ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SWIMMING

Life as a Synchronised Swimmer

Deborah Arthurs gives her opinion on being a Synchronised swimmer and how to do different moves.

It was kitsch, glamorous and graceful at the same time. The fact that it also featured at a Chanel show sealed the deal. I decided that synchronised swimming  -  or, to give it its modish new moniker (and the name it originally had in the Thirties) “aquatic ballet”  -  would be my new way to get fit in 2009.

THE CLASS
There were several classes to join in London  -  I’d signed up for one in Barnet.

The day of my session though, the pool’s heating failed, so I found myself on the wrong side of Woolwich on a Thursday night, preparing to join the Erith Junior Synchro club.

Following them to the pool for warm-up lengths, I was reminded of Bunty Carmichael, the mature majorette in the Catherine Tate show who refuses to believe she’s too old for the Doncaster spinners.

The other girls slipped into the water like sleek otters, gliding up and down, red swimming hats bobbing as they went. I, on the other hand, became the old lady we used to splash at the local baths when I was 10.

Flowery swimming cap, check. Odd, rigid pose holding head out of water, check. The only thing missing was the nose clip… Oh wait, though I didn’t have my own clip, Lizzie, one of the kind synchro girls, was already proffering her own for me to borrow. The vision was complete.

Coach Sam Finch, 34, a synchro swimmer since the age of nine, led the class, rounding us up by tapping on a metal pole, the clink sounding through the water and above the noise in the echoey pool.
THE EGG BEATER

As a beginner, you must master the basics before moving on to the fun legs-in-air stuff and so it was straight to the first exercise, the Egg Beater  -  known outside synchronised swimming circles as treading water. Most of us know how to tread water but in synchro you must keep your shoulders above the water, neck straight and head extended, while looking as serene as if you were reading a Jilly Cooper on a sunlounger. 

The theory is to be like the swan: serene above the water, paddling furiously below. Legs move in a corkscrew motion, arms scull at your sides, hands scooped, sweeping backwards and forwards through the water to stay afloat.

It might look easy but it’s actually quite tough and after a few minutes of bobbing about furiously in the water, my legs whirling and hands scooping, I began to see why synchronised swimmers get ratty when people say theirs isn’t a proper sport.

Aquatic ballet: Forming elegant shapes in the water while trying to stay afloat and smile at the same time is not easy as it seems.

THE OYSTER
Satisfied that I could float, Sam moved on to back layouts, the starting position for many synchro moves. We were to lie back, legs straight and at the surface, sculling to stay afloat. “Point the toes! Extend the legs! Bottom in!” she shouted, tapping a rhythm on the metal pole so we knew when to come back up. 

The back layout led to several more moves. First the Oyster, a fun move that Sam says is a big favourite with the girls. From back layout, we snapped legs and arms together out of the water as in a Vsit, creating a shape that makes you plummet to the bottom like a lead weight. Unfold and you bob back up to the top. A quick, dramatic move that proves surprisingly easy to learn.

THE FLAMINGO
The next move I attempted was the Flamingo, the cornerstone shape for those archetypal geometric synchronised swimming images where you hold your body upside down and perpendicular to the surface, with one leg poking out of the water and the other bent and touching the vertical leg. 

I tried my best to channel Busby Berkeley’s best bits, attempting to emulate the calm faces and still limbs of the other girls. It didn’t really work out for me  -  I ended up sculling like I was trying to take off, my legs taking turns to sink to the bottom or fly out of the water. Flapping wildly, I managed to maintain a sort of avian illusion  -  though much to the amusement of my classmates, my effort was more dodo than flamingo.

Next, we went for the tuck back somersault. This was a move that really separated the men from the boys, or rather, the girls with nose plugs (everyone) from those without (me). 

Sam told us to tuck our knees in tightly, reach back with our heads, spin round in a somersault and come back up to the surface. I gamely spun backwards, ducking my head under and drinking much more of the pool water than is probably healthy. As I spluttered my way to the surface, pleased at having completed the manoeuvre, I was greeted with 10 serene faces beaming at me from an effortless Egg Beater.

THE BENEFITS
The hour up, I could feel that my arms, legs and abs had had a workout. I’d heard that Jennifer Aniston and Hilary Duff keep their figures trim simply by treading water, and right now, I could believe it.

So which part of your body does it work? The answer is all of it. Just as swimming provides all-over toning, so does synchro. Areas that get a special workout are the bottom and stomach, as both muscle groups are essential to hold the body upright or horizontal in the water. You’ll burn about 500 calories in a one hour session -  the same as a jog – and the best bit is, with the team spirit, the music and the routine to remember, it doesn’t even feel like exercise.

Kaleidoscopic: Channelling choreographer Busby Berkeley, Deborah and the swimmers form a geometric shape in the water.

Sync or swim: Deborah Arthurs joins the Erith junior synchro club for a lesson in aquatic ballet – and discovers that looking serene whilst paddling furiously isn’t as easy as it seems