The night before my first class to requalify my Bronze Medallion, I stayed up watching the ultimate surfer girl movie, Blue Crush. I had decided that I could sleep in the next morning and skip my early morning routine in order to conserve strength for the class and any initial testing. It was a good call.
In Blue Crush, our heroine, Anne Marie Chadwick (Kate Bosworth) is battling her personal demons to get back out and compete in the Pipemasters competition in Hawaii, where she lives. I go green with envy every time I see her wake up in her modest beach cottage and head down the sand for a run or pile in the car with her friends to go for an early morning surf.
Let's face it, I am a beach girl at heart. I grew up two houses up from the sand in the Beaches neighbourhood in Toronto and many of my childhood summers were spent on the beach and in the water either there or at a summer camp in Huntsville, in northern Ontario.
Back to Anne Marie, she is facing the memory of a near drowning incident at a previous competition, an incident no one in the media seems to let her forget. Throughout the movie we are reminded that this is the "heaviest pipe in the world and people die out there." Getting back out there after what she sees as a personal failure is going to take what they used to call "gumption." Our heroine has it in spades - tough, independent and willing to stand up for her own dignity.
This is a Rocky story for girls, where the girl who works as a maid and single parent to her younger sister, is set to match waves with professional surfer girls from around the world, all sponsored by the big name surf brands like Billabong. If Anne Marie can catch even one good ride, she might just join them and become the surfer girl she was always meant to be.
Complicating the story, as always, is a man. A handsome football player on vacation who asks for surf lessons and more, distracting her from her training regime less than a week before the contest. The question of the film, for me, is, can Anne Marie keep her head on straight and focus on what she wants and still get the love and affection she deserves for being herself, and not some kind of "surf barbie" who has to ask a guy what to do.
Playing a strong character in this movie, is the ocean - seductive, dangerous, graceful and spectacularly beautiful. The cinematography is absolutely mesmerizing and you can easily spend hours looking with longing at these aqua waves virtually as you might if you were actually riding them. If Anne Marie can get in harmony with herself, it seems, she can be in harmony with the ocean. Isn't that what we're all looking for?
Pumped by the movie, I set out for my 4 and 1/2 hour class at the pool yesterday, the aqua waters taunting me to meet an acceptable standard for being in the course. We were given that first lesson to decide whether we should be in the game and offered a graceful, penalty free way to exit if we weren't ready. As our instructor pointed out, in 3 weeks, she didn't to have time to teach us how to swim. We needed to be already there.
Our friendly instructors Cat and Matt, assessed our abilities against a long list of tasks from swim lengths to rescue techniques. Having worked as a lifeguard and instructor during university, I wasn't as worried about getting up to speed on lifesaving basics. We even got into some great exercises learning about water conditions and currents and how to self-rescue. All this was broken up by some funny icebreakers meant to bond us as team. The first two hours were spent dry in a classroom, but then we had to get in the pool.
That meant facing my personal demons, more than a month of not being able to move immediately after the back injury, followed by a slow recovery, and only three mornings of swim training with the help of flippers. Did I mention it was almost twenty years since I last took the course?!
So how did I do with the flippers off? I got a thumbs up on the rescue requirements, recovering and towing a victim to shore in a couple of scenarios, and met the standard on related skills like the head up front crawl and surface dives. Then I ran into some trouble picking up the brick from the bottom of the pool. I was on my way down when I felt the air go out of my lungs and had to resurface to catch my breath. I made it on the second try but it earned me a "needs improvement" on my assessment.
They saved the lengths for near the end of the class, and I wondered how I would cope, now tired and shivering from standing in the pool for hours, and with only my arms and legs for power. But we were given a break on this first test - we could use any stroke. Next time we'll have to stick to front crawl, back crawl, breast stroke. This time, I could use side stroke, my strongest as an an alternate between front and back crawl.
Every time I passed the deep end, Cat yelled out encouragement, "Good job Erin," and towards the end, told me how many lengths I had left to go. Our goal was 16 lengths in 12 minutes. (The final exam will require 20 in 15). My back crawl got more purposeful, and my sidestroke eased my pain but my breathing was tough at this rapid pace and with the anxiety of whether I could make the grade.
Collapsing at the deep end, I managed to croak out, "How did I do?" Only 7 seconds over. I got a "needs improvement" next to that checkbox but I was ecstatic. I have three weeks to improve my strokes and my time, my strength and endurance. I'm going to be in that pool every day working it.
And I'll be in that classroom again today at 4 p.m. where I belong.
surfergrrrrrl,
signing off
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