 |
Martin Foreman is a writer of fact, fiction and opinion. He tries not to get the three confused. |
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Modesty aside - and I have a lot to be modest about - I have a good body. Well-defined and with a chest: waist ratio of 4:3, in my forties I'm in better shape than I was twenty years ago. The current icing on the cake is a good tan picked up in Africa in June and topped up on the occasional days of sunshine in London since. From time to time I get asked what gym I go to. Actually, I don't. A couple of times in my twenties, partly because I was sure it would be good for my health and partly to improve my attractiveness to other gay men, I went with friends to a gym near where I lived in East London where the equipment was no more than a few battered benches, bars and several hundredweight of weights. I only had to learn two positions - lying on my back staring up at the ceiling, or standing, slightly open-legged, facing the mirror. In both cases there were options of raising and lowering weights in different directions. Each manouevre was to be repeated ten times, then I was to rest and to repeat them again. You know the story… I tried. Honestly, I tried, but it seemed clumsy and pointless. Were the weights too heavy or too light, was I raising them too slowly or too quickly, did I have the right angle, should my body be further up or down the bench? Above all, it felt wrong. No matter what position, what weights, what speed, whether my breathing was synchronised or not, whatever I did, the act of lifting weights felt awkward and unnatural. Half the time was spent doing nothing - resting or waiting for the next bench or set of weights to become free. It was like starting a brisk walk, then after a few paces, sitting down again. Once I'd started, I wanted to keep going. I had no sense of the high others talked about and at the end of each session, I felt no achievement, only relief. My ambition was further undercut by the denizens of the gym, who reminded me of pink versions of the Hulk - blow-up dolls near to bursting point, with tree-trunk arms and thighs and mobility problems. Sexy they were not. So, with no sense of guilt, I gave up weightlifting. From time to time I thought about aerobics or step or whatever was the current fad, but I did not think very long. The truth was, I felt healthy. I was getting some exercise from cycling to and from work and three or four hours on the dance floor at weekends. Then I discovered the swimming-pool. I'd always enjoyed swimming, but never taken it seriously, until one day, I can't remember why, I walked to my local baths ten minutes' away. It was the middle of the day and the pool, an old Victorian model with a row of unlocked changing cubicles lining the sides, was practically empty. I changed, got into the water, relieved that no-one was watchine me, and splashed my way to one end and splashed my way back. I wasn't sure why, but I liked this. I started going back. Soon, I'd achieved my objective of doing twenty lengths. This was more like it. I had a goal to reach, which did not include stopping every so often to recuperate. I was exercising all my body, not concentrating on one muscle at a time, wondering how long it would take me to get round to improving them all, and wondering whether I was going to inadvertently end up with one group more prominent than the other. At the end of each session I was tired but not aching, whereas after the gym I had frequently ached without being tired. I soon realised that the sexual element found in all exercise, as adrenalin pumps and the heart beats faster, is exaggerated in swimming There is the sensuality of the water caressing the skin, and the near-nakedness of the participants, the best of whom have bodies closer to that of Michaelangelo's David. For a time they distracted me, until my focus returned to my own. On I swam. I began working in the West End and took to swimming in the open air pool at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue. I was addicted, going at least five times a week and becoming fidgety and unable to concentrate if I missed more than a day. I was up to thirty-two lengths, but had reached a plateau. I swam in the fast lane, but still others frequently overtook me. I joined two competitive swimming clubs, but an hour of chasing the swimmer ahead of me and being chased in turn quickly lost its appeal. I wanted to find my own pace and no-one was helping me to do so. And when I asked the coach of one club how to do tumble turns - when you reach one end and curl in on yourself, your feet cartwheeling in the air before kicking off the end - he looked blank and said it was just a question of doing it. So I quit, and went back to solitary swimming. One day a lifeguard pointed out that I was putting a lot of energy into my stroke and not moving very fast. "Keep your arms pointing outwards," he said, "push the water to one side, not into your chest." I tried a length, doing as he said. It felt strange, but I could feel myself moving faster. I tried another length. Something had certainly changed. For the next few years I paid attention to the shape of my stroke not my speed. I shaped my arms and my hands this way and that, sometimes straight, sometimes curved. I stopped splashing my legs, allowing them to trail as if paralysed, and found that I swam no slower. My timing plummeted. From 24 minutes to swim 32 lengths, I soon came down to 16. With a little more concentration I brought it down to 14, even occasionally 13 and 30 seconds. The more I swam - by this time I had moved to Los Angeles, where another outdoor pool was only ten minutes' walk away - the more I thought about what I was doing. It was thought après, rather than avant, la lettre, but it made sense. My goal was no longer speed but efficiency, and I found that a few slow, strong, well-placed strokes could pull me forward faster than many who thrashed the water energetically. I began to see principles in swimming, principles that nobody had ever taught me, but which made sense. Those who swam according to the principles I had formulated were good, fast swimmers, with bodies to match. Those who did not, were not. And those principles? Make yourself long and narrow and glide across the water. Use your stomach muscles to keep your body flat, holding some of your butt and calves above the waterline. If you must use your legs, keep them straight as you move from the hip, raise them no more than six or nine inches; too much turbulence and you will slow yourself down. Breathe in at the side, of course, under the arm that is curving through the air. Breathe out as you look down. Breathe as normally as you can, don't gulp. Remember that it is the arms that pull you forward. (Unlike the breaststroke where it is the legs that propel you, while the arms simply keep you afloat.) Keep them straight and strong, always at your side, never in front of your chest, the hand at a slight angle pushing the water past you. Above all, keep your movements slow, graceful and strong. Do not aim for speed. Only when you have mastered freestyle, when you can glide from one end of the pool to the other with a minimum of strokes, should you begin to think of speed. And then, why bother, there can be a Zen-like quality to unhurried swimming as beneficial to the mind as the physical activity is to the body. I now swim a mile at least three times a week. I would swim further, but work gets in the way. I swim more slowly than I did ten years ago - a function of middle-age - but still faster than most others in the fast lane. After almost twenty years I intend to keep swimming for the next half-century. It feels good, it makes me look good and I need no other excuse. |
| 20 August 2002 |
 |
|
© Martin Foreman |