Just jump in!

A few weeks ago, I started Lucia in a new swimming class. My family is going to Hawaii in December, and I wanted to get Lucia a final few lessons to prepare her for the ocean. Lucia can definitely swim, but she lacks confidence. She will only go in the shallow end and, even when she doesn't need to, she stops mid-way through to settle her toes on the pool bottom. I called around for private lessons thinking that would be the most efficient way to get her proficient in six weeks. Private lessons are not only expensive, but I was struggling to coordinate a time that worked with a busy eight-year-old's schedule.

I finally decided to just enroll her in the community pool's group lessons. Lucia was totally bummed. New place, new kids, new teachers. That's so not her style. As she changed and showered in the frigid, prison-like dressing room, shivering and shooting me a major stink-eye, she said, "Mommy, swimming is my least favorite sport." Lucia knows that I was a competitive swimmer for thirteen years. She knows I love swimming. "Soccer is my favorite sport" she snarled, "and swimming is my least!" (Soccer, mind you, before she started, also occupied the ranks of most-hated sports.)

When we got into the pool area, Lucia was pleased to see a classmate. They stood, purple-lipped, shivering in wait for their teacher. Lucia had missed the first week so the pool manager guided her to beginners. Lucia was visibly pissed to learn that her classmate was intermediate. "Jump in!" Lucia's beginner teacher instructed her group. Lucia looked back at me with what I assume was an imploring stare, but I averted my eyes so she couldn't make contact with me. She jumped in. There were 21 kids in this class! No private lesson here. They separated the kids into three groups, with three teachers, each on a different wall of the pool. I watched the beginners teacher ask Lucia to swim a little bit to assess her skill level. Lucia, like a kid in an episode of Scared Straight, did as she was told. The teacher saw that she had above-beginner skills and promptly sent her into the deep-end to the advanced class. I imagine this over-burdened beginners teacher was thrilled to be responsible for one less swimmer-in-training.

Every time Lucia looked my way, I put my head down as if captivated by my book. When it was safe again, I'd look up and see her swimming. She, along with the ten other kids in her group, were swimming laps! Back and forth. No tippy-toes touching the ground. The girl could swim! I giggled the entire lesson thinking to myself, "This child has been holding out on me for months! She's actually a good swimmer." Lucia, competitive by nature, and a bit of a perfectionist, would not be out-shown by these other kids. When the teacher yelled "Backstroke" she did it. When he shouted, "kick more!" she damn well did it.

I don't think Lucia was actually tricking me. I think her mind was tricking her. Lucia needed someone to push her over her mental hump. She needed a fresh environment. Her previous lessons, where teachers indulged her anxieties, weren't helping. She needed someone to ignore her anxieties and look at her potential.

After Lucia's first lesson, she emerged, blue lipped and frozen, with a beaming smile. The proud look on her face is one that I will never forget. As I stood holding Lucia's towel while she shampooed her hair in the warm shower, she said through chattering teeth, "Mommy, swimming is my new favorite sport."

Here's to just jumping in!

Who's the Winner?

Yesterday, with virtually three training sessions under my belt-- two lake swims and one summer jog, I did my second triathlon. A sprint triathlon, it's called-- half a mile swim, twelve miles bike, and a quick 5K run. I loved doing the same triathlon last year but, with limited time (or interest) and one more bucket list item scratched off, I decided that I could skip this year's event.

Here's the thing-- in my primary exercise, yoga, I am generally successful at being non-competitive. But, despite the fact that, as a yoga teacher and student, I spend my work life teaching people (and myself) to let go of competition, perfection, performance, I am a deeply competitive person. Being a twin is surely relevant, but I can't really say why, and to be honest, I don't want to open the psychological Pandora's box of my twin status. For whatever reason, I'm competitive.

So, when my friend Kate who I did a triathlon with last summer told me that she was doing it again, my hackles went up. If you know dogs at all, you know that's a sign of being on high alert. Goddammit, if Kate was doing it, I was going to do it! Kate is a person who I perceive to be non-competitive. She's open, giving, neutral. So why was I competing? Was I competing with her? With myself? I'm still not sure but I hope I get some clarity through the writing of this blog post.

Yesterday morning at six o'clock am, four of us convened at Kate's house to load our bikes and drive down to the lake for our race. The temperature was 54. It was pouring. And my hands were half-way numb. Kate's dark figure, already soaked from getting the bikes out of the garage, emerged and I jokingly blamed her for getting me into this horribly cold, wet situation. Kate, quick-wit that she is laughingly replied, "Maybe this will temper your competitive edge Culberg!"

Our bikes safely racked on top of the car, we all piled into Kate's car and warmed ourselves as much as we could on the drive down to the lake. It stopped raining by the time we arrived to the race site and, like lost girl-scouts finally finding the path out of the dark forest, we were all optimistic about the weather and our impending adventure. As the sun came up on Lake Washington and we prepped our little spaces with our bikes and helmets, running shoes, and water bottles, I looked around at Kate and my other friends. We were coaching each other out of our nervousness, advising one another about goggle usage, sharing snacks. There were at least a thousand other women in the park around us doing the same thing. Only a handful were clearly uber-athletes, "elite" athletes they call them. They were sizing up the competition, in it to win it.

But not us. And not me. I honestly didn't feel it. No hackles, just cold, wet fur. We walked down to the lake in our separate groups to start our swim. I got my cap on, made the final adjustments to my goggles, did two sets of Pranayama breathing to calm myself down, and dove. And, as I swam, it wasn't the winning that motivated me, it was that we were all doing this together, all one thousand of us, elite and novice, old and young. And I loved it. Same thing with the bike and the run. The allure of this thing was simply in doing it, not in winning it.

Maybe I have figured it out. Being a twin, you are always part of something bigger than yourself. Even in the womb. Katherine (my twin) and I used to say, "we're wombmates." Even when we are each alone, our fundamental frame of reference is being with someone else. Being part of something bigger than oneself. So, while I admit that I'm still competitive, it's not the whole story.

Maybe I'll figure it out at next year's triathlon. I sure hope the weather's better.

Bilateral Breathing

In my youth I was a big swimmer. That was my family's sport. Everyone did swim team and, in the summers my sisters and I would go to overnight swim camp for a week or two at various camps in nearby states, sometimes Wisconsin, sometimes Michigan. When I was nine, I came back with an arsenal of new tools to plug into my regular practice at the Hyde Park YMCA. The Y, as we called it, is where I practiced during the school year. Rip, a young, hip, 20-something coach, stood on the deck of the century-old, sub-standard 20-yard pool with no light and no ventilation, and barked his workout orders. Rip used to tease us when we complained about workouts. He'd hold the world's tiniest imaginary violin to his broad brown shoulder and play while beaming a big fake frown at whomever was whining.

The fall of fourth grade, after my revelatory swim camp summer, Rip told us to do a a 500-yard freestyle warm up. I pushed myself up on the lane rope and leaned toward Rip, "Do you want us to do bilateral breathing?" Silence. My ears started getting hot. Maybe that wasn't the term. Maybe it was bi-coastal or binary or collateral. Rip broke the silence with a huge guffaw, "Bilateral breathing. Yeah Shorty. Do bilateral breathing." I was right. But I was humiliated. This is one of my most indelible memories. It shows up all the time, at random moments.

Last week, in response to my mysterious back tenderness, I was swimming laps to try and move things around. I couldn't do flip turns because it hurt, but of course I did bilateral breathing. Since the summer of my ninth year, I always do bilateral breathing. As I swam, I watched my bilateral breathing episode replay like a video clip. And then my mind moved to another channel.

In 1991, before there were any Bikram studios in Seattle, a friend of mine taught Bikram Yoga, unheated, at the Olympic Health Club. She did it in a huge ball room with close to 60 people. I went periodically but didn't have any kind of regular practice. One day, while practicing in the very back row, I kicked out in standing-head-to-knee pose. As I kicked, I felt a little pop in my lower back. Without hesitation, I bent over, folded my mat and headed for the double doors behind me. The teacher, my friend, yelled over the five rows in front of me, "Laura, where are you going? Don't leave." "I'm leaving," I shouted back. And with that, I marched through the lobby into the dressing room and sat in the hot tub in my t-shirt and shorts until class was over. I waited until everyone from class had left. Again, I was humiliated.

I've heard it said that humiliation is the best teacher. We seldom forget what we've learned in moments of being humiliated. Our greatest lessons come from being snapped out of our safety zones. When we are in conflict with our own comfort and knowing, when we are embarrassed or humiliated, our egos are wounded and we stand at attention.

I learned from Rip's guffaw that grown-ups are supposed to be smarter than kids. While Rip's intention might not have been to silence me, I heard a strong clear message. I kept my smarty pants mouth closed in swim practice. Rip was the coach and I was the swimmer. When I abandoned a yoga class I knew very little about, I learned that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was. I've never left any class since that day.

My humiliation experiences, while not pleasant at the time, have helped me to be a good student and a good teacher. As a student of yoga, I trust that my teacher is guiding me, that he or she knows how to hold the form and get me where I need to go. As a yoga teacher, I recognize how important it is to do just this, to be confident in my teaching and lead my students through their process with sureness and strength. Like everyone, I'm still humiliated sometimes. My ego gets bruised and I feel like an idiot. Then the dust settles, the wound heals a little bit, and there it is, a little lesson.