Breast stroke, cane strokes

At the weekend I finally got round to visiting my local pool. Swimming has always been my favoured form of exercise, and since I moved to London last year I've let it slip. I got a pleasant surprise when I discovered I wasn't as unfit as I'd feared, and managed a clear 40 lengths in the first 20 minutes, followed by another slower 40 as I settled into it.

I think I love swimming for many of the same reasons that I love spanking. There's a sort of meditative, clearheaded serenity to focussing your entire self into a physical action. In many ways I come out of a workout in a similar state to after an extended play session: blood pulsing, floating on endorphines, mind emptied and calm.

I was thinking in the pool (inasmuch as the act of swimming allows space for thought) how the act of swimming lengths resembles, in some ways, the process of taking a caning. There isn't much space to think; simple ideas can surface briefly, but are chased away before you have time to take them anywhere. You are aware of your body, of course, and you focus on your form and posture, trying to make your breathing and movements more controlled each time. You're aware of your immediate environment, but mostly you're focussed on the physical act. At times it's hard work, and your breathing is laboured and your body screams at you; other times you feel like you're floating, like you could carry on forever. And the entire experience is subsumed into the count, the numbers slowly ringing in your head, each count anticipating the next until it's realised.

I'm intending to start making regular trips to the pool again, but this is going to require self-discipline. Or possibly the other kind of discipline - in fact Mr C and I both independently had the same idea of ensuring that I meet my targets. A number of lengths is alloted to each week (say, a hundred and sixty), and any I do not complete in the pool that week are returned to me in cane strokes. Hard strokes, that is, punishment strokes, the kind I would not court lightly. I think it's a good idea: it's likely to work, and it seems strangely appropriate.