So our Master’s Swim leader Chris (See You In Barbados!) Colburn posted a video from this morning’s session that included a segment with me swimming along, one elbow high and the other, not so much. 

As Luke Skywalker once learned under the tutelage of Master Yoda while trying to avoid the depths of that murky swamp on some farflung planet, it can be quite difficult to rid yourself of bad habits and find the force within yourself.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

I knew this was happening this morning but it took me a couple laps to correct it. I was tired at that point in the workout and didn’t give an ass crack’s worth of water whether my form was good or not. I just wanted to finish the laps I was doing.

“The greatest teacher, failure is.”

But then I put on the hand paddles to force myself into better form. Then I swam more laps that way. My elbows flipped back into place.

“How you doing?” Colburn Soon to Be In Barbados called out.

I gave him a wet thumbs up. Then I tossed on the fins and practiced kicking up and back the pool until my hips threatened to separate from the sockets. Plus my feet hurt in those things after about tent laps.

“That is why you fail.”

One must work on form at all times. That’s how swimming works. It’s easy to go all anti-gravity in some phase of your stroke. Then you slow down, or splash a lot, wasting energy going nowhere.

When you get tired it’s especially difficult to concentrate. You can only will your body to do certain things for so long, and then the mind drifts a bit.  Then the elbows come out of the water low and flat.

“Named must be your fear before banish it you can.”

But at least I know these days what I’m doing right and wrong. I can also feel when I slide into the proper groove. Those moments are like magic, and they are the motivation I need to keep going at this sport that is still relatively new to me.

That “magic” feeling was never possible before. When I keep my face and head down in the water and rotate just enough to do a pull with the lats, the force is truly with me. As a certain green little character with wide ears once said:

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

So I think Christopher Going to Barbados Colburn for having the courage to post my bad swim form on the Internets. That’s a highly motivational bit of video right there. And remember this phrase when

“Pass on what you have learned.”