I have long realised I’m addicted to change. I love nothing more than something challenging popping up and putting me on edge, it must be the ínner caveman in me!
This past week has been interesting, challenging and most importantly fun!
Jan’s training plan is slowly growing in intensity but at the moment it’s all about reminding the body, but more importantly, the mind, exactly what training for an Ironman involves and I’m surprised at how much this 59-year-old mind and body remember.
Teaching in the pool has renewed my love and appreciation of how technical swimming is. I teach a full range from tiny six-month-old babies to people in their sixties. With the babies and toddlers, it’s so often the parents you are educating, not necessarily the children. I find so many parents can’t swim themselves and so their fear is passed onto the children involuntarily and that’s scary stuff.
They come to swim school with the very best of intentions but there’s fear that radiates over the water like a laser beam. It’s interesting watching how young children instinctively go into survival mode, they scream, go rigid and show the strength of Goliath, but sadly if parents give in and take their children out, they may one day, drown.
The very brave parents walk away and leave us to do our job, the not-so-brave hover and intensify their children’s fear and some take their children away and danger and fear remain.
The older children and adults often have fears but they’re different, fear of failure and letting parents down. I still fear failure, but now I learn from it, that’s the difference.
Away from the pool, another challenge popped up this week. I was approached by a TV network in Turkey to do a live report into their news on the Australian bush fires. Having declared just a few weeks ago I was ‘over’ reporting here was a challenge I had little time to think about so I said, yes!
I haven’t done any TV work for years but old habits die hard so I did my research, put some slap on, (make-up, yes I do own some) and set up the make-shift studio in the lounge and it was lights, camera and “Coming to you in five, four, three, two, one” and there I was live on TV!
Just like the Ironman training, I knew what to do. I understood how everyone in the studio in Ankara was focussed on my piece. I instinctively knew what information they wanted, how long to talk, language to use, facial expressions and how to wrap it up in four minutes flat! On the surface I was cool, calm and professional, below I was excited, scared and sweating like the proverbial pig, but boy that fear is addictive, I was on a high all night!
Fear is a funny thing. It can induce panic and is instinctive, but to tackle a fear head-on and beat it is the best drug in the world and that’s probably why I thrive on change. When change comes along it drags an element of fear with it, it’s the unknown and unless you DO tackle it, IT stays there slowly but surely adding more and more to the pile. It never goes away.
Yesterday we flew up to our house in Brisbane, we knew it was going to be a busy day sorting things out for our new tenants, clearing out storage stuff and still trying to make time for a bit of social catch up and all before the removal men arrived.
As you can imagine, some of it went smoothly, other bits of the day had to ‘change’, not least the little visit to the medical centre when in my haste to pack stuff up I used a serrated knife to try and open a pack of tape. Four stitches later I carried on, but we did have to change the schedule slightly and whilst it was disappointing not to go out to dinner with a friend and get to officiate at a race this morning we achieved what we set out to do.
Training and racing are very much like yesterday, you set out with a plan but it very rarely ‘goes to plan’ so you do have to be prepared to duck and weave and more importantly accept the failures, which aren’t really failures, they’re opportunities to learn and grow.
So, as I sit here with my hand bandaged up I’ve already worked out how next week in the pool and on the bike will work, aka a late-night trip to the pharmacy and a basket full of waterproof coverings. Even as the blood was dripping all over the floor my mind was dealing with the fear of looking at exactly what damage I’d done, how I’d continue to work and how it would impact on my training, but, I tackled that fear because I didn’t want IT to tackle me!!!!
Fear has been a big factor in this week’s school swim program. Most of the students are from Asian backgrounds and have an innate fear of the water. They physically shake, they cry, they fight me in the water and I find it quite disturbing because these kids are the very ones we’re likely to hear about when they get into difficulty in the water. It never ceases to amaze me why they would want to live in a country where water is everywhere and have a fear of it.
I always acknowledge their fear, but I don’t let it dominate their lessons. I talk to them, I give them choices about how far they ‘want’ to go but ultimately it is my duty to help that fear dissipate.
One particularly disturbing encounter was with an eight-year-old Indian boy, he and his twin sister were dressed appropriately for the lesson, so someone cares, but they were totally unprepared for what a swimming lesson would involve.
The girl was frightened but tackled her fear and by the end of the lesson was being told off for spending too much time ‘under’ the water – success! But her brother was the complete opposite and it was scary for me. He didn’t communicate well, partly a cultural thing, but his fear was enormous, the worst I have ever seen in a child.
I’m not cruel but when dealing with this level of fear it must seem to the child or someone watching that my insistence that he at least listen and trust me seemed cruel. He was sobbing with fear, it was obvious he had never been ‘forced’ to face a fear that could possibly be fatal.
It’s a fine line between facing fear and fearing it so much that you never go near it again, let alone set about tackling it. I hope the little man comes back to his lesson. I can cope with the tears, the pinches, the punches and scratches, what I can’t cope with is leaving him in such a vulnerable position that one day his parents might lose him.
Next time you feel fear, grab it by the scruff of the neck and beat the crap out of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!