Swimmy

I had a hard go of gym going for a few weeks there but with the high stress of what's going on right now I really tried hard to get to the gym as I know that more intense cardio does knock my anxiety down a few notches.  I also found out when I did my swimming lessons that swimming really seems to calm the anxiety down and if I didn't mention it before, I think it's likely due to the controlled breathing you need to do. (Or in my case, attempt to do!)

So when things got bad last week I got myself to the gym and told myself to try to get into the pool.  Which I did to and got some swimming in (I feel like I should put that in quotation marks as not real swimming but you know what?  I'm letting myself have it as a win, no need to put myself down for imperfection.) and then that swim I did was timed to before a water fitness class started.

I've looked on the schedules and seen these classes before but always kind of chickened out on going as it's a new thing and that can be extra challenging for me.

But here I was with 10 or so minutes until the class and I thought "well, maybe I could just check it out?"

And I'm pretty proud of myself because I asked the lifeguard about people putting on the flotation belts and that I wasn't sure I wanted to try the class and he was really helpful and encouraging and told me that if I stayed in the shallow end I wouldn't need to worry about the flotation belt and that I could leave any time I wanted and that (very sweetly) I should "totally just check it out."  So that was enough encouragement for me to sort of sit with whatever nerves I had and then I got anxious about maybe upsetting the instructor so I told him that "hey if I leave it's not on you, I just want to check things out so might leave" and he was cool with that but then I ended up staying the whole time anyway!

I got kind of emotional during the class because I love the water and I love moving to music and this sort of reminded me of dance class with the coordinated moving to music and being in the water was fun and while it wasn't particularly a huge cardio challenge it did get my body moving in ways I haven't done in ages and have been meaning to.

My understanding is that water exercise is really easy on the joints and so that's great.  But that also the resistance adds some... I dunno, punch? to the movements?  

I'm not saying there was no cardio at all just that it didn't feel as draining as a run or something, but that's ok.

I was still pretty stressed and anxious after so I didn't really get a huge sense of being proud of myself but now that I've been to ANOTHER class I guess I kind of do feel proud of myself for making that initial choice to stay around and try it out.  Otherwise I don't think I'd have ever gotten the gumption to go in the first place.  Like I mean I probably wouldn't have gone if I had to randomly show up for the class but having already been in the pool and then just kind of continuing to be in the pool and see the people coming in I felt ok joining in.

I'm glad I went back for the second class too, and I did some treadmill cardio before hand to make sure I was getting that in.  I did get a little bit sort of bored maybe in the second class but it was still enjoyable and the songs were great and so I stayed at the back and lip-synched my way through and during one song I was so busy air guitaring that I missed the instructions for the next move oops!

I'm not sure how often I'll be able to fit it in to my week or anything but that's not the focus.  My focus is that I tried something new in a way that worked for me and I'm glad I did and I'm proud of me and I've found a new-to-me exercise that I don't mind too much!