Suzanne gets over herself-- abruptly and irrevocably

I'm so glad my last post was about my fears because it will help you understand the magnitude of my change in attitude.

Pool dive 1: Me, Senor Zen [instructor], and his cousin
Pool dive 2: 2 different scuba schools, people ranging in age and size and experience

This was the first thing that helped me relax this time: being able to hide in a crowd. It also helped that I was able to chat up a nice middle-aged woman who was there for her first dive. I could feel like the more experienced person (but as you'll see below this was taken away rather abruptly).

Pool dive 1: Flailing, likely a look of embarrassment and terror on my face at worst and timidity at best.
Pool dive 2: Something went "click" in my brain, but it wasn't the calming meditative aspects of scuba. It was pride, pure and simple.

Sr. Zen wasn't there this time-- it was another guy from the dive shop. Let's call him Smiley. Smiley is as cool and unruffled as Zen, but he's obviously a bit of a tease. One of the women at the pool was there for a refresher course, and they had a great rapport going--joking back and forth about how scared she was when she first learned to do this. I felt like I was a drug-addict at my first narc-anon meeting-- I piped right up with how I was glad I wasn't alone this time so I could gage how freaked out everyone else was. Smiley assured me that everyone's first dive is a disaster of awkwardness (this makes me wonder about all those websites and my textbook telling me how exhilarating it is to breathe under water for the first time... Maybe instead they should put, "You'll feel like a moron the first time, but don't quit on us!")

Then came my "pop" moment. Zen and Smiley are really nurturing instructors-- very kind and very concerned about how each of us is doing. So Smiley went around the group to discuss the goals for each of us. "Jane, this is your first dive so you'll be working on skill blah blah," that kind of thing. So he got to me and said, "Suzanne, [Zen] told me not to push the skills with you and to just let you have time to become comfortable in the water."

SAY WHAT??? I'm in the "slow" track? I get the watered-down curriculum? OH NO YOU DI-UNT!! Click. My fears-- A to Z-- evaporated.

I don't DO the remedial group. I don't care if I have a C in a class as long as no one has a B- or better. I don't get the sympathetic nod and the pat on the head. THAT'S NOT ME.

I quick giving a d___ about my white legs. I dropped my pants and started fixing my equipment. I didn't care how I looked as I put the BCD [the vest] on in the water. I just did it. I repeated the stupid 1st dive skills right along with the newbie and regretted only that with my primitive hand gestures under water I didn't know how to communicate "Bring it on, Bub, I want the next level."

I laid with my tank resting on the bottom of the pool at 13' and tried [unsuccessfully] to blow bubble rings. I swam on my back, on my stomach, on each side. I knelt on the bottom of the pool. I did the happy dance [sort of a shimmy-like thing that seems to stand in for smiles/laughter].

I won't lie-- it wasn't completely smooth. I wanted to hover just a bit so I reached for my BCD button thingy-- the thing that inflates your vest-- and in my exuberance I blasted myself to the surface, where I was promptly corrected by Smiley, who showed me how to add teeny bits of air to the vest to achieve a gradual ascent instead of a rocket launch. Oops.

But I think I'm over the scared thing. I was even thinking tonight that I am tired of seeing swimmers' bellies: I actually want to see critters in the water. This is a BIG step for me. Don't worry, I wasn't unsafe. I'm still a big ol' fraidy cat. But for me there's nothing to conquer fear better than a bit of wounded pride.

Yeah, yeah, one of these days it'll kill me.

I also discovered that I chose the right dive school. The other school there was really regimented and their instructor had them in a line the whole time. Zen and Smiley? They have us playing around in the water, experimenting with how to move and what to do, always right there watching us, but letting us go. I'm very happy with that approach.

And lest anyone reading this think that one is in the least bit of danger doing this-- I should mention that for every skill the instructors were RIGHT THERE, often holding onto the waists of our jackets and facing us just inches away or literally holding our hands. So, for example, although you have to take the regulator [the breathing thingy that goes in your mouth] out and pretend to lose it and then find it again in the water, if you should so much as THINK of panicking the instructor is right there. And not just for remedial me, either. For everyone.

As I stood outside the pool trying desperately to clear my swimmer's ear after we got out (I might be running to the doc tomorrow), Smiley came by with a load of equipment and said, as if it was a surprise, "You did really great tonight. You seemed comfortable down there."

Score.

And all it took was the insinuation that I couldn't do this.

All I can say is BRING IT ON.