Why We Swim

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My only minor nag in the book is that the author speaks often of the fear in swimming. Many people drown so it should be respected. But these are usually non-swimmers that get caught in flood catastrophes. The author spoke how she regularly threw-up in the bathroom before swimming races. As a life-long swimmer my self, and a coach, I've known athletes with this uneasiness, but it is extremely rare. If you 'do your homework' prior to the meet, you should feel 'excited' to prove that the hard work is about to pay off. Fear kept being repeated briefly, but regularly throughout the book. I do not like normalizing fear of swimming. Swimming in water is the only state of being I know where I feel free,” writes Yuknavitch. A former competitive swimmer, she has written at length about swimming for well-being, especially as she ages. Water, she says, helps a body remember that life and time are fluid: “I look a little lumbering and soft, aged and lumpy. But put me in water . . . put me in water for even ten seconds, and I will prove to you that a body is anything you want it to be.” In Japan, ancient texts tell us that swimming in ice-cold water teaches perseverance and floating leads to serenity. This explains the chapter on Samurai Swimming. That’s right, Samurais who swim, fully enveloped in armor! Nihon eiho is a Japanese swimming martial art, requiring a different way to move in the water. This was an inspiring chapter, as I immediately put some of the ideas into play, such as relying on my torso and legs, instead of my arms, to keep my head above the water. Inspiring. Friðporsson endured the temperatures because of his size and bulk – he became known as “the human seal” – and he didn’t drown because, like everyone in Iceland, he had received excellent swimming lessons as a child. Story of his deed travelled – he was the subject of a New Yorker profile, he shied away from an appearance on the Johnny Carson show and within the past few years batted away proposals for a Hollywood-type treatment of that night. “Make the movie when I’m dead,” he suggested.

All the energy that goes into the water stays there. None goes into the air above or the material surrounding the pool.Tsui’s quest also takes her to Asia, where she looks into the Bajau sea nomads, free-diving fishermen who swim down to two hundred feet for up to 10 minutes at a time to hunt their prey, and to the Moken, who survived the 2004 tsunami by reading signs in the water. She also travels to Tokyo to learn about samurai swimming and meets with Midori Ishibiki, one of eight people responsible for preserving Nihon eiho, the Japanese swimming martial art. Artwork: Water is much more dense than air (has many more molecules per unit of volume), which is why it's harder to swim through and why it feels cold, even when it's the same temperature as the

Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity The pandemic has stopped me and many others to swim in our usual spots. The loss is felt until now. I swim not only for fitness but also the feel of water surrounding me, the way it buoys you, the sense of freedom and weightlessness, untethered from technology (!) I could go on.

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In 2015, she became the first woman to swim from the Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge – a distance of about 30 miles. We first learn to swim in the womb, Bonnie Tsui writes, and while “not everyone is a swimmer … everyone has a swimming story to tell.”

air above. Getting into "cold" water is like touching "cold" metal: both feel cold because they conduct (and steal) heat from your body very effectively. Why We Swim is a celebration of the many varieties of joy that swimming brings to our oxygen-breathing species.” An] enthusiastic and thoughtful work mixing history, journalism and elements of memoir . . . Tsui sets out to answer her title’s question with a compassionate understanding of how that mind game stops some and a curiosity about how and why it seduces others . . . Tsui endears herself to the reader as well. Her universal query is also one of self, and her articulations of what she learns are moving.”I wanted to create a relaxing social nourishing - gathering for people to come on Friday nights - at the end of a busy work week — to ‘relax’.

Bonnie Tsui captures the joy, peril and utility of swimming, within her family and across civilizations . . . The breadth of her reporting and grace of her writing make the elements of Why We Swim move harmoniously as one." Is it better to float or to sink? If you're a boat, it's certainly better to do one or the other! Unfortunately, I ask Tanaka, the longevity researcher, what makes swimming so good for aging bodies. Weightlessness, he says. Physical activity without the pain and damage of land-based impact. Coolness, and buoyancy, to reduce inflammation and support the body. And one more thing, the most important thing.

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As an avid swimmer, I’m always in search of books that will capture the feeling of being in the water. Tsui beautifully touches on all of the elements that water evokes for humans, in a style that is prose, memoir, and biography of some of her swimming heroes. What I liked is that it highlights both the collective and individual experience of swimming and how we simultaneously both belong in and are foreign to the water. Especially poignant are the scenes of open water swimming, with all of its dangers but inspiring sense of awe. Why We Swim”, by Bonnie Kane....was everything I could ask for. I seriously want to invite Bonnie to be a guest at our house. This swimmer is practicing a survival technique called the prone or "dead man's float," which helps you float