After refusing to get a gym membership, finally I agreed this month to join my wife and son in their gym as a member. They have been members for many years, but I have always refused saying I do not believe in paying someone to stay fit. It did work, with cricket, badminton and exercises at home helping at lot. One thing I could not do is learn to swim the right way.

Two years ago we went to Hawaii and that is where I realized during snorkling how useful swimming was, if not for anything else. Right after that I went for swimming lessons where I was like a fish out of the water while little kids less than half my age were swimming elegantly. After those lessons I realized that it was all about practise. With my son starting to swim, I did not want to be left behind and hence that was one of the main reasons for joining the gym, so that I can swim throughout the year – as it is a indoor pool where they maintain the temperature at 80 degrees all the time.

I have been going regularly for two weeks now and as Robin Sharma rightly said in his book ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’, anything that you do for 21 days continuously will become a part of your routine. Now that I am approaching that 21 day limit, I am glad that I am able to spend an hour each morning swimming and it does make a positive impact in helping me handle the rest of the tasks during the day.

One thing that impressed me at Richochet was how much importance and attention to detail is given to even small things. They provide additional goggles, use and throw bags to carry wet clothes, hair dryers, shaving cream, hair spray, deodorant, etc in addition to the usual shower and liquid soap that is found in many pools.

This reminded me of Google applications, where when you think of a feature, more often than not, you will find it already on the same screen.

In any case, it has been a wonderful learning experience and it has been pleasant so far. Will update here on a regular basis.