Egg beating in hazmat suits – the surprising story of Almost Synchro

Almost Synchro was formed partially by accident. In 2019, a member of Henleaze Lake, near Bristol, suggested that a synchronised swimming routine would be a fitting way to honour the reservoir’s centenary. She sent an email to a long list of contacts, hoping to scrape together a large enough handful to make it work. Within days, more than 80 people had expressed their enthusiasm. During the rigorous practice sessions, a core group formed, for whom this was clearly not going to be a one-off event.

When I speak to Vix Ellis, one of the first members of Almost Synchro, she paints an impressive picture of what it has now become. There’s thrice weekly training, a full wardrobe of matching outfits and a deep commitment from the members. Vix fits the swimming in around her job as a costume stylist and her training to become a psychotherapist. They even have a coach.   

Jo Penney, a competitive artistic swimmer herself, couldn’t resist the chance to train the group. She’s encouraging them to work towards official synchronised swimming grades and uses underwater cameras to analyse their technique. It’s been something of a revelation. “None of us had formal training in this before, we’ve just been winging it. There’s this thing called egg-beating, a fundamental skill in synchro, where you use circular kicks to keep your height in the water without bobbing up and down. Turns out that for the last few years one of my legs has been going in completely the wrong direction.”

If training and coaching makes it all sound a bit serious, Vix soon convinces me that the opposite is true. “We’re always laughing. We do lots of dry land rehearsals and it’s quite a spectacle when 20 or so ladies turn up at a park and start jumping around waving their arms in unison, pretending to swim. Then there was a performance last year in the sea in Dorset when the swell was quite strong. We were trying to stay in sync, but we all kept disappearing and reappearing from behind the waves. It doesn’t matter too much though, we are called Almost Synchro, after all." 

Intrigued by the balance of enjoyment and intensity, I ask where Almost Synchro sits on a spectrum from professional sports team to book club and Vix replies that. “it’s all of those things. We do actually have a book club, there are people always baking, people who go long-distance cycling together, there was a tank top knitting group that went on for a while, so now they all have tank tops. The synchro has become the middle of this huge thing and a massive part of my life personally. Perhaps too much of one sometimes!”

I look curious and she gives a pained smile. “We like a certain rhythm for our synchro songs,” she explains. “We’ve performed to all sorts, but I generally live my life in 4/4 time. I’ll be walking down the street and realise I'm counting under my breath, or hear a song we have a routine for and find my arms twitching, trying to do the moves. It’s more than a hobby, not the sort of thing you can dip in and out of, like a yoga class, but it’s still fun and a truly inspiring and supportive group of women, who are up for anything.” 

Which brings us, eventually, back to the line of yellow figures wading into a Herefordshire pond. “When we first contacted about swimming in hazmat suits, I put a poll in the WhatsApp group. It’s not exactly something that’s been on anyone’s bucket list, because how would it be, but the response was an overwhelming YES.”

The purpose of the stunt, highlighting the poor quality of water in the UK, resonated instantly, but not because members of Almost Synchro often fall ill, as I’d assumed. Vix stresses how carefully they check the rivers and lakes they perform in to avoid any danger and emphasises that the bigger threat of pollution is to the ecosystems the bodies of water are part of. “We shouldn’t only start to worry if people get sick from swimming. There are effects long before that point that are extremely serious for wildlife and the environment.” 

The images from the day are striking and Vix hopes they inspire more people to be aware of the issues surrounding water quality. We briefly discuss plans for their use in spreading the message and begin to wrap up the conversation, but there’s one final thing I simply have to know. What was it like swimming in a hazmat suit? Surprisingly, Vix seems to have quite enjoyed it.

“The masks were a bit odd, but the suits were very light and quite buoyant. Although, after the main routine, a couple of us put the suits back on when they were wet. That wasn’t so much fun. They sort of stuck to you a bit.” It must have been a strange day, but a group so used to doing odd things in odd places took it in their stride. “The beauty of Almost Synchro, for me,” Vix says, “is in doing so many things I never even knew I wanted to do.”  

It shows the breadth of our conversation that with this remark she could be referring to anything from knitting, to dancing in the park or attempting a Guinness World Record, in which Almost Synchro were foiled by a technicality in 2024. They’ve even inspired similar groups to spring up everywhere from Yorkshire to the US and it’s remarkable to think how a community, a support group and the curious sight of a star-shape of yellow-clad bathers in a Herefordshire lake, all came from one speculative email.

Almost Synchro is a testament to the power of positivity, community and the willingness to give anything a go, but as striking as the hazmat routine undoubtedly is, there’s only so much that one group can do to turn the tide. As Vix said, preserving our natural spaces is about more than stopping people getting sick, it’s about providing a place for nature to flourish and for people to come together to enjoy it. Make use of your wild spaces, love them, fight for them, preserve them and who knows where it could lead. To a synchro swimming group, an al fresco book club, a world record, or just a whole load of knitted tank tops.

Words by Christopher-Wilson Elmes

Featuring Almost Synchro