore. I felt strong and powerful, working in tandem with mother nature, not against her.
After a couple of hours, I crossed the line with a huge smile spread across my face, filled with joy and delight.
That day at the Ötillö, I didn’t conquer the ocean. But strangely, I didn’t feel the need to anymore. Mother Nature had drawn me in with an almost magnetic force. I had never felt more free than I did during those few hours, negotiating my way around a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the birds wheeling and calling overhead. The raw power and vastness of it all were the most devastatingly thrilling thing. The ocean had got under my skin, and entered my soul. She no longer felt like an adversary. She wasn’t a dangerous beast I had to slay or tame. Instead, she was a friend. A partner in crime. A source of freedom and belonging.
It seems so obvious now, but at the time it was a revelation: as much as the sea can terrify you, so she can thrill and calm you even more. Nowadays, when I look out at a stretch of open water, it fills me with excitement, rather than trepidation. And when I’m swimming, the ocean seems to hold me in the palm of her hand.
My first race was done. This year, I’m taking on a big one.
WILLOW: That was Naomi Mellor. She’s a podcast host and producer living just north of London, in the UK. She's also the co-founder of the International Women's Podcast Awards. You can see more of her work at everybody-media.com.
And just a quick update. Since this story was produced, something really unfortunate happened. Naomi was in an auto accident this spring, so she’s not going to be able to compete in any big athletic events this year after all. But she’s hoping to be back on track in 2024.
Naomi, I’m wishing you a speedy and full recovery.
As I mentioned at the top of the episode, we’re taking a break for the rest of the summer. And I don’t know exactly when our next season will launch. But we do plan to release some bonus episodes later this year. And if you’d like to stay in the loop about that, just sign up for our email list. I have a link in the episode description. And you can also follow us on social media for updates. We’re on Facebook and Instagram @outtherepodcast.
Out There is a proud member of Hub & Spoke, a collective of idea-driven independent podcasts.
One of the other shows in the collective that I think you might enjoy is called Mementos. It’s a podcast about the things we choose to keep, and the personal stories behind those things. It’s a quiet, introspective podcast — kind of like Out There. And Lori Mortimer, who hosts it, is just a wonderful human.
You can find Mementos wherever you get your podcasts, or at mementospodcast.com.
Support for Out There comes from PeakVisor. PeakVisor is an app that helps you make the most of your time in the mountains. They have intricate 3-D maps to help you plan out hikes. Once you’re in the mountains, you can use the app to figure out what peaks you’re looking at. And if you need a little help staying motivated, they also have a peak-bagging feature.
If you’d like your own personal mountain guide, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.
Today’s story was written and narrated by Naomi Mellor. Story editing and sound design by me, Willow Belden. Out There’s advertising manager is Jessica Heeg. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold.
Special thanks to everyone who is supporting Out There with financial contributions, including Angie Chatman, Eric Biederman, Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, Deb and Vince Garcia, and the family of Mike Ludders. If you’d like to join your fellow listeners in helping us fund our next season, consider becoming a patron today at patreon.com/outtherepodcast. Patreon is a crowd-funding platform for creative endeavors, and you can make contributions in any amount that works for you. Again, that’s patreon.com/outtherepodcast.
I hope you have a wonderful summer, and I look forward to making more stories for you after we come back from our break.
And in the meantime, have a beautiful day, be bold, go outside, and find your dreams.
Episode Credits
Story by Naomi Mellor
Story editing and sound design by Willow Belden
Music includes works from Blue Dot Sessions and StoryBlocks
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