Today I'm grateful for little learners. We had MacKenzie's swimming class this morning. It went better than they have in the past, I'm guessing largely because she spent so much time in the pool or hot tub when we were in Florida. Anyway, today was the first day that the class practiced putting their heads under water for the first time. The teacher took every individual student and helped them put their heads under. What I thought was most interesting about this was just how adventurous and willing to learn little kids are. Imagine how big and new the world is for someone under two years old. They've likely been in pools less than 20 times at the most. It's noisy and there are lots of people around that they don't know very well. Then a woman that they've only seen for 30 minutes four or five times takes them away from their parent and pulls them through the water until they go under for a bit. Talk about being uncomfortable!
Here's the thing: very few cried. Almost all gave the teacher and their parents a high five after it was over. Even if they were blinking away water out of their eyes and looked a little unsure. They were all excited to have done something new.
As with so many things, kids can teach us so much about being open to learning and new things. Change might be uncomfortable, it might feel really strange, but it's likely to help you swim to places you never expected. The next time I'm nervous about trying something new or need to stretch myself a bit, I'm going to think about all those little swimmers going under for the first time. They were inspiring.
Here's a little clip of the first dip under water:
Until tomorrow...
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