I haven’t trained in ten years and when I was doing so it was distance swims for Triathlon Relays and charity swims. I haven’t trained with a club for over thirty years. My return t club swimming, with the Masters at Mid-Sussex Marlins SC has been a gentle affair unitl now, not helped by a three week break I join today and have to do a sessions that takes in all strokes, including kciking for fly, back, breast and front. I give it my best shot and struggle.

As a swimming teacher and coach I hear my own voice trying to get the technique right; I also have informed instruction from the coach which feels as if I am being bent double, insome parts my stroke has been doing the wring thing for decades: raising the arms too high during front crawl, failing to bring the feet together in breaststroke and bending my arm ahead of the entry in backstroke. It iis therefore with surorise and delight when I recieve praise for my butterfly, a stroke I have not attempted in decades. Once agai I hear the instructions I give to 7 to 11 year olds aout kciking fromthe hip and turning the hand upwards on the recovering, enter the hand at shoulder width and accelerate back to the ‘pockets’ with a flick. It works. Though in my very unfit state I don’t even manage a length, 20m at a time in four bursts is all that I do.

Exhausted, my heart racing (I check) and out if breath I finish early. I need to be in the water during the week too, possiblly three swims a week to crack it.