Swim Rant

Stop... peace! You're all right! Or maybe not. ;) Pools are small and the number of people wanting to use them is steadily increasing. Small space and large number wanting to use that space for different purposes = conflict, tension, misunderstanding, and annoyance. When I read some of the incidents brought up here, I think, "ooooh yeah!" SwimStud's lane invading lady should, for instance, have recognized at the very minimum that he was there first, and that telling a person who was there first that you want them to leave isn't cool. It would be like going into a restaurant and sitting at another's table, inviting others to sit, and then asking the person already there to leave because there isn't enough room for the newcomer and friends. And I admit there are people in my pool who set my teeth on edge. Sometimes people seem so rude it's hard to believe they're just new to swimming and don't know the etiquette. In some cases, they are in fact being rude and sometimes people just need to vent about such things. But often a little negotiation at the start can defuse things. For instance, someone hanging on the side just chitchatting with someone else, not looking as if they're planning to move any time soon: Me in friendly mode--"hi, are you done with this lane?" Sometimes it's "oh yeah, sorry" and they move. Or sometimes, "Not yet, I'm just resting." And okay, no big deal... I look for another lane. Or if someone's going all weird/zigzaggy on me, I might ask at some point, "excuse me, but I'm having a hard time staying out of your way. Can we split the lane in half so we're each on one side? I don't want to run into you." Most, though not all, people respond politely if you treat them politely and expect them to respond in kind. Sometimes as mentioned, the person doesn't speak English and may be totally not sure what's expected of her/him. I had that happen recently also in the case of a woman who wandered from lane to lane totally seeming to ignore people telling her what the rules were. I wonder if pools should have a required orientation for any newcomer, just as any other piece of gym equipment might. It would probably save a lot of "newbie mistakes" (and I suspect I made my share of them). Maybe not too practical... but just a thought. Also, I think it would help if pool management recognized that more and more adults do in fact want some real workout times and that they should not thus put lap swim periods at the lowest level of priority. Once I was in a lap swim period in which the other half of the pool was given over to free swimming for kids. Pool toys flew into the lanes and not much if anything was done. In fact, someone involved in managing things just said "you might want to come some other time besides that hour." Well, yes, but maybe the schedulers of these things should acknowledge that some events/activities are not compatible in the same pool. And also lifeguards and other staff members need to be a bit more assertive in keeping the activities in their appropriate places. Fortunately, in the pools where I swim, they're pretty good about that for the most part. Now an anti-rant: Kudos for a guy I swam with yesterday--although faster, he invited me to circle with him, and when I expressed some doubt telling him he was a lot faster, he said, "no problem, I can work around you." Seeing him just behind me sometimes, I'd stop at the wall to let him pass, but then he said, "don't worry, go ahead and keep swimming. I'll just swim around you." And after that, we both did our workouts at our pace and managed just fine! What a gentleman! He even complimented my stroke! We were all new to something at one time and not sure about rules/expectations. After swimming, I've talked to people I was tempted to get impatient with--and discovered that maybe they'd just learned to swim or lost a lot of weight and swimming maybe 100 yards of slow breaststroke is more than they ever thought they could do.

Stop... peace! You're all right! Or maybe not. ;) Pools are small and the number of people wanting to use them is steadily increasing. Small space and large number wanting to use that space for different purposes = conflict, tension, misunderstanding, and annoyance. When I read some of the incidents brought up here, I think, "ooooh yeah!" SwimStud's lane invading lady should, for instance, have recognized at the very minimum that he was there first, and that telling a person who was there first that you want them to leave isn't cool. It would be like going into a restaurant and sitting at another's table, inviting others to sit, and then asking the person already there to leave because there isn't enough room for the newcomer and friends. And I admit there are people in my pool who set my teeth on edge. Sometimes people seem so rude it's hard to believe they're just new to swimming and don't know the etiquette. In some cases, they are in fact being rude and sometimes people just need to vent about such things. But often a little negotiation at the start can defuse things. For instance, someone hanging on the side just chitchatting with someone else, not looking as if they're planning to move any time soon: Me in friendly mode--"hi, are you done with this lane?" Sometimes it's "oh yeah, sorry" and they move. Or sometimes, "Not yet, I'm just resting." And okay, no big deal... I look for another lane. Or if someone's going all weird/zigzaggy on me, I might ask at some point, "excuse me, but I'm having a hard time staying out of your way. Can we split the lane in half so we're each on one side? I don't want to run into you." Most, though not all, people respond politely if you treat them politely and expect them to respond in kind. Sometimes as mentioned, the person doesn't speak English and may be totally not sure what's expected of her/him. I had that happen recently also in the case of a woman who wandered from lane to lane totally seeming to ignore people telling her what the rules were. I wonder if pools should have a required orientation for any newcomer, just as any other piece of gym equipment might. It would probably save a lot of "newbie mistakes" (and I suspect I made my share of them). Maybe not too practical... but just a thought. Also, I think it would help if pool management recognized that more and more adults do in fact want some real workout times and that they should not thus put lap swim periods at the lowest level of priority. Once I was in a lap swim period in which the other half of the pool was given over to free swimming for kids. Pool toys flew into the lanes and not much if anything was done. In fact, someone involved in managing things just said "you might want to come some other time besides that hour." Well, yes, but maybe the schedulers of these things should acknowledge that some events/activities are not compatible in the same pool. And also lifeguards and other staff members need to be a bit more assertive in keeping the activities in their appropriate places. Fortunately, in the pools where I swim, they're pretty good about that for the most part. Now an anti-rant: Kudos for a guy I swam with yesterday--although faster, he invited me to circle with him, and when I expressed some doubt telling him he was a lot faster, he said, "no problem, I can work around you." Seeing him just behind me sometimes, I'd stop at the wall to let him pass, but then he said, "don't worry, go ahead and keep swimming. I'll just swim around you." And after that, we both did our workouts at our pace and managed just fine! What a gentleman! He even complimented my stroke! We were all new to something at one time and not sure about rules/expectations. After swimming, I've talked to people I was tempted to get impatient with--and discovered that maybe they'd just learned to swim or lost a lot of weight and swimming maybe 100 yards of slow breaststroke is more than they ever thought they could do.