A stroke of insight.

Today was my first day as a swim instructor at the YMCA.

I loved it.

I had to teach swimming to four adults who were barely managing to stay afloat.

I have always loved teaching, but have never got an opportunity due to my limited knowledge in most fields. But perhaps it was in these deep waters that I finally found ground. 

I think we all are passionate about certain things. And given an opportunity, we’d all love to share our passion with others. And I guess that’s what teaching is all about; sharing your passions. I loved teaching my students today; some of whom were twice my age. But that didn’t really matter. For that one hour, I got a chance to relive my time as a fledging swimmer, making all those mistakes that my students were making today.

I am not sure if I was as good a teacher as my coach who first taught me the joys of the water. But I know that if he is reading this blog, he would have the same words to say to me as back then, “Jump in… It’ll be ok.”

Guess he was right… 

Catfish

I took part in the Catfish swim race. It was a grueling 2.4 mile race in the Stevens Creek Reservoir, a man made lake in Cupertino.  I came third in my age group of 30 to 39. For once it felt good to be old!

One interesting part of this race was the Olympians that showed up! The US Olympic Swim team is practicing at Stanford. And today, being a Sunday was their day off. A couple of them who were taking part in the 10Km race at the Beijing Olympics decided to swim with the rest of us as a “warm-up”. Well, their “warm-up” was definitely enough to let them finish well ahead of the pack!

All in all, a memorable experience. Here’s a link to the results. Here’s a link to the photos that Megha has uploaded on Picassa. See if you can identify the Olympians among them. You can verify your guess my checking them out on TV during the

Beijing coverage. :)