The Art of Manliness - #629： Why We Swim

00:00:00.000 i'm brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast if

00:00:11.300 you've been swimming since you were a child you probably don't think too much about it anymore

00:00:15.020 when you take a step back the human act of swimming is a pretty interesting kind of weird

00:00:19.500 thing you weren't born knowing how to swim and it's not instinctual so why are people so drawn

00:00:24.360 to the water and what do we get out of paddling around in it my guest day explores these questions

00:00:28.380 in her book why we swim her name is bonnie soy we begin our conversation today with how humans are

00:00:33.120 some of the few land animals that have to be taught how to swim and when our ancestors first took to

00:00:38.040 the water we then discuss how peoples who have made swimming a primary part of their culture have

00:00:41.920 evolved adaptations that have made them better at it we discuss how swimming can be both psychically

00:00:46.020 and physically restorative and how it can also bring people together using as an example a unique

00:00:50.720 community of swimmers which developed during the iraq war inside of one of saddam hussein's palaces

00:00:55.560 we also talk about the competitive element of swimming and how for thousands of years it was

00:00:58.780 in fact a combat skill they even took the form of a martial art called samurai swimming in japan

00:01:03.200 and we enter a conversation with how swimming can facilitate flow and some of the famous philosophers

00:01:07.140 and thinkers who tune the currents of their thoughts while gliding through the currents of water after

00:01:11.740 the show's over you're going to want to go for a swim but also make sure to check out our show notes

00:01:15.360 aom.is slash why we swim all right bonnie soy welcome to the show thanks so much brett i'm happy

00:01:29.600 to be here so you just recently published a book called why we swim where you explore the history

00:01:35.820 the culture and even like the philosophy of human swimming what got you thinking about this topic and

00:01:41.980 going in a deep dive on swimming you know i always think about as a journalist that there's so many

00:01:49.520 things to write about and and really only very few things that someone should write a book about

00:01:54.660 because books take so long and really are such an investment of time and energy and and just creative

00:02:01.460 life and so you know my parents met in a swimming pool in hong kong and we just had a very

00:02:07.960 lifelong relationship with water and with swimming and it's something that's that had always been a

00:02:15.100 part of my life you know through swim team through lifeguarding and just you know swimming on my own

00:02:21.380 after college and having it be of course exercise but also over the years then understanding that that

00:02:28.680 role that swimming played in my life you know kept evolving you know at first it was something that

00:02:35.120 my parents you know made sure we we learned so that we would not drown you know it's just a basic

00:02:41.720 survival thing and then you know over the years it has taken on all of these different you know

00:02:47.260 residences and and and meaning and and a way of finding you know well-being competition community flow

00:02:54.940 all those things that i address in the book and sort of that's how the book is structured you know the

00:03:00.500 question is why we swim and the way the book is organized is these five different ways of answering

00:03:06.240 that question well let's talk about let's go back to the why we swim from like just a the very going

00:03:11.960 all the way back to the inks it's when you think about it it's kind of weird that humans swim because

00:03:15.800 we're land we're land animals right um but like do we know when humans started saying hey we can get

00:03:21.660 in the water and move our arms and legs and not drown the funny thing about wake is that it

00:03:27.940 disappears so we don't really have you know it's it's hard to pinpoint exactly when that happened

00:03:34.340 for our species obviously and so where i approached it was from a sort of a little bit of an oblique

00:03:41.360 angle by kind of looking for the earliest evidence of human swimming you know so it's not necessarily

00:03:48.200 that that was when it happened because we've been clearly doing it for so much longer than any evidence

00:03:53.600 sort of has stuck around and earliest evidence dates back to about 10 000 years and it's these

00:04:00.640 cave paintings and what's called the cave of swimmers in the sahara and i wanted to go to you know

00:04:10.040 paleontologists to kind of see what what sort of archaeological evidence we have of animals and human

00:04:18.220 swimming and i ended up going to this pretty well-known dinosaur hunter named paul sereno and

00:04:25.240 the funny thing with him is that he was a dinosaur hunter for most of his career and then he stumbled

00:04:30.040 upon this amazing trove of i guess you would call it two human civilizations that lived along the edge of

00:04:37.920 this paleo lake system in the sahara thousands of years ago they are one of the most like the biggest

00:04:44.220 archaeological record of our sort of neolithic time period of humans living by water so the waters

00:04:52.200 in this paleo lake system were pretty stable over thousands of years and such that these two groups

00:05:00.900 of people lived along its shores fished dive for shellfish probably swam and in fact one of the most

00:05:10.080 compelling burials that he discovered his team discovered was this what they called a triple

00:05:15.540 burial of the this mother and two children like with their hands intertwined and so the speculation

00:05:20.720 is that they drowned and then were posed in a burial after they died all right so swimming got 10 000

00:05:28.580 years ago about we don't know for sure but it sounds like the reason why humans started swimming it was

00:05:33.640 basically i mean they're going for shellfish there's basically food and that was the reason right so i mean

00:05:39.040 it makes perfect sense it's you know we that they found new sources of food they found new lands to

00:05:44.280 settle i mean and and to be clear that that that 10 000 year mark is just the earliest evidence we

00:05:50.360 have it's just i mean our human swimming ability goes back much further than that we just don't have

00:05:55.140 evidence of it and what's interesting you highlight this too is that most land animals have an instinctive

00:06:01.140 swimming ability like elephant i've seen elephants swim right or horses but humans don't have

00:06:06.600 that instinctive ability we have to to learn it like do we have any idea and it's not just humans it's

00:06:11.780 other other large primates chimpanzees gorillas do we know why that is we don't really know why but it

00:06:18.960 is an interesting case to examine because when you see other animals you know from birth they have an

00:06:26.000 instinctive ability to swim you know dogs cats they hate it of course but they can do it even bats can

00:06:32.520 swim i mean bats can swim really well uh it's just it you know you can look up you can really fall into

00:06:38.100 a a youtube hole finding animals and how they swim so yeah humans and other large primates are

00:06:46.940 higher order primates are unique in that we have to be taught how to swim we have to learn and and most

00:06:54.160 terrestrial mammals can swim from birth um and you know you can watch dogs and cats and all kinds of

00:07:00.740 animals do do it and it's strange that we are alone are pretty unique in that and and so along with

00:07:10.120 that ability we kind of you know pass on the stories of why it's important and and how to do it and all

00:07:16.040 these different ways of you know storytelling that are so also unique to humans um and it's really

00:07:21.780 i think it's strange because we are so you know tied to the land but the water calls to us and so we

00:07:29.140 have to figure out how to conduct ourselves in it and how to survive in it and and also how to find

00:07:33.620 you know joy and pleasure in swimming i mean it's it's something that we kind of you see kids you see

00:07:39.420 babies even just playing in the water and you know that it's something fun and and it's something that

00:07:44.420 we don't forget when we're older so swimming for humans it's a cultural phenomenon like it's a

00:07:49.140 cultural technology that we pass on from generation to generation it's it's yeah exactly it's it's a body of

00:07:54.560 of cultural knowledge that we pass on like so many other things and sort of that's why we humans are

00:08:01.140 so successful you know in on our planet is that we have this sort of culture gene co-evolution where we

00:08:07.360 pass along not just you know our genetics but the the knowledge of the bodies of knowledge that we

00:08:14.040 acquire as you know larger populations um smarter it makes us smarter than any one individual in a

00:08:19.960 lifetime could ever be and so while humans don't have an instinct to swim like some cultures some

00:08:25.980 societies that have developed like such a a rich deep culture of swimming that there is some weird

00:08:32.020 like they're i mean i wouldn't say evolution but their their bodies have adapted because they've

00:08:36.580 swimmed because they called their cultures swim so much any examples of that that that stand out to

00:08:41.400 you yeah in the book i talk about the cultures of southeast asia where there are these sea nomads where

00:08:49.760 they have these populations have lived on the water and houseboats and and subsistence fishing for many

00:08:57.260 years and their traditions have been such that the children learn to swim often before they learn to walk and

00:09:06.880 and that their free divers are extraordinary they can dive down to the bottom of the ocean and and have

00:09:14.240 spear guns and spears to catch fish and at that depth they're negatively buoyant so they can walk

00:09:20.480 on the bottom of the sea and hold their breath for many minutes and it's really extraordinary how they

00:09:27.400 have been able to practice and teach our bodies how to you know cope with the pressure underwater and and

00:09:36.560 and also to see better there have been studies done with the mokin people they're one of these i guess

00:09:42.960 tribes of of sea nomads where the kids have really excellent underwater vision i mean you and i you

00:09:50.980 know i haven't been trained in this way and so our eyes our vision is very blurry tends to be most

00:09:56.040 humans vision their water is pretty blurry and yet with a few sort of uh practice sessions underwater

00:10:04.020 focusing on patterns you can you can actually train your eyes to see better underwater and those are you

00:10:10.520 know those are things that you can kind of teach yourself and train yourself how to do at least on

00:10:14.620 the the experiments they've done with kids and then there are the other um you know not adaptations but

00:10:22.260 like the sort of genetic changes that have happened with the bajow people again another sort of

00:10:28.020 scenomatic population in southeast asia where their spleens have been shown to be i think as

00:10:35.640 that's just like 50 percent larger than a related group of sort of inland dwelling people i think

00:10:43.420 this is in thailand i want to say and you know it's not it's not acquired from diving it's not it's

00:10:50.960 that not that their bodies have been changing from diving it's just that they've evolved to be

00:10:55.540 better their spleens of course like when you when you dive underwater you're part of your

00:11:00.400 mammalian dive reflexes that your spleen expels all these red blood cells around your body so that

00:11:06.220 you have more oxygen and become more efficient at staying underwater for longer and with the bajow

00:11:12.320 it wasn't that it was only in people who who dove it was that it was this entire population had this

00:11:19.100 you know genetic this had evolved to to to be better free diving so i find all of these you know both

00:11:26.780 the adaptations and also the the evolution to be really amazing and just you know these are just

00:11:32.580 tiny snapshots of like what's really you know what can go on with our bodies underwater all right so

00:11:38.600 we started swimming basically to survive get food if you live near the waters cultures had to learn how

00:11:44.400 to swim because drowning was a real danger so they've had to create this culture of swimming so that's one

00:11:49.640 reason why we swim is survival but there's also as you say you explore swimming through or why we swim

00:11:55.380 through other lenses and one of them is just i don't know wellness would be one i mean there's

00:11:59.420 something about water that we're drawn to like people you you feel like you're relaxed it's soothing

00:12:05.500 so like what what goes on like why is that what goes on our physiology and our psychology once we get in or

00:12:11.360 around water one of the amazing things that i just really loved about researching this book

00:12:17.140 was finding out all of the ways that we our brains and bodies respond to water so just for example the

00:12:26.560 sound of water just like being around it um listening to it like it it boosts our brains alpha wave

00:12:33.860 activity you know and that's that's the wavelength that's associated with calm and relaxation and

00:12:38.580 creativity and and when you immerse yourself there are all these changes also that happen and when

00:12:45.520 you're swimming when you're swimming of course like you know you're you're increasing just like the

00:12:50.700 blood circulation around your body and with cold water immersion that your dopamine levels go up and

00:12:56.240 your metabolism speeds up and just all these really interesting changes that happen and we feel

00:13:03.520 we know sort of instinctively that we feel so wonderful when we're around water we like we you know you

00:13:11.520 could just you know point to evidence of why people always build houses on the beach you know they love

00:13:15.780 to walk by the water they love to look at it there's something about that that does you know it does

00:13:21.500 something to our brains it does something to our moods we are wired to you know respond to these sort of

00:13:27.360 set points in the environment is something that the science writer Florence Williams has written and i love

00:13:32.200 that phrase like that we are what you know that we're programmed to respond to like blue and green set

00:13:40.320 points in the environment you know it's just like that we somehow know that water is beneficial to

00:13:47.520 us like and then we want to get into it right and it's like you see all of the in the summer now it's

00:13:54.620 you see everyone flocking to the beach and it's totally all the animals going to the watering hole you

00:13:59.120 know it's like this it's not just for survival it's also something special beyond that and in this

00:14:05.980 section what i love is you you find these stories of people who they found like that highlight the

00:14:11.800 fact that water is restorative that can you know heal the body and the soul were there any ones that

00:14:16.460 stood out to you in particular sure um you know in this in the well-being section of the book i'm sort

00:14:21.720 of anchor character there is kim chambers and she is for those of you i know she's a pretty accomplished

00:14:29.520 long distance swimmer and she was the first woman to swim from the farallon islands 30 miles off the

00:14:35.580 coast of san francisco to san francisco you know that's like shark infested waters and she did that

00:14:41.500 but she only started swimming you know several years before because she had had an accident and

00:14:47.700 had almost lost her leg and was rehabbing her body and relearning how to walk and kind of started

00:14:54.800 swimming as part of that rehab and then discovered that she was just freakishly gifted at cold water

00:14:59.700 open water swimming and endurance swimming like long distance marathon swimming and so she started

00:15:05.540 to swim with the dolphin club in san francisco which is a pretty historic you know swimming and boating

00:15:11.600 club here and she noticed that there was more feeling in her leg her damaged leg and the nerves that kind

00:15:19.080 of started to regenerate at a faster rate and she was asking her doctor she said you know is there i mean

00:15:23.700 isn't there some like does it make sense if i have this theory you know that the cold water stimulates

00:15:30.280 you know nerve growth or nerve regeneration and so they said yeah that totally makes sense and so i kind

00:15:35.860 of like went to some scientists and said like what is this you know what is this theory what is there any

00:15:40.600 evidence for it and they said absolutely you know it stimulates cold water immersion and and exercise

00:15:46.180 stimulate increased circulation around of your blood or and oxygen around the body and can

00:15:51.620 kind of reach possibly nerves that haven't you know haven't been getting as as much blood flow and

00:15:58.380 because you're when you're in cold water of course the blood is like goes from your extremities to your

00:16:04.020 core to keep you warm and then when you have sort of warmed yourself up after the swim they kind of

00:16:08.560 that redistribution of blood goes back to your extremities again it's sort of like a boosting that

00:16:14.420 circulation that really helped her she thinks and this sort of science supports that that

00:16:21.480 could be true and then she you know had become this extraordinarily accomplished marathon swimmer

00:16:28.420 and has a bunch of world records and has joined the explorers club you know she's a real just having

00:16:34.620 swimming be this thing that helped her to basically be reborn you know in a pretty in a pretty significant

00:16:42.500 way changed her life yeah the point about cold water immersion i think it's interesting that

00:16:46.940 cultures around the world have kind of figured out that there's might be something to cold water

00:16:51.840 immersion they've developed rituals around i mean i guess in russia yeah in russia they cut out the

00:16:56.420 thing like in the in the pond and they just like get into the water i mean like it's like a frozen

00:17:01.140 it's like a shock to your system yeah in siberia yeah exactly it's like hunting lanes in the ice and

00:17:06.700 going swimming and that like makes you feel alive and you know you can imagine doing so i mean it's

00:17:13.600 it's terrible it feels horrible but it's just to a lot of people it feels fantastic and it makes them

00:17:19.440 feel like they are the most alive they've ever been you know it's sort of like this heightened acute

00:17:25.760 experience of you know in a very sensory every sensory aspect that you could possibly imagine

00:17:32.060 you know your eyelashes getting frozen shut but you know you don't have to go to that extreme to

00:17:36.860 experience the kind of euphoria of of you know swimming in cold water yeah and i mean i think

00:17:43.360 you know the story you just told i think a lot of people have heard similar stories of individuals

00:17:47.540 who they they had some sort of injury or maybe they were an athlete they were a runner or soccer

00:17:53.020 player they had some a big injury where they couldn't do those things anymore but then they

00:17:57.200 discovered swimming because swimming is so low impact and it changed their life it helped them to

00:18:02.540 rebuild it get stronger yeah and and it and it makes a lot of sense when you think about how

00:18:08.660 it's buoying you know you're not you're not uh beholden to the forces of gravity the way you are

00:18:14.700 normally and it just increases mobility and you can move your body in a lot of different ways more

00:18:21.560 so than you can on land and it kind of opens you up to i think you know you're more flexible you can

00:18:27.420 get stronger and in sort of by working different parts of your body and like you said it's low impact

00:18:33.260 and people do it you know well into their 90s i mean it's something that you can do it's one of

00:18:39.260 those rare sports that you can do your whole life and even though it's low impact it's it can be high

00:18:45.160 intensity like i'm not a swimmer and but the times i get in the pool and i try to like you know i race

00:18:49.900 my kid into one inch i'm winded i'm like that wasn't very far that was maybe 25 feet and i'm out of breath

00:18:56.700 yeah you're you are propelling yourself using your your upper body and you're you know you're kicking

00:19:02.880 and it's just like it is a whole body exercise i think that's part of the reason it feels so good

00:19:07.800 you're using your whole body and um you know it's it takes you out of your normal state of being you

00:19:15.860 know i think that's also like a huge part of it and the other the other thing that i have trouble with

00:19:20.240 you know you said it's your whole body like you have to think about your breathing too yes for sure and i

00:19:24.900 i don't do that i'm i'm terrible at timing my breathing when i'm swimming you gotta work on

00:19:30.200 your rhythm you gotta i have no i have no rhythm we've we've identified the problem yes a rhythm is

00:19:37.520 huge when it comes to swimming not just with breathing but also with your pacing of like all

00:19:43.660 of your limbs and you know you have to get all of the pieces moving in the right coordination

00:19:50.880 otherwise you're not really moving yourself through water in a way that feels easy and i think

00:19:55.700 that's one of the great tricks of swimming we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our

00:20:00.240 sponsors and now back to the show all right so swimming can be restorative it can as you said

00:20:07.600 relaxes you can reduce your your heart your pulse you know basically lower your blood pressure and then

00:20:13.320 it can be a great workout but then another reason we swim is there's a community aspect of it

00:20:19.040 so there's cultures around the world where swimming is just something you do i think you highlight a

00:20:23.360 few of those like in japan and iceland like matter of course like the kids have to learn you take

00:20:28.340 swimming lessons right not a question so there's a community aspect there but i thought it was

00:20:33.020 interesting this book you you highlight or you focus on this community that built up around swimming

00:20:38.860 that happened in baghdad in saddam one of saddam hussein's palaces what's the story of the

00:20:46.820 swimming community that that ended up here in one of saddam hussein's luxurious palaces in baghdad

00:20:51.860 this is such an interesting story i mean this is one of my favorites just because it's so unexpected

00:20:57.960 so in 2008 this foreign service guy named jay taylor gets dispatched to baghdad and he's a lifetime

00:21:06.440 lifetime foreign service guy he was tasked with restarting the fulbright cultural exchange program

00:21:12.920 in in iraq and so he you know at the time baghdad was pretty getting a lot pretty a lot of shelling

00:21:21.860 you know it was just a lot of combat activity and so the green zone was centered around one of saddam

00:21:27.840 hussein's palaces it's called the republican palace and you know he had like many dozens of palaces around

00:21:36.060 the country and you know they all all had swimming pools you know imagine just all these opulent pools

00:21:42.600 in the desert it's just like the ultimate in luxury and just had you know diving boards and just these

00:21:49.540 outdoor chandeliers and so people who were you know working in the green zone could use this pool

00:21:56.380 and so it was became one of these things that you know to to it's a strange you know trying to adhere

00:22:02.480 to normalcy in a time of of war and so they he started swimming he was a had been a lifeguard

00:22:09.560 taught swimming lessons for his whole life and he started to swim and then over time he began to teach

00:22:17.520 swimming lessons to you know peace keep you know peace keepers translators his own colleagues locals who

00:22:26.440 were working on the ground soldiers that who for whatever reason you know had not really learned

00:22:34.840 to swim or had wanted to be better at swimming and so he eventually this community came up around the

00:22:41.660 pool and then and then when the when the green zone got moved to a new compound into the pool there and

00:22:47.820 i mean this the baghdad swim team grew to like 250 people over those two years and you know people come

00:22:54.260 in people leave people get moved their their mission ends but it was this really special you know many

00:23:02.260 united nations of people from all over the world ecuador mexico libya lebanon just people madagascar who

00:23:11.940 who you know just came together for this like period of time you know once twice three times a week

00:23:20.460 four times a week where they would be able to kind of forget everything and just find the peace in the

00:23:26.640 community in the water and maybe they didn't see each other you know maybe they wouldn't even recognize

00:23:32.340 each other out sort of out in the compound or out and about in their sort of daily work but in the

00:23:37.460 water that they found this sense of calm and buoyancy and you know something that like for for for a few

00:23:46.580 minutes they could forget where they were and just kind of be no what i love about that story was i

00:23:52.680 mean how i mean it was really endearing because like you had these basic adults who you know basically

00:23:57.680 i'm not a very good swimmer but everyone was incredibly supportive like and i just thought

00:24:02.520 that was i like that it was hard yeah and it was a team effort like everybody no matter what their

00:24:07.460 school level they started out like blowing bubbles they started out doing streamlines they started out

00:24:11.580 you know treading water floating and learning just all the basic lessons of what it is to be safe and

00:24:19.600 and then eventually become quite accomplished swimmers in the water yeah it's just like and and coach j

00:24:25.560 is just a really special guy and in fact tonight he he's back in and he lives in maryland and

00:24:32.740 tonight i am guest starring in in his wife's book club for why we swim which is just you know full circle right

00:24:41.160 no what i thought was interesting you did a follow-up with some of these people that were

00:24:44.600 part of this this swim team and it seems like like swimming has become a part of these people's lives

00:24:49.160 like some people went on to teach their kids how to swim and they said i wouldn't have been able to do

00:24:52.880 that if i hadn't been in baghdad yeah it's and right it's just such an extraordinary and such a unique

00:24:59.220 and and intriguing story of like how this came to be and um you know and and the team sort of atomized

00:25:05.620 after that because you sort of come but i think thinking about people from all over the world

00:25:10.880 coming together for a short period of time in this pool and then kind of atomizing again to

00:25:16.520 to other parts of the world i think there's something really beautiful about that too

00:25:19.640 all right so another lens you use to explore swimming is this idea of competition so we're

00:25:24.780 going to talk about you know sort of olympic swimming but before we do there's another aspect

00:25:28.460 of competition and that's combat and you highlight and sort of go through the history for thousands

00:25:34.680 of years swimming has been a martial skill in cultures around the world what are some examples

00:25:40.900 of cultures where they've taught swimming specifically as a as a martial skill well the

00:25:47.720 romans did it uh the egyptians did chinese julius caesar was reputed to be an excellent swimmer

00:25:56.640 you know just that you can imagine i think there was like some

00:26:00.580 actually i want to look i want to get this right i think it's a syrian like just these old

00:26:06.780 very old relief carvings of of swimmers who are crossing um in battle you know crossing a body of water in

00:26:17.240 battle and it's just really like it's it goes back to time immemorial that that there's records of of

00:26:25.160 of warriors swimming and and and mythology too of of people who or characters who were able to

00:26:33.160 triumph in some battle because they were able to swim and it makes you know it makes a lot of sense

00:26:40.680 that those if you think about a lot of martial arts they kind of carry over now to become a practice

00:26:48.140 that is not for war but but there's a but there's a something to be gained from that practice anyway

00:26:56.160 you know so if you think about in in japan i i write about samurai swimming and so samurai swimming is

00:27:04.100 basically nihoneho is the sort of japanese classical swimming condition it's basically the japanese

00:27:09.420 swimming martial art and if you go back to the japanese feudal period where samurai clans were

00:27:17.000 protecting different parcels of land around japan and depending on where you were in the archipelago

00:27:22.680 you could be on the coast you know with the ocean or you could be on a lake or a river and so

00:27:28.380 different samurai clans had to devise different techniques and different schools of swimming

00:27:34.560 that were specializing in the techniques that would be useful in those bodies of water so imagine

00:27:43.060 like certain kinds of strokes that are really great for cutting through waves that are breaking

00:27:47.420 on the shore and then you're you know you're sighting your enemy coming or if you're in a very

00:27:52.340 tranquil lake and there's you have to be able to see the enemy approaching or that you have to sneak

00:27:56.660 up on the enemy without creating any ripples to show that that you're coming and so there were

00:28:03.220 techniques described of treading water in a really quiet way you know up to your eyes while wearing

00:28:10.880 a lot of armor and and that and those practices and those techniques and those schools of swimming

00:28:17.540 there those traditions continue today you know they're it's the same kind of like master and student

00:28:24.980 hierarchy where you spend years training under the same master and there are different signs and like on

00:28:31.740 on a cap that you'd wear of you know what your sort of rank what ability what skill mastery you had

00:28:38.340 accomplished over the years and um you would have like a mark or a stripe or something on your cap that

00:28:43.240 would indicate how much you had mastered of the skills that were part of that school of swimming and

00:28:48.960 so actually in the olympics the tokyo olympics that were supposed to be held this summer they were

00:28:55.220 planning japan was planning on doing a demonstration of nihon eho and i hope that the olympics will be on

00:29:02.360 next year because i i it just was sort of a way to reintroduce it to the world of this these foundational

00:29:08.120 traditions of swimming that actually really did inform the japanese national teams like you know growth and

00:29:15.600 and extreme success in the 20th century and i think it was that los angeles olympics that were you know the

00:29:22.520 debut of the japanese national team being so dominant you know and it was part in part informed

00:29:27.900 by these traditions of samurai swimming yeah i thought that was interesting about the same because

00:29:32.260 i never heard of samurai swimming and i thought it was interesting how it carried over it went from

00:29:36.140 like a an actual martial art to sort of a practice martial art then it carried over into competitive

00:29:42.240 swimming yeah exactly yeah um and and what is competition really like it's it's all of the

00:29:48.260 urgency of battle and survival sort of subsumed into a race right it's all of that fight or flight

00:29:55.520 energy and excitement without the threat of course of of life or death situation but that that's what

00:30:03.300 we get from sports that's what we get from competition is is that thrill in a sort of self-contained

00:30:10.060 circumscribed way and speaking of competition you know talking about the olympics i mean one of my

00:30:15.440 favorite events to watch when i do watch the summer olympics is is swimming because

00:30:19.160 what i love about it is that oftentimes the result of a race can be just like a hundredth of a

00:30:26.520 millisecond i mean like the stakes are always incredibly close because i mean just one little

00:30:31.520 thing cannot your fingernail yeah your fingernail um i mean so i mean what do you what have you found

00:30:36.960 with swimming that sort of heightens or you know can highlight the the promises and perils of

00:30:41.560 of competition i mean i you know it is funny that swimming when the summer olympics come around every

00:30:47.920 four years is the most watched sport i mean people love it and and the rest of the year at least in

00:30:53.900 the united states they don't care no one cares i don't know it's strange to me um but that is i don't

00:31:00.540 know what it is that's so why the olympics specifically maybe it's just that these swimmers who

00:31:07.040 they don't hear about or don't follow the rest of the sort of four years outside of that four-year

00:31:12.520 cycle suddenly are together on the world stage and they're able to watch them you know turn through

00:31:17.920 all of the strokes you know fly back breast free and just all the different permutations and there's

00:31:22.880 just this you know the way their olympics are presented is very heroic i i mean i i think swimming

00:31:29.380 is so beautiful to watch and maybe there is some aspect of that basic survival life and death thing that

00:31:36.160 is lurking in people's the back of people's minds i don't know i mean it's interesting to kind of

00:31:41.200 i i would love to know what people who tune in only every four years to swimming have to say about it

00:31:49.180 like why don't you if you love it you know if you love it watching it now what is it about it that

00:31:54.120 you know draws you to it to more than any other sport you know it's interesting i'm i'm curious myself

00:32:00.920 right well so you mentioned um you know in high school when you're a young adult you were a

00:32:06.080 competitive swimmer and then in the book you talk about how you you've gotten back into it in middle

00:32:10.600 age how has that changed your experience with swimming i you know i loved competing when i was a

00:32:17.720 kid i it was you know it was super fun it was exciting and it was i really loved my strokes were

00:32:23.680 breaststroke and i am and backstroke i was never a freestyler but i kind of wanted to see

00:32:30.900 what it would be like to start competing you know as like a 40 year old so i joined

00:32:35.280 master's team and same time my six-year-old joined a swim team and that's in the book and it was like

00:32:41.700 this weird moment of observing him and it was like this reflection of myself like when i was a kid like

00:32:47.780 joining the swim team for the first time and then me doing it now it was just it was strange it was

00:32:52.080 like you know what in many ways it felt the same but also what i ended up realizing is that i love

00:32:59.700 now just swimming practice with my friends you know it's just it's really fun and i have competed

00:33:08.560 a few times with the team and my coach is always like on me to compete more but i find that i don't

00:33:14.640 actually want that i don't need it i don't competition is not doesn't have the same allure

00:33:18.780 for me that it did when i was younger and you know i've talked about how the role of swimming

00:33:25.440 in my life has changed over time and now i really do feel like the community is such a huge part of

00:33:31.180 it because i swim you know in normal pre-pandemic days i would swim four days a week you know i'd go

00:33:37.880 surfing the other mornings and i would go regularly to these practices to to to swim alongside my friends

00:33:45.980 and i would have also the more sort of like post-school like kid drop off thing and and go

00:33:53.100 to the pool and and work out on my own but i i would always see the same people you know it's just

00:33:57.960 like that's your community that's your tribe and there's something really comforting about it that

00:34:02.940 routine that's sort of been imploded in this you know in this very extraordinary period that we're

00:34:09.440 living through right now but i have been fortunate in that i have been able to keep surfing i've been

00:34:14.440 able to swim in open water here in san francisco bay and so it's like adjusting to a new normal

00:34:20.980 you know and certainly we're going to be in this for a while and so it's interesting how

00:34:26.160 all of my swimming friends have adapted you know to try to figure out how to get what they need

00:34:33.000 you know in this time so it sounds like competitive swimming in middle age has brought to you back to

00:34:38.760 the community aspect of swimming yeah for sure yes that's a good i think that's interesting he

00:34:43.380 started off competing like i'm going to destroy you to like oh no i just i want to be with these

00:34:47.640 people you're my friends i like you're my friends i like my friends yeah exactly well i think some

00:34:51.860 people don't realize there's there is like there's a community aspect of competition that i think we

00:34:56.860 often think of competition being as being divisive but it's also it's a great way of bringing people

00:35:01.700 together too yeah you have a team and and even if you might have rivals on other teams like that you

00:35:07.500 still have a camaraderie with those people so the final lens you use to look at swimming is this idea

00:35:14.200 of flow which is suiting because like you know water flows but i love what you did you highlight

00:35:19.260 famous thinkers philosophers writers who swam because we have we've on the podcast and on the website we've

00:35:25.200 highlighted you know famous thinkers writers who were walkers right that some kant and nietzsche

00:35:31.100 thoreau but you also highly there's also scientists thinkers writers who instead of walking they swam who

00:35:37.760 are some of those guys well a lot of people don't realize that thoreau swam every morning when he was

00:35:44.460 at walden so that was part of his his whole routine there of of being you know in the woods and and being

00:35:52.880 one with the world and all that um and he said he wrote that i was like one of the best things that

00:35:57.800 he did and so he swam in the pond i love this question because it like there are all these

00:36:02.220 secret swimmers who come out of the woodwork uh writers you know oliver sacks was famously a swimmer

00:36:08.420 a great swimmer and he swam great distances and i love this there's a story i i love that he told in

00:36:14.480 the new yorker once where he used to live well he lived in new york and and many many years ago he was

00:36:21.580 swimming around city island in the bronx and he saw that there was a house like a cottage for sale

00:36:29.120 and so he got out of the water and was wearing a swim trunks he goes in he surprises the realtor

00:36:35.220 gets shown around the house and then he leaves gets back in the water and he has just bought a house

00:36:41.720 it's just great you just you know mid-swim has somehow acquired a home and you know he wrote very

00:36:49.320 beautifully and poignantly of his relationship with water you know how he when he got in the water he

00:36:55.480 felt you know he was a stutterer like he felt all of these things kind of slipping away and he was just

00:37:00.960 like this graceful endurance animal like he would talk about how his dad had like this whale-like bulk

00:37:08.000 and and you know he's like a big guy and then when he got in the water he was just so graceful and uh

00:37:14.680 you know elegant and i think a lot of people have that transformation i think water can do that for

00:37:20.220 you uh other writers who are swimmers zadie smith is a swimmer haruki markami is a swimmer as well and

00:37:28.600 i recently found out that yo-yo ma is a swimmer and that just like delighted me so much because it's like

00:37:34.200 i admire his his music and musicianship and just amazing way of being in the world like a very generous

00:37:41.120 human and the fact that he's a swimmer made me really excited and as you highlight like swimming

00:37:46.760 there's something about swimming that can get you into that flow state or that writers or artists or

00:37:51.660 constantly where everything just seems effortless where you lose track of time and i guess i mean i

00:37:57.200 imagine swimming is great for that because i mean you have to get that rhythm right there that there's a

00:38:02.160 flow but then also you have to it's almost like an isolation tank when you're in the water

00:38:06.520 you can't hear you the only thing you have is your thoughts yeah and and so it's this time that

00:38:11.980 you have with yourself your own mind however deep and strange and quirky that is and you have time

00:38:21.180 to meditate on that you have time to explore like the connections that your mind is just making in ways

00:38:28.880 that are i think influenced by the water itself i mean just the vocabulary that we use to describe

00:38:35.800 thought like how it flows how it you know things wash over us ideas you know like float around and

00:38:43.720 then get connected and you know drifting thoughts like all of this this about this language that we

00:38:50.620 use to talk about how we think and in an ideal state um it's it's watery language it's aquatic

00:38:58.680 language it's aquatic imagery and i don't think that that's a coincidence you know um and so i in the

00:39:05.680 this section the final section of the book on flow i make some of these connections and i you know i

00:39:11.460 turn to the poets to kind of like explain and evoke all of the things that they do so beautifully about

00:39:17.600 swimming about water about like sort of life and death and sort of how we move through the world and

00:39:23.820 and how water can help us do that no yeah that water imagery within the mind when you said that made me

00:39:30.240 think of bruce lee you know that idea of mind like water right yeah oh my gosh have you seen that um

00:39:36.660 the documentary no no no we did it we did a interview about a bruce lee biography that came out last year

00:39:42.320 and we got into that but what does the documentary talk about it's called like water um okay about uh

00:39:47.520 it's a espn 30 for 30 it just came out i'll check that out it's so great yeah it's fantastic and i thought

00:39:54.500 about it because it was he talked so much about you know how water was a metaphor for all of these

00:40:00.980 things in his life and and he really was such a connector and i think that you know i don't know

00:40:06.000 what his experience with swimming was that the documentary doesn't not go into that but just how

00:40:11.100 again the language of connection the language of merging and also about the philosophy of being

00:40:17.780 like water what does that what does that mean is really a terrific documentary film that i just loved

00:40:23.940 watching did you write most of this book while you were swimming that's a great question i i wrote

00:40:30.200 the flow section which is you know again this final section of the book which is quite different from

00:40:36.080 the first four sections which are much more reported um you know character based about stories right

00:40:43.860 about other people and sort of amazing adventures and history and all that the final section is a little

00:40:49.320 bit different because it kind of pulls all of these threads through together but but is more ideas

00:40:55.760 oriented and so i you know it's a different kind of thinking right it's a different kind of writing and

00:41:00.540 so i spent a lot of time in the pool i would get in in the mornings and be like all right what am i

00:41:07.500 thinking about while i'm swimming it really it did it was like this very strange like meta meta meta like

00:41:12.480 you know and then i would get out of the pool and i would like type things into my phone and then i would

00:41:16.880 go home and then i would write them so i did do quite a bit of that last section of the book

00:41:21.860 write it in my head when i was swimming for sure well bonnie this has been a great conversation where

00:41:27.080 can people go to learn more about the book and the rest of your work my website bonnie soy.com

00:41:32.040 it's uh b-o-n-n-i-e-t as in tom s as in sam ui.com and i'm on twitter as well all right bonnie soy thanks

00:41:39.840 for your time it's been a pleasure thanks so much my guest today was bonnie soy she's the author of the book

00:41:44.720 why we swim it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:41:48.640 information about our work at our website bonnie soy.com and soy is spelled t-s-u-i also check

00:41:53.560 out our show notes at aom.is slash why we swim where you find links to resources where we delve

00:41:57.960 deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website

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00:42:13.320 we've written over the years got some articles about swimming on there so check that out and if

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00:42:44.180 reminding you not only listen they win podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#629： Why We Swim

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