Sometimes Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

Looking at this picture one would assume I was preparing to dive into the swimming pool. Don’t be fooled. Despite being on the swim team for 5 summers and having literally every adult I knew work with me one on one, I never learned to dive. This is me looking the part before I belly flopped into the swimming pool.

Starting in about 3rd grade and going through the end of middle school, I spent every summer on the swim team. I actually enjoyed it even though I was not very good. I could swim all of the strokes and I loved practice because you really only had to get in the pool once, then you just swam lap after lap. Swimming laps I could handle. Diving and doing the flip turns was another story. My flip turns were more like flip half turns. I really liked the back stroke because I could start in the water. My first year I was great at back stroke because you only had to do one lap of the pool. I never really excelled in swimming because despite how fast I could go down the lane, the late start from the dive-flop and the delay from the half-flippy-turn around slowed me down. Sometimes I got to go to the Divisional Championships. This wasn’t because I was “SO GOOD” but more because their were few enough swimmers in the category that I “qualified.” I distinctly remember looking up my standing at the Divisional Swim Meet and seeing they ranked me 18 of 18 going into the meet. All I had to do was show up and I could attain the goal set for me by my coach, if I beat ANYone then I exceeded expectations. Nice to have no pressure!! (I never exceeded these expectations)

I can remember every coach I had pulling me aside to work on diving, life guards during free swim, my mom, my parents friends, LITERALLY every grown up I knew that knew how to swim spent time working with me on diving. Eventually I learned a sort of dive flop… not a full out belly flop, but still not a complete dive.

I am thankful I did learn to swim and I do enjoy swimming. To this day I prefer to just get in and do laps and I stay away from the diving board. I would be happy to teach my kids to swim, but they’ll have to learn to dive from their father.

Visit We are THAT Family for more pictures and anecdotes from the past that will never make it into a scrapbook. Embarrassing moments are worthless if we can’t laugh about them later! I would know, it was just yesterday I posted a more recent bit of self deprecating humor. Check it out here.