Swim For Joy: How I learned TI

By Naji Ali

For all my life I’ve lived near the ocean and loved watching others swim. I longed to be able to learn how to do it with grace, beauty and efficiency. Sadly, I never got the chance to learn to swim when I was younger mainly because I lived in Southern California and often when I expressed interest in it, my white — as well as black — friends would say “Blacks don’t swim. Go learn to play basketball.” I bought into this attitude, but still wanted to prove them wrong.

Very recently I decided that I was not only going to learn to swim, but would do it with efficiency and enjoyment. As luck would have it, one teacher I worked with briefly (who mainly worked with folks who were afraid of water) told me about TI. I did some research, found the site and liked what I saw.

Although the tuition for a workshop was a bit high for my budget, I felt it was important and signed up anyway. Boy, am I glad I did! Coaches Fiona Laughlin, Kim Dinell, Dave Cameron and Noel Olson really opened my eyes. I’ll admit that I was frustrated with the drills at first, but I told myself going in that if I felt that the method and coaches were sincere, then I’d keep at it. For four days a week, two hours a day, I practiced the drills: first fish, the on to skating, sweet spot, under-switch, zen switch, and finally whole stroke. I didn’t move on to another drill until the one prior was mastered. I constantly emailed Kim Dinell about problems frustrations, and questions.  She would always write back promptly with solutions and/or new drills to try.

As things began to progress, I decided to try swimming whole stroke with side breathing (a continuous problem that I had been working on).  As I woke up to get ready to go to my neighborhood pool, I felt a twinge of panic: would I remember my drills, head down, rotate from the core, wide tracks, spear the water rather than slap it, and the complicated two-beat kick?  I was concerned that my old friends were right, maybe blacks couldn’t swim. I knew it was a silly notion: I had seen the triumphs of folks like Cullen Jones and others, the famous coach Jim Ellis (the man the movie “PRIDE” was based on) and The Nile Swim Club in PA, but when it came to me, I wasn’t so sure.

So I went to the pool, took several deep breaths and told myself, “remember what you’ve practiced, don’t expect to be Michael Phelps, just be Naji and that’s fine.” I dropped my head down, pushed off from the wall and glided out, and then something wonderful happened: I was going along gracefully, no panic, no stopping. If I made a mistake with arm or head position, I could sense it and correct it immediately. Wow! For the first time I was at the other end of the pool looking back at my progress and smiling. All that I had been taught by Fiona, Dave, Noel, and Kim as well as the “Easy Freestyle” DVD was paying off. In fact, one of the lifeguards at the pool said, “you are swimming really long and gracefully, it’s really a pleasure to see that.” And he is also a TI fan!

I still run into a ton of mistakes, I have my good and bad days, but now I know what to do about them. Leslie Thomas, the TI coach in my area, is going to introduce me to open water in February and early next year I plan on beginning breaststroke drills followed by back and then butterfly. My ultimate goal is to become a TI coach and work with low-income African American and Latino youth.  I have realized my dream of swimming well and swimming safely, and I want to help others to do it, too.