Hu Knows How to Swim - Jason Hu

Jason Hu is a sophomore at the Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus. In Hu Knows how to Swim, Jason details his drive towards athletic improvement.​

Swimming is probably the most masochistic sport mankind has ever invented. People constantly drown themselves and get incredibly breathless. I’ve been performing the same process, drowning myself constantly, for 11 years.

​I started swimming when I was 5. My dream wasn’t to swim back then, it was simply to dive underwater. When I told my mom about the idea, she did not know what to do with me, so she sent me into my club pool in my neighborhood. She told me that if I wanted to learn how to dive, I would have to learn how to swim first. And thus, my whole swimming career began.

​Swimming is not easy, it wasn’t when I was starting it, and it isn’t now when I’m trying to improve more. I never thought that swimming was difficult, I just had to swim a certain split to accomplish during a meet, but no, I was wrong. I have to think before I swim, telling myself what splits I should swim each time to meet my goals for every event. When I was young, the amount of preparation needed was underestimated, now that I have grown up, not only my swimming skills have become more advanced, but so are my abilities to think and be cautious about aspects in life outside of my sport as well.

​Something else I have discovered through out my swimming years is that mentality is something that plays a significant role in swimming. What you think determines what speed you swim? When I feel hype and have the desire to swim, I use all my strength and don’t conserve a single bit of energy. During that time, I am confident that I am the fastest. On the other hand, when I am not feeling it, my whole body won’t even try to function. Something that I’ve learned is to always have a positive side in training, don’t think about the process, and think about what happens after the process.

​My REAL swimming career actually began 5 years ago. I feel like I wasted 6 years just learning how to swim, when some athletes my age were already flying all over the world to attend meets. I’d say it was something I would really regret, as I never knew swimming was so important to me ever until I realized the significance of it 5 years ago.

But I am also lucky at the same time, I was very hard worker when I actually started competitive swimming, propelling me to further heights. In sixth grade, I was the slowest swimmer. My 50 free compared to someone else’s 42, I hated myself after seeing what other kids could do at my age and the difference between me and them. I didn’t give up though, and I never had a single thought about quitting swimming just because everyone else was better than me. I started trying harder and harder, doing exercises and training more than any other swimmer. I never missed a single school practice, and as a swimmer on the junior varsity team, I only was allowed to swim in the morning before school started. Exercising from 5:40 AM to 6:20 AM for a high schooler now doesn’t seem like a challenge for many, but back then I was 12. I was told that I needed sleep and enough rest so I wouldn’t faint in the middle of a class. It was the hardest time I’ve ever experienced.

My time on the JV team in middle school reminds me of a superstar I look up to: Kobe Bryant. Kobe isn’t a swimmer, instead, he was one of the greatest basketball players to ever live. His trademark ‘Mamba’ mentality often frightens me - how does one wake up at 4 AM and decide that they are going to shoot 1000 buckets before the sun even rises? I never understood how someone could be so full of commitment and have excellent work ethic, until I started morning training.

Now back to the the modern day, I am a swimmer who is still trying to peak at his prime but doesn’t need morning training anymore. I finally train with all the fast people, and I’m proud that I am one of them now, and maybe even better than them in the future.