Thanks But No Thanks

OK, I know I already explained about my issues with what people think about me, and my paranoid swimming problems. Some of you said you would feel the same way, and some congratulated me on being able to move past all that and keep swimming. My mother in particular complimented me on being able to simply accept Mr. Helpful's advice (you remember Mr. Helpful, right?), in essence letting go any pride or paranoia. So now I'm going to prove to you all that I'm not actually mature and able to gracefully accept advice and move on.

I KNOW I NEED HELP, BUT REALLY!!!

(I'm a little irritated at the moment, can you tell?)

Mr. Helpful is actually Mr. Helpful Swim Coach. He made a point of letting me know this morning that he is the swim coach for the team at the Y, while he was giving me a list of drills that would be more helpful (in his opinion) than what I was doing. In fact, everything he wanted me to do was the completely opposite of the program I'm working on. (I chose my particular program because 1- the teacher is a record-holding long distance swimmer who particularly works with triathletes and 2- because it focuses on working smarter instead of harder, of which I'm always a fan.) It was thoroughly annoying when I was trying to concentrate on my simple drills this morning to be told that I would be better off doing something else, especially when those things are exactly the bad habits my video wants me to break!

I tried to be nice. I thanked him sweetly for his suggestions, even though it was driving me a little nuts. After all, I only have a limited time window before I have to get K out of the child care, and his "instruction" was preventing me from getting any real practice in. But finally he got the idea that I wanted to get back to what I was doing because he decided to actually swim a lap.

Only one lap later he was stopped next to me again. "Your fingers are still in the water. You want to make sure they clear the top of the water," he commented. About this time I lost my cool a bit.

"Yes," I responded through clenched teeth. "Well, that's intentional. I want them to be in the water."

"Oh," he replied in a tiny voice. Fortunately, after that he only swam another couple of laps and spent the rest of the time talking to the lifeguard and ignoring me.

I feel kind of bad. Once again, the guy was just trying to be nice. But he was wrecking my practice, and he had no idea what I was trying to do. The worst part is now I've spent way too much time this morning wondering if he was thinking to himself, "That silly girl thinks that she is doing something to improve her swimming, and she has no idea what she's doing. As if some swim drills written on paper are actually going to help her. What an idiot!"

Yeah, I'm a little messed up in the head.