RITUALS AND EXPERIENCES AROUND THE SWIM
"When I leave the house to go to the pond I can feel myself start to calm a little. The effect of the anticipation from the water just increases the nearer I get to the heath."
What became evident very early on in my interviews was that for my participants, the swim itself was actually a small component of the overall practice of swimming at the pond. The sensory experience and the core of the activity was not just limited to the few minutes spent in the water. Prepping for the swim, journey to the pond, the building of anticipation - these were things on which they had just as much to say as the swim itself, which certainly broadened my understanding of what swimming at the pond in the winter means to those that do it.
For some participants their swim began with the ritual of preparing at home - getting their thermos of tea ready, packing their bags, making sure they had thermals. Only one participant would look up their route to the ponds digitally as they came from further afield, and train timings were necessary. Only one would check the weather forecast on the day.
"The Twitter feels like the public face of the experience, it makes me feel very seen although I don’t actually interact with it."
Most participants would check the temperature at the pond before going, using the Hampstead Heath twitter feed (a note on this feed - it has become a hotspot for trans-exclusionary Twitter-users to express their feelings about the ladies' pond's inclusivity - not something I have gone into at length in this ethnography, but something more than one participant flagged). One participant described this as an extension of the community feeling of being at the ponds - watching the temperature go up and down on the Twitter account, even when not swimming, made them feel part of a community, as though the practice existed in the outside world. For one it felt like a space to feel "smug" about their swimming even if they weren't broadcasting it on their own social media; the public at large can see how cold it's getting and that they're still swimming in there. It was also important for participants if they’d had a break from swimming, or were worrying about getting acclimatized - watching temperatures fluctuate on the account made them feel like they were still "in the game".
“I think the goal is when you’re walking across the heath is to stride with purpose and get very warm and clammy.”
Several participants referred to the anticipation of the water during the journey bringing a sense of calm. The walk across Hampstead Heath was - for all but one cycling participant - a crucial part of the experience. They referred to the feeling of getting sweaty on the stride, of feeling their swimming costumes against their body under their clothes pulling in all the wrong places as both thrilling and uncomfortable, building up heat in their clothes that they will be able to feel when they’re cold after the swim. One participant listened to music on the walk before taking headphones out about five minutes from the ponds, to "get into the zone" - removing external sensory distractions and immersing themselves in the heath itself. One would take a more wooded route in order or listen to birds and ramble more before reaching the pond.
"I'll be really enjoying how kind of cold and crisp the air is kind of building anticipation as I'm walking across the heath. Maybe the mud will be squelchy."
The journey to the heath itself varied across participants. I've mixed my journey in with them here. Routes involve bicycle, walking, the overground, and a national train.
“And I find this sort of instant relaxation from the minute I kind of go through the gate.”
The gate was flagged as a key moment by all my participants - the creak of its unoiled hinges opening, the lifting up the latch and putting it back - “it feels like you’re entering into a secret space”.
Participants would change either in the meadow, or a toilet cubicle, or in the changing room - but all outlined this moment of stripping off and feeling the cold as key to the anticipation of getting into the water. After the swim they might get clothes on straight away and stride back towards the heath - if it’s very cold - or sit in the meadow with a thermos of tea, or a segment of orange, enjoying the buzz.
“It’s a faff! You've got to take all your layers and a thermos and the rest just for like three or four minutes in the water. But it's a guarantee that you'll feel better than you were before - it's worth it.”
This enjoyment of everything around the swim as much as the few minutes in the water was certainly something I found, alongside a growing sense of routine and ritual the more I swam. The tramp up and down the hills of the heath toward the pond, the squelch of my boots in the mud, the shrill creak of the gate, the hot tea in the meadow afterwards. Through interviewing and observing my participants, and swimming over the course of the project myself, I realised the experience swimming at the pond in the winter expands well beyond immersion in the water and encompasses the wider heath, the wider city and beyond.