Sea Swim Coaching

Each morning I walk down to the local beach, even though it is the same walk each day I seem to notice the change in the trees, leaves, flowers that grow along the edges of the pathways and roads, of people’s garden fences and hedges. Perhaps it is all more noticeable in the autumn when the leaves are changing colours and falling, covering the ground in what is sometimes a beautiful crunchy yellow and orange mass under your feet, and after rain is a bit of a slidey brown sludge.

The sea always looks different, the beach too. This time of year there is always seaweed having been dumped up onto the shoreline by stormy seas. A bit like the sea is getting rid of what it no longer needs, or perhaps it is a bigger system going on, offering it up to dry land to ferment and compost on the seashore, releasing into the air.

The sea temperature has really cooled in the last week or so, but still it is the ground under bare feet that actually makes you so cold, and depending which direction the wind is blowing can be brutal once out and changing! I see the usual faces but if it has rained, is raining (or sometimes sleet or hail!) you get more quiet and calm across the water as everyone stays away, if the sun is out people flock there for their daily dose. Getting in always takes some getting used to, but once a bit of acclimatisation has taken place the sensation of being held by the water, swimming towards the horizon and the light. Putting my face in and watching shadows on or movements of the sand beneath – fully immersing in the water’s world is part of my daily tonic.