Ryan Roberts - Take a Breath: Hit the Wall or Die (the blog post assignment about flow)

 “ … I got this.” I mumble to myself, unheard over the hundreds of screaming voices echoing on the pool deck. I fumble for my swim cap and goggles, trying to keep my heart-rate in the optimal beating pattern before this event. It’s a 100 Backstroke, short course, full sprint, my favorite event, and I’m ranked first. “There is no room for error, the slightest mess up results in second.” I tell myself, folding the tight, silicone cap over my head and placing the goggles over my eyes. To my left, my main competition, who I will keep anonymous, is jumping up and down, slapping her thighs and arms to keep the blood flowing. I’ve never really found that helpful, but if it works for her, then by all means. 

The heat before me is on their 75, just about to flip. In the last 30 seconds of the race, I picture exactly how mine is going to go. 1) Jump in and grab the block. 2) Pull into the ready position, butt slightly out of the water, feet planted firmly on the touchpad, arms strong. 3) When the buzzer goes off, jump off in a perfect rainbow dive, tight streamline, take a deep breath. 4) Underwaters, use the core and flick the feet at the end, at least seven. 5) Pull left arm down from streamline right as face reaches, but doesn’t break, the water line. 6) Face breaks water line, start stroke. Arms strong, straight, thumb out pinky in, bent underwater to push more water. Legs kicking powerfully, head back. 7) When the flags show up, take two strong strokes, flip onto front, single freestyle pull (gauge distance to ensure legality), flip into a tight ball, plant feet on the wall, push off strong. 8) Repeat steps 4 - 7 two more times. 9) On the final lap, forget about technique. Use all energy to get to the wall faster. Upon reaching the flags, count one, two strokes, and throw a third back, slipping underwater, and touching the center of the touchpad. 10) Look at time. Breathe. Calm down.


I wake up from my trance, seeing only a few seconds have passed. I roll my neck and start stretching my arms. Usually I would be dancing to whatever song was playing, but this event is too important. I keep taking deep breaths as I stretch, psyching myself up for what I’m going to do. The screams around me dissipate, leaving the only thing I can hear being my own racing heart and calm breaths. A whistle screech breaks through the trance, my legs moving me forward as the preceding heat stumbles out of the water. One of the timers gives me a pat on the back and says to kill it. I smile at her and snap my mind back to what’s right in front of me.


The second whistle blow. That means it’s time to jump in. The water is just the right amount of cold to not be unbearable but also not soothing. I caught another glimpse of my competitor; she dove down to the very bottom and jumped off the bottom to explode out and grab the block. It’s at the third whistle blow, the one telling us to get ready to leave that I realize this isn’t a race to her. It’s a performance. Inside me, something snaps. If she wants a performance, she’ll get a performance. I’m not going to be outshined by the understudy.


I thought that I would follow my perfect plan, step by step, but as the buzzer went off, instinct took over. It’s like I was hyper aware of everything around me, yet completely numb and unthinking. I didn’t even know what my plan was anymore. I just did what got me to the wall faster. The only thing I do remember thinking was “Don’t let her win.”. I also don’t tend to check where people are beside me, but I distinctly remember keeping her arms in my view while swimming. They needed to be in my sight. When the flags came into view, I instinctually threw myself back at the final stroke and hit the wall so hard that I cracked my fingers. I came up for air with a throbbing headache, probably not breathing much during that entire race. But it all worked. I beat her by a full second.


This is actually something I experienced when I was seventeen years old, during the winter swim season for my high school. I personally think that I experienced flow as Csikszentmihalyi describes it. He says, “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter” (Csikszentmihalyi 4). At least in my athletic achievement of flow, I don’t find anything about this to be religious or self emptying. I’ve never been religious or superstitious, so I don’t really think this is me connecting with a higher power, I also don’t think this could qualify as a “religious experience”. I understand religious experiences as a feeling of complete content, unmarred by any and all vices. Same thing with the feeling of self-emptying, where the idea of vices has completely vacated your body. Because I was so hyper-fixated on proving myself better than my opponent, I don’t think I could say that I was free of vice. If anything, I would say that I was more like a child having a temper-tantrum.


I think that I identify closer with the other explanation our professor gives, that being a very goal oriented flow. “Clarity of goals is an important element of flow.” (Redick 246). He goes on to describe a hiking rhythm, one very similar to the steps that I laid out when I was thinking about my race. They are methodical, yet once flow is achieved, every rule book is thrown out and they are done instinctually. My goal was dominance in my event, and when flow was achieved, all I could think about was getting that achievement. And while a 100 Backstroke isn't normally a challenge for me, in fact, it's actually used to calm me down from a difficult set, the presence of an opponent made this a challenge, another thing needed to recognize flow.


I personally think that duration plays no part in achieving athletic flow. As shown in my story, I had maybe achieved flow for a minute and a half at most, the duration of the event plus a few seconds for the lead up. And while I do think that it helps with some things like the hiking example our professor gives, it doesn’t help in short term, sprint events. I’ve actually swam a mile before (1650 freestyle - 66 laps), and I will say that at some point, your mind does become numb to what’s happening and only focuses on finishing, which could be considered entering the flow state in its own way.


And the final, very interesting bit, that I wanted to discuss was the idea in the book about “Self-Appearance”. I am someone who cares very deeply about their appearance, even when I’m swimming. For years, I was extremely careful to never soak my hair in the pool as the chlorine could damage my hair, and I would thoroughly scrub my skin to make sure no chemicals were drying it out. Yet, after most events, this idea gets thrown out so far out the window that I’m pretty sure it hits some random stranger across the world. I will be in that event, not caring how ungraceful I look and hop out with flushed red skin, my suit digging into said skin and showing off my cellulite, and my hair an absolute mess, and I won’t care. I will see others that look just like me, sometimes even worse, and think that they look absolutely amazing. I guess that athletes love the look of strength mixed with fatigue.

But that’s my personal experience with flow or, as I like to call it, reaching the point in swimming where you will either hit the wall, or die trying to get there. Have a wonderful day! ♥


Extras!! Technical Swim Lingo:

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