THE PERFECT FORM

How to Swim Faster

Freestyle with the fireflies

I always thought I would swim freestyle slowly. No matter how hard I kicked, how hard I tried, I never got faster.

There is a group of people I swim with called the fireflies. They are the first ones out in the water when it’s still dark. They put flashlights in their floating buoys and dive into the darkness.

We call them fireflies because they look like fireflies.

If you want to be a firefly, you need to show up at the beach by 5 a.m. Years ago, I drove to the lake at 5 a.m. and watched the fireflies as I wrote in my car. Compared to them, I felt like I was jammed up in a clown car and they were Tom Pettying the shit out of that great wide open.

The other day I asked one of the firefly swimmers how to swim faster in open water. She observed my stroke for a second. I turned and asked, “What am I doing wrong?”

She answered, “I need to watch you longer. Keep swimming.”

I imagined she was the kind of woman who didn’t jump to conclusions, didn’t anchor on first impressions. She played the long game of deciding what kind of swimmer I was by side-stroking beside me for a while. One stroke wouldn’t tell her what she needed to know.

If you want to really know how someone swims, you have to watch them when they get tired — when they stop showing off. I swam for a few minutes and then she glided over to me.

“You’re not reaching out far enough out. Your stroke is short. You’re dropping your elbow. Keep it pointed up. Use your arm like a paddle. Make sure you're pushing your hand past your hip and getting that last whip of the stroke. That’s you engine.”

I’ve been swimming my whole life. Everything she said made perfect sense like I was waiting for it — like that thing I was building had finally come. I was a great breaststroker when I competed — fast and efficient, but my freestyle was dormant and wigglewormy.

When I swam the individual medley in high school, I was fine on backstroke, breast, stroke, and butterfly, but my freestyle was waaah waah.

I never mastered it. My other strokes were fast enough to pick up the slack so I allowed my freestyle to remain my weakest link.

Now and then, I asked other swimmers for tips. My freestyle passes as acceptable so people shrugged. Looks fine, they said. So what if your freestyle is slow. You’re not racing anymore.

In my heart, I was.

Some people put Antarctica on their bucket list. I have efficient speedy freestyle on mine, so when my firefly told me what to change, it was definitely a find the student and the teacher will come moment.

I did everything I was told. I could feel an immediate result. The next time I went out swimming with my partner, the one who invited me to swim with the open water swimmers, she was taken aback.

When did you get so fast? She asked. Normally I was trailing behind her but now I was ahead.

Yesterday, I said. She looked at me like someone looks at pool hustler. Had I been pretending to be slow? What was my deal? Was I crazy?

Today I decided to be a firefly. I have watched the fireflies for years in admiration — those swimmers who go out when it’s dark with flashlights in their buoys. It was better than I imagined.

Not only did I learn you can teach a fish new strokes. I also realized that some fish can transform into fireflies.

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