more swimming

Jack's swimming class today was the last of this "session," though a new one starts next week. But today, he got graded on everything they'd done so far.

The class began with the kids in the water at the shallow end (about 3.5 feet). One of the teachers would bring a kid a little ways out and have him do different things, while the other kids appeared to be engaging in a splashing war with the other teacher. Looked like fun; I heard Jack's bubbling laughter every so often. The other teacher was a big guy so at times he stood like a tree trunk, and the kids sort of hung off his arms like monkeys. Funny.

When the other teacher brought Jack out, I saw him swim on his front, and float on his back, and do some kicks and some crude backstrokes. Pretty smooth, it seemed.

Eventually they headed down to the deep end of the pool (10 feet). They swum down with a kickboard, and I get nervous at this part because once Jack lost the kickboard, so it was a little worrying at the time (a teacher swum over to give it back to him). They climbed out at the deep end and I saw what the deal was. One teacher stood about 30 feet away in the water, the other was out of the water. The kids would jump in, bob up, and swim to the teacher 30 or so feet away. He'd then turn them around, and they'd swim back.

A month ago, Jack didn't want to jump in the water, period, unless someone was there to catch him. But as I watched, he jumped in, went down, bobbed up, and swam the whole way. And back. I watched in kind of amazement, and then more as he did it again. I stood up and walked near the edge for this one, because he looked kind of tired by the end of the second time. But, he did it. Then everyone got their boards back and swum the length of the pool. Jack seems to like to win these things, so I watched with some trepidation as he gave it his all, but still seemed to be laboring. At the end, he was kind of treading water with the board, so he grabbed onto a rope, rested a minute, then swam the rest of the way.

I got him out of the water, wrapped him in a towel, told him how proud I was. He was kind of beaming about it too: "I didn't think I could do it, but I did!" he said. "I even treaded water for a long time, too!"

I talked to the teacher afterward, who'd written a note about how hard Jack had worked, and how he'd grown as a swimmer. He used the word "amazing," and I said, well yeah, I'm amazed, because I couldn't believe he could do what he did today, compared to where he was at a couple of months ago.

My son learning to swim, it's a beautiful thing.