Water Polo

Good days in my life…

That’s how I’m feeling right now about this time I’m living in Granada. What goes around comes around, so I’ll tell you about the new thing I decided to learn: Water Polo.

So, I always felt that the best activity for me is swimming, professional swimming I mean with a coach and a team and hard work. This way you get the chance to be: Involved in a team which is one of the best experiences in life, secondly, to work out, thirdly, to develop skills and your sense about a certain set of things, fourthly, you get to witness in a short span of time the result of hard work especially if it ends up in a particular achievement like winning a medal in some competition.

And for all of these upper mentioned reasons, and for many others, I decided to join the Water Polo training 3 days a week in the University of Granada…

So after I did the necessary registration, I went on my first day of training to the swimming pool, with ordinary swim suit and nothing else, so I get this look from the coach and then he asks whether I can swim or not, “Si, creo que no estoy mal” – “Yes, I don’t think I’m bad”, and then he tells me that next time I should come with a proper swim suit, “Hmm….I don’t like thong –like kind of swim wear!!” I thought to myself, “I don’t know, I don’t feel very comfortable with that type of swim wear! That’s just me!”…

So, the first thing we had to do was to do a 400 m (50 m * 8 rounds ) heat up, now the last time I did a 400 m was probably 8 years ago at the age of 16 when I was training with the swimming team of my school for sometime, hence; what goes around comes around. I measured the distance with my horrified eyes and decided to not give it much a thought, just do it! The next scene was me after 10 m inhaling and exhaling like a 78’ Volkswagen car (I’m just imagining that it must perform bad, not that I know!)…and I decided to push myself further, and that I did, 5 m more, and I couldn’t any more!

Shit! I thought to myself, such an embarrassment, however, that was the last thing I ought to think of when I was encouraged constantly by the coach to do more: “¡Animate!” he would shout, “Take courage!”…I did more meters, sometimes I’m too exhausted to do more laps and so I just do till midway and then come back, or just do nothing and hold my grip to the lane floating borders (I don’t know what these are called)…

So after this long time (which is actually 40 min and not that long ) I get reminded that I’m here to learn water polo and not for a swimming competition, so I see the coach with the yellow ball waving his hands for me to come and learn a thing or two…so I get out of the pool and then he shows me how to do the movements with my hands and how to receive the ball…etc, suddenly I felt an urgent need to go to the bathroom, “Quizas tengo que ir al Baño” I say… “Maybe I will have to go to the toilet”, he smiles faintly and off I go…yes I vomited, ok?!, but a new kind, I’m not sick or anything, I think its when you are stressed out and too tired and need to relax quickly but the rate of relaxation is too low…so vomiting is a way for that…that is my theory at least!

The second day of training, I vomited as well, it was less and quicker and less dramatic, but the whole team was really encouraging, telling me it happens, and it happened with each one of them, they thought I shouldn’t eat before coming to practice which I don’t, but I know its just the matter with getting used to excessive tiredness. The third day I didn’t vomit, I swam 300 m for heat up, and then we practiced some real water polo, I think it’s a great game, you combine both classical swimming with an exciting game, so its just great :)

I feel quiet fortunate, and I don’t know why I never thought of doing this before.

Peace,