I learned to butterfly swim today. I always hesitated to start, and I would get out of breath quickly. Today is worth capturing as the first day I could comfortably do a 25-meter lap of butterfly.
Why butterfly?
Swimming has never been that fun to me. I like the feeling during the swim but dread the length of a swim practice. I feel good whenever Iâm done with swim practice. However, I am stuck on how to improve. It would cost me too much time to do a group practice, so I have to find ways to remove the boredom and build resilience.
Two factors make taking on butterfly swimming interesting. One is that varying the swim style is one way to reduce boredom. It is beneficial to develop versatility. A second factor is that I choose something Iâm a beginner at, and itâs easier to improve on that. Sometimes, focusing on the low-hanging fruits is an excellent way to develop. Iâm excited about that.
My swimming journey
I love learning, yet I am still aware of my tendency to fall back to my comfort level. I am aware of deliberate practice, and it is very clear that when there is a coach, deliberate practice is so much more effective.
Learning isnât the tricky part. Practicing is. Itâs interesting how we always take the time to learn on day one and quickly lose patience with the basics over time. Deconstructing breaststroke into isolated techniques so that I can put them together isnât the difficult part. The difficult part is keeping doing those isolated techniques over time.
I learned freestyle in August 2019 when I started triathlon. I did not have a swimming background, so swimming became one of the three disciplines I did. Two weeks later, I managed an hour-long swim. A month later, I passed the 2km mark in a single session. I switched from breaststroke to freestyle then.
A breakthrough moment happened a few months later when I stopped feeling breathless after a few laps. Since then, Iâve maintained freestyle practice to swim up to 5km. I did half-Oceanman last year, covering a 5km distance. My sighting wasnât good, resulting in swimming more than 6km, and as a result, my effective speed is even less than ideal. The challenge of covering the Oceanman distance, which is 10km, is still nagging in the back of my head. They say 10km is equivalent to a marathon, but for swimming. I have that target on my list for next year. Iâd love to focus on developing strengths and muscles by mixing up different swimming styles during training.
From endurance to entrepreneurship
I continue to explore parallels between endurance and entrepreneurship. How am I running the business, like maintaining my swim practice? I have stayed at âfreestyleâ for years now. What do I do at work that becomes somewhat monotonous? How can I break patterns? What is a more challenging routine I can try, but starting from the basics, to add to my regular work routine to develop ânew muscleâ? One area is the way I run meetings. I will mix it up with a new coaching technique. Another area is the way I review company financials. I can bring in a finance expert to help me break things down and suggest some helpful metrics to review.