Swimming: a fitness all- rounder
works on almost all muscles of the body
In the words of Coach Simon Monnaesi Tshwaane, Swimming is a mental sport. His words are testament that just about everyone can excel in swimming. That is, with the right coach, and a zeal for swimming. Tshwaane and Sydney Seabo are the Co- Founders of Propellers Swimming Academy, located at the Jacks Gym in Molapo Crossing, and have for the past six months been taking Talk Show host, Television presenter, event host and media entrepreneur, Gaona Dintwe, through her paces in the swimming pool.
Her early days in the water were not a walk in the park. Sharing this exciting journey with her followers on social media, and keeping them posted about the latest update has proven that, water is not as scary as some people think it is. Hearing her story, and her near drowning incidents illustrates that water phobia is something that one can overcome with the right support structure and qualified people who know what they are doing. Today, Dintwe is like a fish in water, she literally glides and is just so comfortable in water. Her fear is now a distant memory, and she wants others to overcome their fears too, and embrace swimming as a lifestyle of choice.
Narrating her journey with water, Dintwe shares that she schooled at Legae Primary School where swimming was offered. But she never grasped the whole concept of swimming or learnt how to swim. She always struggled and had a deep- water phobia. Her fear of water was so intense that she would not even dare put her feet in the pool, and the thought of doing something like that would leave her literally shaking. This saw her completing her primary without learning how to swim although at the back of her mind, she had a passion for swimming. A few years back on a trip to Bali, she wanted to challenge herself and do something exciting such as water activities, even with her fear. Her activity of choice happened to be snorkelling, a swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, with a shaped breathing tube called a snorkel, and usually swim fins.
The swimmers, she explains, got into a boat, given fins and were told to go into the water. “I jumped into the water, and literally had the worst scare of my life. I almost died, my heart almost jumped out of my body, as I struggled and couldn’t even snorkel. It was a traumatic incident and I ended up being taken out of the water,” she explains. The incident kind of worsened her phobia. She found herself at crossroads. And she wondered whether she would ever learn how to swim.
“But at that moment I was not consciously planning to learn how to swim but I knew in my heart that I wanted to learn how to swim,” she explains.
Her second incident in the water was being at a pool with her sisters, who knew how to swim. The only thing that she could do was walk in the water. They beckoned her to join them and she ended up sliding into the deep end of the pool and started sinking. They pulled her out of the water, and it was then that she felt that she now really needed to be water safe and learn how to swim. Other incidents such as the drowning incidents of tourists in the Chobe River and the Thamalakane, where holidays ended tragically also motivated her. As someone who is always exploring and seeing new places, this was the nudge that she needed to overcome her water phobia.