This is another in a series of Wednesday guest posts by TI coaches and enthusiasts. This week’s post, from Vicky Jordan of Pittsburgh, tells of her lifelong relationship with swimming, the powerful healing role it played when she was diagnosed with cancer, and how she became a TI Coach at age 65.

I have been a swimmer pretty much my whole life. I have always felt so comfortable and at home in the water. I can remember when I was a kid my dream was to be able to pitch a tent next to the swimming pool so I could dive in whenever I felt like it!  I am also a figure skater – which I absolutely adore. (Still jumping and spinning at my advanced age of 65!!) During the period when I was raising children, I could only pursue one sport intensely, so I chose figure skating. But about eight years ago when we became empty-nesters, I decided to go back to swimming with renewed passion.

I had read about Total Immersion on the internet, and two years ago decided that this technique would give me the grounding and foundation that would help me to keep swimming for the rest of my life. So I found myself a TI coach – Suzanne Atkinson in Pittsburgh – and together we have transformed my swimming. Last January I even passed the TI level 1 Coach Certification Course! I feel so much smoother and coordinated in the water than ever before. And, in fact, I am swimming far more efficiently than when I was much younger and stronger. I feel a new awareness of every part of my body and a new consciousness of how to work with the water instead of against it.

In this sense TI really complements all I have done in figure skating which also requires a very keen awareness of body position. If you don’t know where your legs are and what they are doing in the air, you will never land on the proper edge — 1/16 of an inch of blade – when you land the jump! So I have found that the TI approach to total body awareness is transferable to so many other activities.

Swimming, in fact, was such an important part of my young life. I swam a lot, raced, competed and goofed off in the water as much as I could. But when I was twenty years old, I discovered that the discipline I had learned through swimming could help me through the toughest times. At that time I was very unexpectedly diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

After the surgery I had to undergo many months of radiation treatments and chemotherapy. This was more than 40 years ago, so the drugs available to control the side effects of these treatments were not as sophisticated as they are today. I was very sick a lot of the time, but surprisingly I felt a real drive to get in the water. So I did. And that began a process of using swimming as a way to control what was happening to my body and to my mind.

I am not even sure that I realized this at that moment; it was only in retrospect that I could express what swimming did for me during that time.  I went to the pool every day. Even if I could only complete one or two lengths before being sick, I would do it. Some days I could do a full 1000 or even 2000, but most days I could not. But I noticed that each time I got in the water and did what I was capable of doing at the moment, I emerged feeling strong, as if I had some power to control my mental attitude toward what was happening to my body.

My oncologist encouraged me to use swimming in this way. In fact, one Sunday afternoon when I was standing by the side of the pool shivering and nauseated trying to convince myself to jump in, suddenly somebody pushed me in. When I sputtered to the surface and looked up to see who had done this to me, I saw my oncologist who had come to the pool with his family for a Sunday afternoon swim! He looked down at me and, in no uncertain terms said:  “Get moving!” and I did.

So now more than four decades later, TI is helping me to increase and improve the coordination of my body in the water so that I can continue to delight in the water for the rest of my life. Suzanne has been the most amazing coach. She represents the ideals of TI: she is patient and encouraging, and always finds new ways of helping me to analyze how I feel in the water. She also knows exactly what I need to do to reach the next level. I am so grateful for the work I have done with Suzanne, and I feel that I am well poised to enjoy swimming for the next 30 years!

Victoria Jordan holds a PhD in Latin and retired last year from 30 years of teaching high school Latin. She and Tom, her husband of 35 years, have an adopted daughter who lives in Brooklyn. Vicky says: “I have been a lifelong athlete. My two greatest loves are swimming and figure skating. My next challenge — which I intend to take up this coming spring — will be rowing in the dragon boat division. TI has given me a focus to swimming that i was lacking. I am very grateful for the serenity it has brought me in the pool. And thanks to Suzanne Atkinson for her support and her inspiration.