In Over My Head

I swam myself sick last night. I went to a group swim lesson in Pasadena. It started off fine. We had to do some freestyle laps and I was basically keeping pace with the group which I haven't been able to do in the past, so that was good. Then we had to grab swim boards and do some flutter-kicking exercises. (I was told previously I'm a bad kicker; I keep reminding myself that Coach Gareth told us that kicking is less important in the ocean so I don't worry about it much. I know, that's a terrible attitude but it gets me across the pool.) So things were going OK, then the coach tells us to do the backstroke to the other side.

The whojawhat now?

I've seen people do the backstroke on TV, but I have no clue how to do it. I watched everyone else kick off and then just gave it a whirl. Horrible. Even though I was on my back, my face was underwater half the time. Everyone else made it across, then about 20 seconds later I come flailing to the end and started coughing and hacking over the side of the pool like a drunken sailor. Then we had to go back. Then we had to do it just using just the left arm. Then just the right arm. I couldn't do any of them properly.

The pool level must have dropped 2 inches from all the water I swallowed or inhaled. I survived the actual swimming, but I felt sick. Like, really sick. All last night my stomach was doing flutter kicks.

Swimming is hard.