Swimming is taking over our family these days. Not in a bad way, just in a “I guess this is what we’re going to be doing on weekends now” kind of way. I was never a swimmer in my younger days. I was on a swim team at a local pool for one summer as a really little kid, like maybe around age 6 or 7, and I think I attended one meet. Saying I was “on a team” is really overselling it, though I did get the team t-shirt. I have few memories of the whole thing. It was not a formative experience. It’s too bad because I think I would’ve crushed it as a swimmer if I’d kept with it. Ah well.

Soccer, however, is a skilled sport as well as an athletic sport. That’s what makes it tough and beautiful. Being skilled isn’t enough. Being a good athlete isn’t either. You have to be both. I was a good athlete but not highly skilled. I didn’t practice foot skills on my own enough, something we’re starting to recognize in our older son already. We had a talk over the weekend that if he wants to be really good at soccer, he has to practice on his own. It’ll be up to him, which is a hard line for me to hold given that he’s 7, but already I see in him what I know to be true of myself. When a sport is just about gutting it out and running or swimming or rowing longer and harder than everyone else, you can turn off your brain and keep going. He is inclined that way. Soccer isn’t like that. You have to think all the time, or eventually, feel. You have to feel where you’re supposed to be on the field to make the best play, know where you’re going to send the ball next before it comes to you, anticipate what your opponent is going to do. Zoning out is not an option.

Zoning out is a massively advantageous skill in a sport like swimming. Dear husband is a life-long swimmer. Older son already seems to love it and has started going to meets, meaning some of our weekends are spent at local pools, sweating on sub-zero days, ending the days oddly dehydrated and lethargic. As a cross-training option, I’ve started swimming now too. I won’t claim it as “my” sport, but perhaps unsurprisingly, I love it. I’m a beginner again, back to shutting off my thinking brain and focusing all of my attention on my hand and forearm angle through the water for an hour three times a week.

In a previous post, I had written about how I miss playing games, and that’s still true. I read an article this week about how adults don’t play anymore because of assembly lines or something. Swimming is yet another sport that is enjoyable but could not be called play. But having something where I can zone out and get out of my head for a while, in addition to running, which I don’t always want to do, is really helpful for the time being. Hopefully the weather will improve enough to allow for leaving the house without feeling like our faces are going to freeze off, and that will make spontaneous play a little easier. For the time being, I’ll take this.