SAFSAL
Routine, let’s talk about the swimming routine.
When you swim so much (25, 35, 41 kilometers a week) the important thing is to break routine sometimes.
For me breaking the routine doesn’t mean resting, but just “different” swimming.
The “different” swimming story of the week start with a group of swimmers called SAFSAL.
SAFSAL is a bench in Hebrew, and this specific bench this group is called after is located on the beach in the north Cliff beach in Tel Aviv.
On this bench, 24 super disciplined swimmers and the CEO of the group, Alon Kork, who tells me that this is the ONLY group in Israel that swims every day of the year, day or shine, in open waters only. Yaron Davidi, another team member adds on Alon’s decleration and says that there’s no payment, no official organization, not one style of swimming, but what they do have is a “North Korean style” dictatorship J
I’ve had this crazy crash on the SAFSAL for weeks now… Everytime I come swimming with my crew at the Cliff northern beach, their territory, I hope deep down inside that they’ll call me to join them… To swim with them. They’re so rough, raw, wild and yet soft!
“Call me, invite me, whenever you say, I’ll come! I’m flexible, really!!”…
For weeks I had this crush, and eventually my patience paid off!
They noticed my goggling eyes, my humble courting, and even the hot CEO, Alon Kork, always in his purple briefs, even he gave in to my relentless pursuit…
And so it was that I was invited by him to join the team on a Friday morning, 8:08am sharp! And if I had any questions, he instructed me to ask them only on Thursday from 07:19pm and on… No earlier!
Yes, North Korea is here!
After a long tiresome week in which I swam 29 kilometers, I was feeling the excitement. Tomorrow it’s going to happen! The “different” swimming, with this super tough and wild SAFSAL team, which for months I’ve been yearning to join.
Friday morning, The Cliff north beach, on the safsal the fabulous group welcomes me… Danny, Igor, Alon, Hanan, Itay, Efrat and Ofir.
Igor tells me to look at this style.
We go into the sea and the real virtue, all the fun is to swim slowly, freely, with an amazing team of devoted swimmers next to me.
“Sometimes dreams come true”, and I learned quickly that in North Korea there’s no sometimes. Dreams come true, or more correctly, you make them come true!
How simple can it be to just swim “differently”. To break routine.
After 5,200 meters I decide to stop and I start swimming my way out of the water, but then I change my mind and go back in, it’s not often I get to swim in this kind of group!
We finished at 7,400 meters. 7,400 meters of sheer happiness!
I know I can swim quickly, but so what?? In the daily routine my I swim differently and it has a different pace and here I can swim differently and in a different pace.
So will they invite me again?? J
See you next week!!
