NEW PALTZ/TOTAL IMMERSION

We hadn’t been here since last October for the big Mohonk preserve/Halloween extravaganza. This time we were in town for private coaching at the Total Immersion HQ.

An early bus from Port Authority had us in town around ten and with some time to kill we grabbed some coffee and headed to the small shopping mall where a back entrance led us into a rather small, sterile space not unlike a dentist’s or doctor’s office where a separate annex contained two large endless pools and video equipment, a far cry from the 25m outdoor pool I’d envisioned.

We changed and met our coaches, mine a tall, lanky fellow named Hash (rhymes with Josh) who started things off by asking a few questions, like what my goals were etc. I explained it’d been at least ten years since I had real TI training with a brief refresher over a year ago. I just basically knew I needed some help with my stroke, which from my own accounts was rusty and a bit sloppy with some bad habits I’d yet to shake.

It was the first time I’d swum in an endless pool, though I have a friend in Seattle who’d invited me more than once to try his out and never bothered. It took a bit of adjusting to get used to swimming against the artificial current, and mirrors angled towards my front and at the bottom threw me off when I saw myself swim as a stranger for the first time, not counting those rare occurrences when you catch a reflection off a pool tiles or water. He started getting some footage, starting me off with some mild resistance, slowly cranking the current up to the point I felt like I was swimming struggling sprints against a river. Shutting things down after a minute or two we stopped to watch the replay on a screen nearby, seeing my stroke in action, which was another unsettling first. Like a lot of people I’m the worst judge at times of my own self, and I had to get over my usual fucked-up critical thinking that I looked like shit even as he told me I looked pretty good, pointing out some mild problems in arm insertion on the forward stroke.

For the next two hours while Cara was in her own tank next to me with her instructor we went through drills that slowly corrected my errors until I was at the point I could stay within the current with barely any effort, sorta like when you see a fish in a river hanging out in and eddy. Some people find their body’s balance in yoga or other sports, mine practice has been with the water, so finding a place where I felt almost completely in tune with where I was in time and space was something of a revelation, one of those rare sweet spots in life where things come together like perfect action.

I’m usually terrible at maintaining concentration in a learning situation over an hour, but here the time flew, and with about fifteen minutes left he caught some more of footage to see how things looked, which were vastly different from where I started, or in other words great, though still having my own personal de-motivation coach in my head explaining to me how shitty I looked. With a few minutes to go I wanted to see how high the resistance could get in the water, so I asked him to crank it up while trying to remember everything I learned without just powering it out against this machine. As rough as it got, and I was getting kicked back pretty hard, I was amazed at how much control I had, though I finally had to give it up. When I came up Cara and her coach had finished and were watching the spectacle.

Lessons are exhausting so we found, and headed downtown for some lunch and then over to a new cavern-sized coffee shop across the street that was virtually empty. We hung out there on one of the many old sofas for over an hour, reading and relaxing, chatting with the owner, and feeling the city stress melt, musing on the small town life and realizing that sooner or later I’m going to have to leave the city for something like this, a slower town with plenty of natural foods, lots of space, and three local espresso places in a row, as opposed to a city like NY with maybe a half dozen good ones.

We spent another couple of hours walking around on an old rail line turned trail, veering off into the neighborhoods to head back towards our bus stop, but first paying a visit to the excellent Frost Rock ice creamery after fond memories of our last visit there—absolutely superb homemade goods. The bus station itself, with various Renoir prints, strange signage, empty cases, and other unusual artwork was nothing short of baffling.