The nine seconds before you go in

There is a moment on the ladder, somewhere around the third rung, where your body files a formal complaint. The water is four degrees. Your feet are already in it. The rest of you has opinions.

The trick that the regulars all seem to know, and that nobody writes down, is that this moment lasts about nine seconds and then stops. Not because the water gets warmer. Because the argument runs out of new material.

Breathe out, not in

The instinct is to gulp air and hold it. That is exactly backwards. A long breath out on the way down keeps the gasp reflex from taking the wheel, and the gasp reflex is the only genuinely dangerous thing in the whole ritual.

Go in slow enough that it is a decision, not a fall.

Afterwards there is a flush across the chest and shoulders that lasts most of the morning. That is the part people come back for. The cold is just the toll.