Watching my grandchildren at their weekly swimming lesson always brings me joy.
The big jumps, the shrieks of joy, the eagerness to try a bit harder, splashing and ducking each other.
And then the nice instructor kicks me out of the pool so the kids can have a turn.
My swimming lessons were never this much fun.
At the age of five, I was taken to Innisfail’s town pool where an old man in a brown suit, leaning heavily on a walking stick, stood us in a line on the side of the pool and used his cane to push us in.
It was the only time he smiled during the whole lesson.
As each of us went under for the second or third time, he’d mutter under his breath, roll his eyes, then reach out with his stick and we’d latch onto it and be dragged to the side of the pool where we’d cough up most of the water we’d swallowed.
Except for Geoffrey. He just floated for while then sank. I didn’t see him after the first lesson.
So, I quickly learned the following:
How to become a ‘good enough’ swimmer so I didn’t have to come back anymore.
Screaming underwater is a waste of time and energy. Better to use what little oxygen you have left to stand on Geoffrey to get back to the surface.
No matter how well you did, old mate always looked disappointed by your pathetic, feeble, efforts. Note: Praise wouldn’t be a ‘thing’ for at least a few more decades.
Good lessons. Valuable skills.
Stuff Geoffrey might have learned if he’d bothered to hang around.
And having survived the pool, it was time for
Music Lessons
Each week the children of my village were rounded up, lashed to the bonnets of cars, and driven to a house that could have been used as the backdrop for The Amityville Horror 3.
Here we were placed in the tender care of a sneering control freak who firmly believed violence was the first, and very much preferred, method of teaching children to play music.
Honestly, who thinks the only way a small child can learn to play ‘Hot Cross Buns’ on their instrument of choice, is by smacking a heavy, wooden rule across their knuckles when they make a mistake?
A: Sadists, that’s who.
Of course kids are going to make mistakes when they’re learning! What they’re really learning is, when you’re frightened, you make more mistakes.
Lots of them.
At the age of seven the term, ‘What the Actual Fuck?!’ didn’t exist, but if it did, I would have definitely used it. And, with a lot more gusto than I did when playing Hot Cross Buns for the eight hundredth time with battered knuckles.
It was, literally, a vicious cycle.
I’ve lost count of the number of people around my age (and older), who started music lessons and were made to feel stupid, useless, dumb or ashamed by some twisted sapsucker because they couldn’t play scales to perfection on their second lesson and were flogged up for it.
As soon as they could, they stopped going to lessons and never touched an instrument again. For some poor wretches, it took years to break the yoke of miserable, musical, tyranny.
The only the kids who carried on, and eventually became good musicians, were closet masochists. The sort of people who get thrills when they hear the words, ‘Incorrect Fingering!!’
Whack! Whack! Whack!
Honestly, children are born swimmers and LOVE music. They can have a mountain of fun with an empty tin can and a broken crayon. So, you have to be pretty determined (or particularly sick) to make them hate anything they once naturally enjoyed so passionately that they never want to do it again. Ever.
Anyway, time for the happy ending…
After quitting lessons at age seven, I eventually learned to play a little bit of guitar using an old Ernie Ball book.
In spite of secretly playing at the volume of a mouse’s heartbeat, my parents must have heard me twanging away in the cupboard, then took me for a proper guitar lesson; in spite of my heartfelt pleading not to bother.
Turned out the next teacher was a hippy who asked, “What do you want to play man?”
“Not Hot Cross Buns!” I shrieked, as my eyes swivelled about looking for his wooden rule.
Without further ado, and zero abuse, he taught me the riff to Surfin’ USA.
I played it and it sounded OK. I played a bit more and it sounded better. My new tutor muttered, “Yeah, that’s cool!”
Look, he probably was stoned, but I didn’t care! I was having fun AND learning a skill!
Not only that, I didn’t need to be forced at gunpoint each night after school to practice, I wanted too! I literally played that little guitar until:
Then kept playing!
Each week my hippy buddy gave me another song to learn. Actual songs I heard on the radio! It was great! I was making music! It was fun! It was a dream come true!
Then he left. Damn hippy.
Guess who replaced him.
I didn’t go back.
Thirty years later I paid for a few lessons then discovered YouTube tutorials.
Today, I still enjoy making music. I’ll never be a virtuoso, but I get by.
It’s still fun so I’ll keep doing it and, yeah, that’s the only ‘rule’ I have.
Cheers,
Gb