Why We Swim

Tsui, Bonnie. Why We Swim. Chapel Hill, NJ: Algonquin. 2020. Print

First Sentences:

One night over dinner, my husband tells me a story he heard about a boat in the North Atlantic and a man who should have drowned.


Description:

I've been doing a lot of swimming lately, up to a mile each day in a lake or pool. So of course I was drawn to Bonnie Tsui's Why We Swim, an engaging history of people, events, emotions, and challenges of swimming. 

Water has played a significant part in human history, the element we originated in before becoming land creatures. Today, we are not natural born swimmers, but we are inexorably drawn to water.

And Tsui presents a lot of fascinating people to showcase our historic attraction to swimming and personal relationship with the water. Tsui skillfully weaves these accounts into a gentle, almost rhythmic narrative writing style that is a pleasure to read...almost like floating down a river. 

She begins with the true Icelandic story of a 22-year-old fisherman who survived the sinking of his boat by swimming over 3.5 miles to safety ... in 41-degree water on a 29-degree night. How did he survive six hours in the freezing water when the other crew members quickly drowned or died within minutes from hypothermia? The survivor has become an international hero for helping scientists understand the effects and prevention of hypothermia. There is even an annual swimming event in Iceland, the Guolaugssund ("Guolaugur's Swim"). Of course, Tsui participates in this event and relates her experiences.

Do you remember Dara Torres, the 41-year-old Olympic medalist who in her fifth Olympics (a record for appearances) in Beijing in 2008, only to miss a gold medal by 1/100 of a second? Tsui interviews Torres to understand what drove her to come out of three retirements to keep swimming competitively at such a high level at her relatively advanced age.

And then there's "Coach Jay" Taylor, a cultural attache for the US Foreign Service, who taught soldiers in Baghdad to swim in Saddam Hussein's enormous palace pool. From Navy SEALS to Iranian women who had never been able to purchase a swim suit, much less enter the water, Coach Jay taught hundreds to strip down to swimsuit and goggles, making all, regardless of rank or sex, equal.

Don't forget Kim Chambers, who despite a leg-crushing accident, still swims daily in the sub-60-degree Pacific Ocean of San Francisco, sometimes going all the way to Alcatraz or the nearby shark-infested waters Farallon Islands.

I loved the stories about the Bajau in Malaysia who free-dive two hundred feet. And the Moken in Thailand who gather clams and sea cucumbers from the bottom of the ocean, helped by their ability to focus their eyes underwater (a skill Tsui shows us how we can learn!). Also, there are people today who practice the art of Nihon eiho, the Japanese military art of swimming (usually in full, 45-pound armor), that involves skills such as treading water without hands so they can shoot bows and arrows, silent swimming, and leaping straight up out of the water onto boats.

She interviews the anthropologists who study the 10,000-year-old paintings of swimmers found in a cave in the Egyptian desert. Shallow lakes once dotted this currently barren desert, and now there is newly discovered evidence of humans who lived and swam near these waters for thousands of years. 

Who else does Tsui mention? Try Benjamin Franklin, Lynne Cox (distance, cold-water swimmer), Gertrude Ederle (holder of dozens of swimming world records and the first woman to swim the English Channel, breaking the men's record by two hours). There's Dr. Oliver Sacks, E.A. Poe, Thoreau, Byron, D.H. Lawrence, Melville, Jack London, Franklin Roosevelt, and even Nietzsche, all of whom used water and swimming in their lives and writings.

We are all drawn to water, whether to live near it, contemplate it, or swim in it. Tsui does a wonderful job of bringing so many elements together is a compelling narrative. An eye-opening book for anyone connected to water (i.e., all of us!)

When we peer into a lake, river, or ocean, we find that water encourages a particular kind of reverie. Perhaps its depths can enhance our consciousness even more if, instead of just looking, we get in and swim.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Laughlin, Terry. Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier  

Laughlin walks non-swimmers to triathletes through learning the modern way to swim now used by most champion swimmers. Easy glides, fewer strokes, and efficient body position are the keys which can make anyone enjoy swimming at a higher level no matter what your skill or goals.

Special Post - Best Sports Instruction

Now that summer is here, it's time to think about playing outdoors. And playing a sport well is the best fun. But if you really wanted to learn how to be efficient, effective, and joyful at tennis, golf, baseball, and/or swimming, which books would you choose to read? 

Below are my favorite instruction books for these sports. I have used them all for years and each has changed how I play each game. Also, they have given me a better understanding of the principles of efficient use of my physical and mental energy toward a goal of playing well and simply having fun. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

_______________________

Tennis For Life - Peter Burwash

First Sentences 

If you're like almost every other tennis player, you've reached a plateau on which you're stuck.

No matter how hard you practice, no matter how many lessons you take, you're stuck on that level. 

Description:

Peter Burwash, a former tennis professional from Canada, observed the common traits followed by successful pros and then incorporated them into lessons for us ordinary players. He discards the usual advice such as "Watch the ball" and "Racquet back," and instead stresses techniques that actually influence the ball. Burwash emphasizes the importance of the contact point between racquet and ball (backswing and follow-through do not actually direct the ball since the ball is not on the strings during each of these!); snapping the wrist in serving; "catching" volleys like a baseball player; and responding to emergency situations when perfect strokes are not possible. 

He breaks the game down into techniques easily understood, remembered, and applied. These techniques work for players of all levels. Believe me, I've seen it happen countless times when I taught beginning and nationally-ranked players using these same concepts. Definitely a game-changer of a book.

_______________________

Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier - Terry Laughlin

First Sentences  

It's no mystery why people why people have trouble swimming as fast or as far or as smoothly as they'd like: Most of them are doing it backwards.

"Don't worry if you form's not perfect," coaches and instructors have always assured us. "Just get those laps in. Eventually you'll be fit enough to develop a smoother, stronger stroke." 

It really works the other way around, but that's not how it's been taught.

          

Description:

Author Terry Laughlin was a competitive swimmer all his life including college, but gave it up due to the boredom of endless laps and lack of personal progress in speed and efficiency. Entering Masters competitions renewed his interest in pursuing a revolutionary method of swimming and training: using streamlining and gliding techniques rather than energy-inefficient power strokes. Easy to comprehend and easy to practice, these step-by-step progressions practiced in short bursts of one lap provide fun, highly obtainable results. Really changed my stroke and enjoyment as now I can swim over a mile smoothly without becoming winded.

_______________________

Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf - Count Yogi

First Sentences  

It has always been said that good golf starts with a good grip. That is true.

        

Description:

Count Yogi was a highly successful golfer who hustled for money and gave demonstrations on California courses using a simplified approach to mastering the few essentials of the sports: grip, balance, approaching the ball, total swing, and putting.

Instead of breaking down the swing into minute elements no one can remember or implement, he simply focuses on stroke smoothness and a few minor tips (hitting through the ball). Count Yogi also adds plenty of snarky comments about current pros and their detailed books which offer advice the pros/author don't use on the course ... because they all are actually using Count Yogi's techniques, of course. A hard book to find, but worth the effort. Lots of fun to read and plenty of great tips.

_______________________

The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance - Tim Galloway

First Sentences  

The problems which most perplex tennis players are not those dealing with the proper way to swing a racket.... 

The most common complaint of sportsmen ringing down the corridors of the ages is, "It's not that I don't know what to do, it's that I don't do what I know."

   

Description:

Self One and Self Two are constantly battling inside the head of every tennis player. Self One, the critical one, says "Why did you do that, you moron," while Self Two, quietly envisions the success of the shot. Author Galloway argues that silencing Self One and focusing on Self Two via visualization of quality shots and results will be more successful than endless drills and techniques. His offers an easy-to-comprehend philosophy, relying on imaging and quietness of the mind to achieve goals. Fascinating, and it actually produces great results both in shots and one's enjoyment of the game.

_______________________

The Science of Hitting - Ted Williams

First Sentences  

Hitting a baseball -- I've said it a thousand times before -- is the single most difficult thing to do in sport.

Description:

Williams, the last baseball hitter to end a season with a .400 average, shares the science and practice behind successfully hitting the ball. He has broken this seemingly simple action into details that are easily understood, but require practice, discipline, and then even more practice to achieve the goals. Very solid writing and theories behind this difficult art.

The Three-Year Swim Club

Checkoway, Julie. The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory. New York: Grand Central. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

On Friday, August 20, 1937, three thousand people brimmed the bleachers at the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium -- working stiffs and hoi polloi in general admission, swells in the reserved seats, and just outside the concrete walls, barefoot local kids climbed the hau trees for the gratis view, perched on boughs like avifauna in silhouette.

Description:

OK, I know it's two weeks in a row I recommended books about Hawaiian swimmers. But I just could not resist promoting Julie Checkoway's unique history of The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory. 

It is the incredible story of one man in the 1930s, Sochi Sakamoto, a non-swimming Japanese-American science teacher at a sugar cane plantation school on Maui, who taught Japanese children of sugar cane workers to swim. Using only his wits and a filthy 8' long and 4' deep irrigation ditch, Sakamoto's program helped these "ditch-wrigglers" advance to win numerous national swimming titles and even Olympic gold medals.

Sakamoto, who possessed only survival swimming skills himself, volunteered to supervise the plantation workers' children trying to cool off in a nearby irrigation ditch for one hour a day. Eventually, he showed them how to put their heads underwater, float, and eventually "speed float" by propelling themselves in any way they could against the current in the ditch of incoming water. 

The 1930s were an era where swimming was of huge interest to the public, especially in Hawaii after the Olympic successes of Duke Kahanamoku and Johnny Weissmuller. Sakamoto read and observed these and other famous swimmers, including those competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and passed his knowledge on to his kids. He formed the "Three-Year Swim Club" (TYSC) with his best swimmers in 1937 with the sole purpose to train the for 1940 Tokyo Olympics. 

The Three-Year Swim Club details the unbelievable rise of this coach and his swimmers (most of whom previously had never left their sugar cane plantation in Maui) from winning the Duke Kahanamoku Invitation in 1938 (where skinny, flailing Keo Nakama defeated Olympic silver-medalist Ralph Gilman) to national and international meets in Detroit, St. Louis, New Haven, Santa Barbara, Australia, Paris, London, and Berlin. Nakama eventually won 27 US National Championships in events ranging from 100 yards to 1500 meters and was the first to swim the 27 mile channel between the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Oahu. Bill Smith, another TYSC member, won two Olympic gold medals in 1948, while several others went on to collegiate Big Ten and National championships in the 1940s with the powerhouse swimming teams of The Ohio State University.

The drive of Sakamoto, his creativity in designing unique (now common today) training techniques, and his inspiration to motivate his swimmers to triumph, permeates every page of this wonderful book. Facing both worldwide adulation at meets as well as racial discrimination against Japanese during the World War II era, the TYSC swimmers and coach represent an tenacious and inspirational group of individuals who seek only to swim, have fun, compete, and triumph over whatever the world throws at them.

Don't let this fascinating history be forgotten. Read this great book as soon as you can.

Happy reading.

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku

History of Hawaii's greatest swimmer, surfer, and ambassador of the Aloha spirit in the early part of the twentieth century: Duke Kahanamoku. (previously reviewed here)

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat

True story of the men who rowed to Olympic history and a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.. (previously reviewed here)

Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze.

Historical re-telling of the events of the 1908 Olympic marathon, the controversial finish (where one runner ran the wrong way in the stadium and was disqualified after being assisted by officials) and the training these pioneer runners endured.

Waterman

Davis, David. Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The precise moment when Duke Paoa Kahanamoku slipped into the shimmering blue waters of the Pacific Ocean is lost to history.

Duke himself recalled only that he was around four years old when his father, so proud of his namesake, the first of the Kahanamoku children to survive infancy, tossed him over the side of a canoe somewhere off Waikiki Beach.

"It was save yourself or drown," he said, "so I saved myself."

Description:

Is there a more fun name to say than "Duke Kahanamoku" (Kah HAN ah MO koo)? And was there ever a better swimmer and ambassador for everything related to water sports? From surfing to open water swimming, paddle-boarding, outrigger canoeing and upright paddling to body surfing, Duke was The Man of the early twentieth century as recounted in David Davis' fascinating biography, Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku.

Duke grew up on Waikiki beach in the 1890s when Hawaii was still an independent kingdom. He spent his youth playing in the water, diving for coins tossed from tourist ocean liners, paddling outrigger canoes, and of course swimming. He also mastered "wave-riding" (surfing) using a 16' redwood board that weighed 150 pounds. At that time surfing was unknown outside of Hawaii, so it was Duke who later introduced the sport to California, Australia, and every other beach internationally that he visited.

Duke entered and set world records in AAU swim meets held in the open waters of Honolulu and again in amateur national meets on the Mainland. Duke went on to win Olympic medals in 1912, 1920, and 1924 in the Games held in Stockholm. (with Jim Thorpe), in Antwerp, and Paris (with teammate/rival Johnny Weissmuller). He turned his international recognition turned world tours and swimming demonstrations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. 

But back in Hawaii Duke faced racial discrimination and lack of employment. As an amateur, he could not make money from anything swimming-related, so the only work he could find was as a janitor/caretaker of the Honolulu government buildings, mowing lawns, sweeping halls, and cleaning bathrooms. He later owned a small gas station where he pumped gas below his surfboard hung outside as a promotional sign.

Author Davis details story after story of Duke's life in the water. In 1925, Duke performed a heroic rescue of eight passengers of a sinking boat in dangerously heavy seas in Newport Beach. Using his surfboard he performed "the most superhuman surfboard rescue act the world has ever seen" according to the Newport Chief of Police. Seventeen other passengers from that same perished. After that incident, all California lifeguards started using surfboards for their rescues.

But he always remained upbeat, uncomplaining about his slights in his life. He remained the unofficial ambassador of Hawaii, greeting incoming tourists and VIPs with leis, tours, and surfing lessons. Eventually he became the Sheriff of Honolulu, a small job that became important overnight when nearby Pearl Harbor was attacked. He even made two dozen movies with Paramount Pictures.

Duke Kahanamoku was an international figure in an era when the sport of swimming was as eagerly followed as baseball and boxing by a sports-hungry world. This well-researched book is a wonderful detailing of his life, his skills in the water, and his bigger-than-life personality that brought Hawaii into the consciousness of the world in the twentieth century. Highly recommended for lovers of swimming, history, and Hawaii.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Checkoway, Julie. The Three-Year Swim Club The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory

True story of the non-swimming elementary school teacher who developed 
children from poor sugar cane workers' from splashing around in an irrigation ditch in Maui, Hawaii to winning national and Olympic championships in the 1930s.

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat

True story of the men who rowed to Olympic history and a gold medal in the Berlin Olympics in 1936. (previously reviewed here)

Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd's Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze.

Historical re-telling of the events of the 1908 Olympic marathon, the controversial finish (where one runner ran the wrong way in the stadium and was disqualified after being assisted by officials) and the training these pioneer runners endured.