[Estelle]

Gingerfrost remained silent as Kestrelpaw went into the water; the twitching, to him, was a fairly natural reaction and precisely why he always asked apprentices (or whomever he was teaching) to get used to the water first. It could be an almost scary situation for some, or the cold was simply surprising. It depended on the cat. With Kestrelpaw, it seemed that it was simply the cold.

He sat down, waiting a few heartbeats to give the apprentice the time and get used to cold feeling of water seeping into one's fur -- a feeling he found particularly uncomfortable, strange as it may be for a RiverClan cat. He looked to the side a little, then back at the apprentice who was moving further and further into the water until her neck. Perhaps that was just a little far, though the tabby didn't say anything; surely she'd manage.

For a moment, he thought back to Bluebellpaw. The niece he had long realised disappeared from the clan for whatever reason. He'd lying if he said he wasn't worried; Kestrelpaw must be too. Even he could tell the cousins had been close. But this was a swimming lesson, and he had to ban the thought to the back of his mind. Focusing again the apprentice and the lesson, Gingerfrost continued.

"To swim, you'll use your front paws to pull the water towards and below you; with your back legs, you kick the water away. Keep in mind that you'll have to kick hard: while your chest has air to help it float, your back is nothing but dead weight. You use your tail to steer like so."
He stood up and turned to his side, giving the apprentice an example of how to move one's tail to steer. He still vividly recalled what his mentor had told him back when he was learning how tot swim... And his own embarrassing struggle to stay afloat.
"You can also use your body weight to steer a little, by slightly leaning towards the side you want to turn to. Try it."
with that, the tabby wanted to sit back down. But given that this was Kestrelpaw's first swimming lesson, and the accidents that he had come to realise could happen, Gingerfrost decided to keep standing. That way he could jump in quicker should anything go terribly wrong. Speaking of which;
"If ever anything goes wrong, try to stay calm and paddle to shore. Panicking will do you no good."


[ @sol. ]