MuRRay RoSe
Life is Worth Swimming Foreword by
John Clarke Introduction by
Jodi Rose
Life is Worth Swimming Murray roSe Foreword by
John Clarke Introduction by
Jodi Rose
Published by Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd. 45 Hume Street, Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia PO Box 623, Crows Nest NSW 1585, Australia Telephone: +61 2 9437 0438 Facsimile: +61 2 9437 0288 Email: admin@arbonpublishing.com or visit www.arbonpublishing.com Managing Director Fritz Gubler Publisher Chryl Perry Project Editor Janet Parker Designer Stan Lamond Photo Research Jodi Rose, Janet Parker Proofreader Marie-Louise Taylor
This publication and arrangement © Arbon Publishing Pty Ltd, 2013 Text © Trirose Pty Limited, 2013 Photography credits appear on page 224 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Wherever possible, copyright material has been reproduced with the knowledge and consent of the copyright holders concerned; every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material and to ensure that credits accurately comply with the information supplied. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions in the credits and would be grateful for notification of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. If you are the copyright holder of any uncredited material herein, please contact us at admin@arbonpublishing.com. No responsibility is accepted by the authors, publisher or printer for any infringement of copyright or otherwise arising from the contents of this publication. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Rose, Murray, 1939–2012, author Title: Life is worth swimming / Iain Murray Rose ISBN: 9780987282064 (hardback) Subjects: Rose, Murray, 1939-2012 Swimmers--Australia--Biography Olympic athletes--Australia--Biography Dewey Number: 797.21092 Printed and bound in China by Toppan Leefung Printing Limited Cover image: Olympic legend Murray Rose in the ocean at North Bondi. Title page image: Murray Rose at North Bondi, 2006.
Dedication Life is Worth Swimming is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Jodi, who captured my heart from the moment we met, and to our son, Trevor, who has brought continual joy and understanding into the world since his first chuckle after being born. The quality of our communication is a great blessing, and their support was invaluable in bringing about this book.
Melbourne, Australia, 1956. Murray’s success at the Games threw him into the national spotlight. Fans clamoured for his autograph, and the press were eager to capture his every move.
Life is Worth Swimming
Foreword I first saw Murray Rose swim in 1956 in Palmerston North, New Zealand. I was about eight years old and was an office-bearer in the Manawatu Junior Swimming Team. We’d recently had a character-building win over Horowhenua at Foxton, so our tails were up. One afternoon, we were invited to attend a special meet at the Municipal Baths, where an Australian team would compete against local yeomen drawn from as far away as Ashhurst. Murray and Jon Henricks were tall and enormously powerful and looked like film stars. They were also very relaxed; their swimming looked effortless and they won everything. Murray had a long, rhythmic stroke and his turns were fluent and efficient. The tumble-turn had yet to be developed and, in those days, swimmers touched the end, drew their feet up ready to push off the wall again, aimed themselves back down the pool, had a bit of a look round and then pushed off for another lap. The Australians did this so fast they were halfway back up the pool again before we recovered the power of speech. Like a lot of other brilliant displays of physical strength and skill of a very high order, this was not only deeply impressive, it was also beautiful to watch. My second encounter with Murray occurred 55 years later, on a wild and squally morning at the North Bondi Surf Club. Rain drummed on the surf club windows, halyards beat on flagpoles and a disorderly sea heaved in the background. When Murray arrived, we introduced ourselves and he walked me around the upstairs room of the old clubhouse, where the walls were hung with photographs of surf lifesavers going back 50 or 60 years. He told me stories of who they were and what they’d done, and he straightened their pictures slightly as we went around. Murray was tending a tradition. He was one of the greatest swimmers in history. He loved the sea and these were his people.
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Foreword
Murray had kindly agreed to participate in a documentary on sport that we were filming, and as we sat down I was going to mention my memory of seeing him swim in Palmerston North … but Murray spoke first. “You’re from Palmerston North, aren’t you?” he said. “Yes, I am.” “I’ve been to Palmerston North. We swam there in 1956.” “I know you did. I was there. How did you know I was from Palmerston North?” “I looked you up,” he smiled. I had admired Murray forever, and we’d spoken on the phone a few times, but here was an important new clue—Murray prepared carefully for everything he did. He wanted to know the person he was talking to. He cared about what he was saying and was keen to make himself understood. Not that he treated everything that was important seriously. There was an element of the playful about the way Murray described some of the ideas that absorbed him, even when discussing tactics in an Olympic final. In the 1500m freestyle in Melbourne—a race he describes in this book—he was up against the American, George Breen, who had just broken the world record. When Murray talked about how he swam this race, he did what he could to hide the sparkle in his eyes. Murray also spoke inspiringly about how he felt when he was in the water. He talked of being a dolphin, of becoming the verb “swimming”. Murray wanted to resolve these thoughts and feelings as he wrote this book and, as usual, he did more work on it than he let on. He was determined to strike the right tone. He knew how to do this in talk, interweaving his certainties and his sense of fun, so that in arriving at the place he wanted you to go, you felt that you’d got there on your own. This project has been compiled and organised by the remarkable Jodi and Trevor and we are grateful to them. We should read the book with admiration and affection. And then perhaps we should go for a swim.
John Clarke
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Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 War Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 First Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Tender Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Hothouse Athlete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 The “Me” Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Confessions of a Beachcomber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 We Shall Overcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Going Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Magic Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Blessings of Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 The Value of Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 The Zen of Swimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Winning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Losing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Life Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Contact Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Picture Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Life is Worth Swimming
Preface You may or may not have heard of Jiddu Krishnamurti. I went to a talk he gave in Sydney when I was about 13 years old, which began stirring the pot of deeper interests. He was one of several extraordinary characters who touched my life with love and understanding. K, as he was affectionately known, was widely recognised for guiding people towards the “pathless land of truth” without any pretention or self-importance. By his own admission, he was not a big reader, but enjoyed a good detective yarn. Is it possible to imagine a more amazing and bewildering detective story than life itself? We are given a vague plot and set out to follow the clues. After running down many dead ends and chasing countless red herrings, we begin to see that things are not what they seem to be. Our Alice in Wonderland world of reality is built with smoke and mirrors. The clearest thinkers and scientists have been sending out this message all along and we have been too busy to pay attention. Contrary to popular opinion, ignorance is not bliss but unresolved heartache. Over the years, I have made several attempts to write a journal and have a collection of handwritten notes on mildew-mottled pages that clog up my bookshelf and filing cabinet. It was a matter of throwing them out or doing some serious organisation. After all, it is claimed that everyone has at least one good book in them. I just could not find the hook. I have never really been into reading biographies, much less writing an autobiography. The art of swimming has a narrow focus, and I much prefer to work directly with people rather than explaining the theory. I have had enough experience to avoid the pitfalls of marketing and promoting of “spirituality” or setting myself up as a “self-help” guru.
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“The most reliable and comforting landmark to keep us on the right path is invariably the light within our own heart.” Libraries and bookshops are full of titles such as 10 Steps to Enlightenment, The Path to Happiness, All You Need to Know about Health, etc., as if you could capture the secrets of the universe in a handful of concepts. What is it that makes God laugh? Watching people make plans! Goal-setting and inflexible objectives can help develop mechanical skills, but are self-defeating in unfolding any permanent wisdom. However, I would never underestimate the value of finding an honest motive to guide your quest. “Quo Vadis?” or “Where are you going?” strikes a sacred chord in your inner quest. After sorting through my notes, what was left after chipping away the non-starters was to share my personal stories and anecdotes that might highlight some of the questions I have come across on my voyage. We will tap into areas that may be unconventional and unfamiliar, which you can skip over if they do not resonate with your heart. As far as possible, I will attempt to look at any themes without the taint of my own opinions and beliefs. Hamlet’s instructions to his actors—“To hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature”—come to mind and can fit writers equally well. The paradox is that life is such a serious business that it cannot be taken too seriously. Humour is the great leveller that helps us to relax away from superimposing our demands on the will of others and to observe things from a clearer perspective. The opportunity is ever-present to sweep away the dusty cobwebs of our mind and let in enough light to solve the greatest mysteries that have been given to humanity since the beginning of time.
Murray Rose
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Hothouse Athlete
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” lao tzu
Opposite: Murray wrote: “Any day I can look back at my best days and my not so best days, and value every moment of my life.”
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Life is Worth Swimming
M
y father, Ian F. Rose, was an ideas man who scaled the competitive world of advertising from junior copywriter to one of the original “Mad Men” with
JWT (one of America’s biggest advertising agencies) on Madison Avenue in New York City. He was also a sceptic. His first reaction to anything outside of the norm was to give it the flick. However, his critical brain would then step in and re-examine his snap judgement. “Of course, you’re absolutely right”, he might rationalise. “I’ve never heard of anything more absurd but, before rejecting it altogether, maybe we should investigate further to argue the case against.” Following this line of thinking, he was often captured by the unconventional point of view. Thus, his quest for a heart-healthy diet led him to buy into the whole package of natural health and a vegetarian lifestyle. A former gourmand, he was not readily inclined towards eating “rabbit food”. It was one of those wonderful ironies that he became a highly respected advocate for much that he had originally snubbed. He has my greatest respect for having an open mind to look beyond his treasured beliefs. Such courage is a rare commodity. Dad’s road to health began by absorbing volumes of research and consulting with leading nutritional exponents. Eventually it led him to writing a practical guide on natural living, which he titled, Faith, Love, and Seaweed. He also had an Olympic champion son to validate his theories. We helped blaze the trail for understanding the importance of sports nutrition. Athletes today accept the fact that nutrition is one of the cornerstones of peak performance. Common sense dictates that you wouldn’t think about running a Formula One vehicle on low octane fuel. What you put into your body can provide a vital edge when the difference between victory and defeat is measured in fractions of a second. Did nutrition contribute to my swimming achievements? Of course! It also attracted a lot of media interest. At a time when meat was the food of champions and steak ’n’ eggs was the obligatory pre-race meal, a vegetarian athlete was definitely quirky. Swim
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At their Double Bay residence, Ian F. Rose relaxes after a long day at work.
Life is Worth Swimming
Murray with Dawn Fraser in 1956— two champions with two very different dietary regimes!
legend Dawn Fraser was reported to break world records in spite of warming up with doughnuts and beer. On the other hand, the press attributed my success to an unusual diet. They dubbed me “The Seaweed Streak” because of a report that I chomped through plates of the green stuff. Truth be told, Mum occasionally made a fruit jelly from nutrientrich edible seaweed. In all probability, I inhaled more of the local seaweed while training in the tidal pools around Sydney. The label stuck, and newspaper cartoons pictured my competitors getting tangled in a swimming pool filled with seaweed. It is one thing to be an individual, but quite another to be deemed a nutter. I sympathised with Ian Thorpe when the media implied that the size of his feet was the reason he swam fast. At least he was given the menacing sounding name of “Thorpedo” and not “Big Foot”. Always an advertising man, my father reminded me, “It doesn’t matter what they say about you, as long as they get your name right”. Sometimes it did matter. The vegetarian movement appointed me as their pin-up boy. Health food companies sought to benefit from a rub-off with my swimming record. I unquestioningly appreciated my family’s investment in nutrition, but I also felt diminished that my diet overshadowed my athletic ability. It didn’t matter that I had natural talent, good
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Right: Champion, pin-up boy, role model—the Australian public wanted to know everything about their national swimming hero. Below: In 1963, Murray’s father wrote Faith, Love, and Seaweed, a book on natural health, featuring Murray and his vegetarian diet.
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Left: One of Murray’s proudest moments was captaining the 1955 Cranbrook School swimming team when they took out the local school championship by just a single point in the final event. Below: Australia’s 1956 gold medal winners of the 4 x 200m freestyle relay (l to r): Jon Henricks, Murray Rose, John Devitt and Kevin O’Halloran.
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Hothouse Athlete
technical skills and worked bloody hard. They were discounted by the story that I owed it all to eating sesame seeds and seaweed. I was split between being a commodity and a guinea pig. The rewards of sport were confined to the glory of winning. Athletes were strictly amateur and it never crossed my mind to make a dollar from swimming. The only commercial benefit I received during this time was a life pass to Redleaf Pool on Sydney Harbour, where I had learned to swim. Redleaf was the school pool for Cranbrook, Scots, Ascham and Kambala. Back in those days, there was an admission fee and I was pleased to get in for free. I was delighted and honoured, but the thrill didn’t last long. A couple of years later, Woollahra Council discontinued entrance fees and made admission free for everyone. The higher the stakes, the less we leave to chance. Athletes pay very close attention to details on the day of a big test, which is a perfect environment for cultivating superstitions. Winning habits from the past must be observed. Great importance is given to lucky towels, lucky anything, unlucky colours, the pre-race meal, warm-up precision—the whole chain of events throughout the day takes on almost religious significance. Executing these rituals may not guarantee a win, but not following them has dire consequences, if only mentally. More than any other single element, the mind writes the prescription for our performance. The inner script I wrote conditioned my thinking to believe that I needed a customdesigned nutritional program in order to be successful. No problem as long as I was living at home. Then I started competing interstate and internationally. I had to lug along extra food supplies. If my “tucker bag” was lost in transit, my performances suffered. I had developed into a “hothouse athlete”, who had to have the ideal setup to achieve top results. During the Melbourne Olympic Games, my parents rented a house so that I could have home-cooked meals. I was given special permission to leave the Olympic Village. Again I experienced conflict between sticking to my prescribed diet
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The Zen of Swimming “Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” hermann hesse
Opposite: Amid the hustle and bustle of a growing city in the 1950s, hidden gems such as Manly Reservoir provided an ideal “off-the-beaten-track” training area in Sydney for dedicated swimmers.
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H
ave you ever found yourself in a moment when your brain is very quiet? You are simply conscious and can tune into everything without any effort, without any
separation. We have all experienced these mystical states but too often discount them because they do not fit into our regular thought patterns. We just recognise that something happened to give us a feeling of joy and lightness—we have planted a bookmark to make it a little easier to return, to discover the reality of being conscious as our self. While training in Townsville in 1960, I read Zen in the Art of Archery. I must admit my motive was not entirely pure—I was dedicated to swimming fast. However, I always tried to leave a margin of relaxation in my swimming to achieve a state of “effortless effort”. It was about efficiency—to leave a quiet footprint, eliminate drag and accelerate through a wormhole. What is the meaning of total action without thought? On being asked the question of what Zen is, the Master maintained silence. From an Eastern perspective, this state is unity between the mind and body that transcends the boundaries of linear time and space. Due to 15 minutes of eternity one evening, I came to really know what it was to be in the Zen of swimming. The Master said: “When you come to the lessons in the future you must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real.” That is archery … whatever it means to you.
Pre-Olympic training in Townsville was not all hard work—there was time for relaxation and fun too.
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Left: A lack of heated pools in Australia’s southern cities saw the Olympic team move to the warmer climate of Townsville for pre-Games training. Seen here at Tobruk Memorial Baths are four legends of Australian swimming (l–r): John Konrads, Murray Rose, John Devitt and Jon Henricks.
Below: All local club rivalries were forgotten when Australian swimming team members got together at Townsville for preOlympic training.
Right: At Tobruk Memorial Baths in Townsville in 1960. Sam Herford (centre) and Murray (right) are pictured with up-andcoming swimmer, Bob Windle.
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The significance of using words that convey what awareness reveals If we see something clearly, directly, with understanding, then we can discuss it more clearly and directly and with understanding. Conversely, if we are elusive in our communication, it is because we are not centred in the knowledge of the subject. We have developed a variety of blocks to speaking with truth. We are generally more concerned with self-image than truth. We have learned to place more trust in thoughts and concepts than in the movement of awareness. We live in the description of things and separate ourselves from the inner reality. We do not have a fully developed vocabulary—particularly relating to intelligent matters. Moreover, access to our available vocabulary is impeded by our habit of thinking along familiar patterns. However, as human beings, we can train ourselves to think and speak accurately. That is, we can learn to fit the expression of thought with the focus of feeling awareness. In honest exploration of a subject, the focal point of thinking is linked with rightness. It is looking to know.
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When I moved overseas, I needed to take on a number of part-time jobs. Toughest among them was selling cable TV subscriptions door-to-door. It was quite a reality check to go from being an Olympic star to working the “hood” in not the best part of L.A. It was also a lesson in rejection, which no-one particularly likes—indeed, it is one of our primary fears. On a rejection scale of 1 to 10, a 1 is “I’m busy now, can we talk later?” and a 10 is “I never want to see you again and hope you die a lonely death”. In my first sales experience I definitely got more 10’s than 1’s! It could be that we all have a stress quota for any given day. If we use our stress points in the morning, the rest of the day is a write-off unless we can improve our emotional and mental stamina. Perhaps the trend is reversing, but it is still the case that too many coaches think the only way to build stamina is to throw a lot of work at their athletes, with very little attention to technique or efficiency. The strong survive, often at the expense of the team effort, but physical stamina alone is worth little. My philosophy is to aim at increasing the awareness of what we are doing so we don’t go on automatic and repeat the same mistakes again. If we know exactly what we are doing, we tend to be self-correcting and take responsibility for our own performance. Improved mental stamina is a by-product, because we are driven from within. I have found that when I pay attention to the sounds and feeling of my body moving through the water, it makes me swim faster, but when I think about other things or try to solve an intellectual problem, I swim slower. I have experimented with this phenomenon many times and the result is consistent. When we are aware of our body, we may realise just how much tension we carry around all the time. This realisation is the first step to releasing the tension. Monitor yourself throughout the day and focus on any tension building in the neck, shoulders, back, jaw, etc. Take 30 seconds to release tension before it accumulates. Keep your mind on your breathing cycle with relaxed attention. Every time you exhale, worries and tension are dropped. Armchair relaxation is easy, but the key is relaxation in action—dynamic relaxation, or effortless effort.
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Murray in action during his 400m freestyle event at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
Suspension in a transcendent moment is one of the most powerful programs of the human psyche. Lao Tzu wrote that we must be quiet and watchful, and listen to our own inner voice as well as the voices of our environment in a non-interfering and receptive manner. In this way, we learn to rely on much more than just the intellect or logical mind. I am fascinated by rhythm in its many forms—the breath cycle, pulse rates, strides or strokes and the flow of a race. It’s so important for an athlete to find rhythm, in order to seamlessly integrate technique and mechanics.
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Performing the duty of the moment The attitude with which responsibilities are accomplished is a measure of awareness. Generally, duties are performed to achieve a desired result or to relieve the pressure of disorder. The dominant motive is to get something from the experience. Expediency overrides awareness of the moment and the performance of order actually creates further disorder. The right motive for doing duties is to give oneself in service. It is an opportunity to reciprocate with appreciation for the service provided by the universe. The exchange of energies brings greater sensitivity and an ability to know what to do without the compulsion of attachment. If order is the first law of the universe, the first step to serving order is to be awake in the moment. Thought patterns about what to do and what not to do interfere with being awake. The mechanism of thought is necessary in the performance of physical tasks, but real order requires the addition of psychic and mental perspective. Correct perspective is revealed to awareness by the attitude “thy will be done�. When the love of rightness is more important than personal desires, the duty of the moment is clear. The activities of life have an orderly flow without the disruption of self-interest.
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Ocean swimming took on an extra dimension for Murray when he visited Fiji in 2008—some 50 years after his first visit. Back then, Murray did not use goggles, but second time around, with this unassuming piece of equipment at his disposal, Murray was able to survey the underwater wonderland—and successfully navigate submerged obstacles! He is seen here completing the 2008 Fiji Swims relay event with teammates Patrick Twomey (left) and Andrew Spagnardi (right).
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The Zen of Swimming
It is clear that I swim for my spirit, for clarity and for sanity. But swimming is becoming very competitive and sophisticated at all levels. So much so that I think it is easy to forget why we took up the sport in the first place. A few years back I took part in a Fiji swim, and it was the first time I had visited Fiji since 1957. The primary downside of swimming in Fiji was that upon returning home, I went from crystal-clear 26°C water to a 14°C storm surf at Bondi. In the early days, I developed a habit of not opening my eyes underwater, because we did not wear goggles. This habit suits my meditative approach but is useless for navigation. During that particular Fiji swim, I found myself totally lost in the “sandbar swim”, the portion of the race that started at a small coral atoll. When I came back to Fiji a second time, I had to break the psychological barrier and open my eyes underwater, taking in the remarkable underwater scenery. Ocean swims remind us that swimming is all about fun, friendship and fitness, and to develop an organic relationship with nature as well as with each other. Sometimes when you’ve swum your heart out at an important meet and you just need to unwind a bit, there is really nothing you’d rather do than to go for another swim! Following the 1955 National Championships in Adelaide, my teammates and I decided to take a dip in Lake Torrens. It was a dark and misty night, so I wrapped a towel over my head and tucked it into my pure white tracksuit to jog across the park. An old man was trying to sleep it off in the grass, when our sudden appearance awoke him to a living nightmare. He gave a terrified howl and ran like the ghosts of hell were in pursuit! I have had many joyful moments in swimming, many painful ones and very few transcendent ones. What some think of as discipline (for example, the ritual of early morning workouts) is actually a labour of love. The best moments make the shortest stories—the most sublime state I ever experienced was in a 1500m race at the NCAA, and I cannot recall a thing!
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Dreams
“Nothing happens unless first a dream.� carl sandBurg
Opposite: Poolside on a sunny California day, Murray appears lost in thought during a welcome break in training.
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Life is Worth Swimming
E
very young child lives in a world of dreams. As we get older, we sometimes lose touch with the meaning of our dreams and the mystery of life. I think one of the
reasons the Olympic experience resonates with so many people is that the Games remind us of our own dreams or, as my son wrote to me on a bookmark a long time ago, that “Anything is Possible”. The road to greatness, to personal excellence, is a never-ending journey and it all begins with a dream. Perhaps our dreams and our fears define us. I heard a talk by someone who was involved in carrying out the first manned Moon landing. During the lead-up to the Apollo mission, the performance rating at Grumman Aerospace, the corporation commissioned to build the lunar lander, experienced a dramatic increase. The project manager explained the improvement by pointing up to the Moon. “People have been dreaming of going there for thousands of years … and now we are part of the team that is going to do it.” My parents put up a picture of a discus thrower in my bedroom. I used to look at this picture and think that it represented something that seemed to be fine. The first time I became aware
Childhood dreams led Murray to champion status, as he laid the building blocks of his training to achieve great heights.
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Dreams
of the Olympics was in 1952. As most kids do, I had a hero when I was growing up, and his name was John Marshall. He was a great Australian swimmer and, at some time, held world records in almost every distance. He was a very unusual swimmer with doublejointed shoulders. When John swam, he created this incredible slapping sound that resounded around the pool. After I had been watching him for a while, I went back to the pool and tried to copy his stroke, very unsuccessfully. My coach came up to me and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”. I said, “I’m swimming like John Marshall”. He said there was no way I was ever going to swim like John Marshall. “He is one of a kind. But if you keep going the way you are son, you’ll break every record that John Marshall ever set.” I remember John going to the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, after which I met him, and he talked to me about his Olympic experience. I think this is when I realised that the Olympics were something I wanted to participate in, and made it my dream and my goal to be an Olympian. When I broke my first world record, the first telegram I received was from John Marshall. My personal dream took shape at Redleaf Pool. I trained mostly in tidal pools around Sydney Harbour, which were usually fenced off from sharks. The water was often cold and dirty, and conditions were imperfect. These pools were the training ground for many of the swimmers who brought about the so-called “golden era” of Australian swimming. We kept a bottle of turps handy to remove oil and tar once we had finished. We swam through seaweed, algae and creatures we did not always know nor care to identify. Sometimes we swam for miles up and down Manly Reservoir, or in the winter months, in the output zone of warm water from Bunnerong Power Station. We would often catch trams to our workout sessions, which could take an hour and a half each way. Conventional pools were few and far between, and when they were to be found, they were full of people (the worst hazard).
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Redleaf Pool in the 40s and 50s was a picturesque setting for beachgoers and an ideal location for training.
Dreams
Retaining much of its charm, Redleaf Pool (now Murray Rose Pool) is as popular now as it was in Murray’s youth.
During the school term, when it was impossible for me to go to Sam, he would get up at 5 a.m. and drive the 12 miles from his home to Redleaf Pool in order to supervise my before-school training. On those occasions when I had to attend some faraway swimming event, he never hesitated to leave his business at the baths. He would always be there with his advice and support, making sure that I was well cared for and at my best. But if any of his pupils were caught loafing around or not playing the game properly, all hell would break loose. In his words, “My system, tried and proved over the years, is to obtain a congenial training atmosphere—make the kids work together and mix fun with the serious side of their training”.
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Life is Worth Swimming
The home crowd erupted into cheers when the Australian team proudly marched into the stadium at the 1956 Olympics.
My very first competition at the Bondi Baths (also known as the Icebergs) was a school carnival. The gun went off and I was away, full of desire for the race. But since I had not learnt a racing dive, I went all the way to the bottom of the pool, and by the time I came up all of the other swimmers were long gone—not a great start to my swimming career! But I kept my dream, and we all need a dream. A few years and lots of laps later, I had a big one come true at the 1956 Olympic Games, when I marched into the Melbourne Cricket Ground with the Australian team for the Opening Ceremony. Previous to the Opening Ceremony, once we had checked into the Olympic Village, the first thing we had to do as a team was to line up for marching practice! We were put into the hands of a drill sergeant, a colonel major. And he was pretty tough. He said, “You think you’ve made it. Well, that’s nice, but you haven’t made it until you look good in the Opening Ceremony”. We marched in our new uniforms and new shoes for at least two hours, and were ordered to follow precise timing instructions like snapping our eyes right, towards the official box, at appropriate moments. If you go back and look at footage of us entering the arena, it was precision marching! The Melbourne Olympics made a deep impression on Australia and became a focal point for national pride. They marked a turning point when we began to overcome our inferiority complex and develop greater confidence. To set the scene, in 1956 the Australian
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Dreams
population was 9 million. Elvis had his first hits on the charts, “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Love Me Tender”. My Fair Lady opened on Broadway. Most people did not own a car, and if they did, then it had to be an FJ Holden. It was a good sports year for Australia— Lew Hoad won Wimbledon, Peter Thompson won the British Open and Australia beat the U.S. in the Davis Cup. To top it off, Melbourne was to host the first Olympic Games in the Southern Hemisphere. Black and white television was introduced into Australia (the days when watching the TV test pattern was exciting) and the entire coverage used nine cameras, with the television rights selling for 80 pounds! The president of the IOC claimed that was a “nuisance”. In Sydney 2000, this nuisance generated over $1.7 billion, used 700 cameras and reached a worldwide audience of some 30 billion people. Coming into the Games, I had no idea what to expect because I did not have a world ranking and had never seen my international contemporaries, not even on TV! My one overseas trip had been to New Zealand with a four-man team—two swimmers, a diver and a manager—and we still put together a competitive relay. There were 13 swimming events in Melbourne, and in the end Australia won eight gold. It is hard to compare our era with the present. Yet, 1956 could be looked at as “the Friendly Games” and “the Innocent Games”. There were no drugs, no athletes 1956—what a year it was for Australia! Here two Aussie champions are pictured together— Murray, our golden boy of swimming, and Lew Hoad, the victor at Wimbledon.
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From a young boy lacking water confidence after a
boisterous dunking to an Olympic swimming champion beloved by a nation—and from the bright lights of Hollywood to his long-awaited return to Australia— Murray Rose interweaves the story of his life with his innermost thoughts. A man with great depth of feeling and humour, Murray makes you laugh, he makes you cry, and he makes you wonder—just for the joy of it. This is not just an autobiography, it is an experience. Come along on the journey, where there are no such things as accidents or coincidences, only synchronous unfolding events and unexplored pathways.
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