Personal Narrative: Swim Lessons Of My Life

317 Words1 Page

When I was younger my parents gave me the opportunity to take swim lessons. They said that they wanted to see me tread the same waters that most every other kid enjoyed playing in. Within days I was able to stop sitting in the shallow end, but I was able to frolic with my friends over the grounds I could not touch. This was the only time they wanted me to be similar to an ordinary child. Any other time, I heard the words “Try a little harder. Go a little faster. Learn a little more.”, because being average was never part of their plan. It wasn’t until my highschool years that I realized that those swim lessons had less to do with enjoyment, but more to do with surviving. During my sophomore year I got my first real taste of the salty waters

Show More
Related

  • Reservation Blues: Junior Polatkin

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    I have been swimming year-round on a club team since the age of six and when I was younger improving came relatively easily. However, around age 13, I hit a training plateau despite having the same work ethic and focus that I had previously had. I grew to despise swimming and at points I wanted to quit. However, unlike Junior, I had role models and mentors who were positive influences on me and who helped me to overcome this challenge. Primarily, I had several of my best friends on the team who convinced me to keep persevering and to not simply quit the sport that I loved so much just because I was no longer dropping time. For example, every day I watch my close friends Lizanne and Cate come to practice and give it their all, regardless of the numerous injuries and medical issues that plagued their swimming career; their positive outlook and dedication motivated me to try even harder than I had before. Moreover, I had by parents, something that Junior did not have; my parents were always there to support me after yet another disappointing meet reminding me that “you get five minutes for a win and five minutes for a lost”. My parents where my voice of reason as I tried to work through my issues; they were always there to encourage me, but also were very honest with me

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: The Person I Am Today

    550 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are many things that have molded me into the person I am today such as being born into a family with four children. With three siblings, I have been forced to be able to work out problems from stealing each other’s toys to having to rush to the emergency room to get stiches because my brother chased me around the house and I tripped. My mother, father, brother, and two sisters were all born in Pennsylvania and I am the odd ball and I was born in Adrian, Michigan. From when I was a child I always loved being involved with sports because of my competitive nature. I grew up playing soccer and having success with that but then my love changed and I began playing lacrosse and football. I started playing lacrosse in middle school and played

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Swim Lessons

    340 Words  | 1 Pages

    This pool is my soul, and the slight, gentle waves are the beating of my heart. I stand on the deck looking down at the clear, calm water, and raise my hands above my head. I dive into the water, smooth and straight like an arrow. I enter the water without a splash, and glide underwater, feeling the cool water on my skin, and the scent of chlorine in the air. I feel powerful, immortal, and completely at peace.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Swim In High School

    398 Words  | 1 Pages

    iving up my week and weekend nights for swim practice was something I was used to by the time I started high school. Swimming, was my calling, and with that came many sacrifices. Practices were everyday, Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturdays, and consisted of countless sets of sprinting, kicking and pulling. The only thing that kept us stable during practice was counting down the time on the clock, “Just thirty more minutes, and I can relax for another twenty hours.” From there I would go home in time to shower and finish homework. Finishing what I needed to do before midnight was considered luck. The cycle repeated itself as I would get up the next day and do it again. However, there are many other aspects to this sport besides

    Read More

  • The Benefits of Sexual Education in Public Schools

    2028 Words  | 5 Pages

    “I’ve often wondered what it would be like if we taught young people swimming the same way we teach sexuality. If we told them that swimming was an important adult activity one they will all have to be skilled at when they grow up, but we never talked with them about it. We never showed them the pool . . . but when they asked a question about how swimming felt or what it was about, they would be greeted with blank or embarrassed looks . . . Miraculously, some might learn to tread water, but many would drown” (11).

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: My Swimming Race

    594 Words  | 2 Pages

    After realizing that I didn’t need to be fast or successful to enjoy swimming, I found my affection for the sport again. I was suddenly cheerful and positive about swimming, not just winning. And with this optimism, I encountered numerous swimmers who were unhappy. They dreaded practices, worried about races and generally wished they didn’t swim. When asked why they don’t simply quit, I received the same responses, “Because I’m good at it,” or, “I want to go to the Olympics,” every time.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative Essay: Just Keep Swimming

    2067 Words  | 5 Pages

    I started swimming competitively at the age of five. I started swimming for a summer league team call the Mission Valley Barracudas. Once I turned seven years old, I started swimming with the older kids, which were technically categorized as the faster kids. My coaches wanted me to swim with the older group, which consisted with junior high, and high school aged kids because swimming with my age group bracket was no longer challenging. Swimming was my favorite thing to do and still is. If I wasn’t swimming, I was most likely playing with Jonny and Alex or playing with my Legos. For the most part swimming in the older group was fun and challenging. Having longer and tougher workouts made me unstoppable when it came to competing

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative- My Near Drowning Experience

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On March 21, 1987, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Synchronized High Dive

    273 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Olympic Games are great events that bring the of the best athletes from every single country on Earth together, and if I was to participate in any sport for the United States, I would choose synchronized high dive. This sport requires accuracy and timing that I can only dream of, as I am not the most punctual, nor accurate on most things. I think that because the time and need for precision would be so important in such a big chunk of my life, I could bring it over to the other parts. Another reason I would participate in a sport that is so far off the ground is that I might find a place to think while plummeting into water at an alarming rate. High diving the closest thing to flying, and birds seem to have a stress free life, so I would

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Who I Am Today

    799 Words  | 2 Pages

    In my short 16 years there have been many experiences I have encountered in life that shape who I am. My identity today. As time has passed experiences have come one after another for me to learn. What has shaped me influenced me in this short time period are many things the topic around this lies around my social construct. I am a lot of things, I am someone who looks as a shy, quite, smart, nice etc. person. Those simple qualities that make who I am have been influenced upon me and in general just who I am. What has shaped me present day is my family structure and my education the most to shape my identity.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Almost Drowning

    438 Words  | 1 Pages

    Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On December 22, 01, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned. I still can remember it like yesterday. This incident almost cost me my life,

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative About Swimming

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    Swimming has been my whole life, since I jumped into the pool for the very first time. I loved every aspect of swimming from the adrenaline running through my body during my races and getting to spend even more time with my friends and my sister, and the stress of big meets coming up in the schedule. Except everything didn't go according to plan after the first day of school when I got home and I saw my parents sitting by my sister on the coach and my sister was crying.

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Scuba Diving

    175 Words  | 1 Pages

    When I was a university student about two years ago, I enrolled in a scuba diving course. My scuba diving teacher had a big surprise: I didn’t know how to swim. In fact, I had a big fear of water. When I was a child, my parents tried to help me, so they made me take many swimming courses. Although I tried hard, I did not learn to swim. When I enrolled in the scuba diving course, I was still afraid of water. Every day when I entered the swimming pool, I battled with my fear. Fortunately, my courage won every time. Finally, one day while I was practising my dive, I realized that I did very well. So, finally, after six months of hard work, I completed the course. It is true that I was always the worst of the group, but in my own evaluation,

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: Life Lessons Learned In My Life

    1997 Words  | 4 Pages

    There have been tons of things that I have learned and been taught in my life, by a number of people such as family, teachers, or even friends on occasion. The things they taught me vary from math and other related subjects to just some truly simple yet meaningful life lessons. However, there is nothing quite as unique, quite as special as a person teaching themselves a life lesson. It really is an amazing accomplishment for a person to teach themselves something. It is not quite as simple as another person teaching them something because it is not just the transferring of information from one person to another. The person instead has to start from scratch and process the information they have in their mind in order to come up with a new thought

    Read More

  • Personal Narrative: A Marathon

    463 Words  | 1 Pages

    We finish what we start. This was the motto that kept me going during the strenuous training period for a marathon. But prior to that, I must confess, I wasn’t an athlete. I was never interested in playing sports, except for recreational badminton. During gym class, I would walk three quarters of the time when it time for the dreaded mile run. I preferred staying indoors and sitting on the couch and watch movies. The first time I had heard about a marathon training program, called Dreamfar, in my school, I thought to myself, what kind of crazy person would want to run a marathon? Never did I realize, eight months later, I would be that crazy person.

    Read More

More about Personal Narrative: Swim Lessons Of My Life

Open Document