Aqua - Gloves

  Other than Covid the one thing that has revolutionised my cold water swimming has been this pair of aqua-gloves, given to me by my wonderful wild-water sister. Here they are blackly beckoning into the still, chill waters of Bassenthwaite lake today. Last year at the same time, even wearing a wet-suit, I could barely swim more than a few strokes without feeling excruciating pain in my hands. They always turned into a couple of oversensitive Drama queens on the ends of my arms, refusing to face up to frosty reviews.


Yet, hands are one of the most amazing parts of our bodies. They are loaded with over 14 different sorts of receptors and are the primary centre of our sense of touch, so it’s not really surprizing that immersing them in near freezing water evokes a very definite response, best articulated as aaahhh!      
          
 Professor John Napier, pointed out ‘We explore the world around us with our eyes and hands but, only one of these permits us to see around corners and in the dark.’ And I would add, as the numbing pain bites, puts cold into focal view.  Cold experienced by the hands, becomes for me, more than just mechanical touch. The complexity of the receptors within the skin and deep muscles, firing into the brain, re-processes the sensation into something so total that it is akin to vision without sight. From there it transmits its message to every part of your being, provoking a flight (but no fight) reaction, similar to when taking a look over the edge of a cliff; the whole body screams out to run, run far away.


So, the first time I put the gloves on I did not expect the degree of difference they would make. In effect I became blind to the cold. Of course, the rest of my body felt the chillyness in the usual heart-stopping gasp,  but there was not that intense overlay of pain/brain vision. Now, although still in a swim-suit, I don’t find my legs inadvertently leaping back to land at the whim of my wimpy digits and my hands once again are blithely playing their lead part in my unprofessional breast- stroke. 
 
Aqua Gloves – let’s give them a big hand!