LIKE POETRY?

BRIMMING WITH SWIMMING  

&

LARGE ON JARGON

Enter in jump plunge

Excuse expunge

Balance extend

Streamline start end

Pull push slide glide

Plumb line implied

Muscle marrow

Narrow arrow

Whip kick wrap snap

Deep catch lead lap

Compose hands toes

In mouth out nose

Ace face heed chase

Race pace speed grace

Splish splash slap feet

Raise heat heartbeat

Work rest contest

Tick tock drop best

THE BENEFITS OF SWIMMING

Swimming is joy!   Swimming is meditative.  Swimming is healthy.  Swimming is fun!
Swimming is a non-impact sport that people can enjoy for their entire lifetime.  It strengthens math skills, develops focus, bridges youthful age gaps, promotes comradery (while encouraging personal achievement), and centers the bodies and minds of those who participate.
  

It is surprising to some, but competitive swimming strengthens math skills in two ways: 

1) Achievement in swimming is based on increasing speed and dropping time; therefore, a by-product of a swimmer's training is the development of an acute ability to perform mental math calculations that determine speed from the factors of distance and time; this ability increases as a swimmer improves (and vice versa).

2) Math calculations are not only used for calculating speed in swimming.  They are also necessary to understand the exercises called "sets" that coaches assign to swimmers.  Competitive swimmers become more and more adept at keeping track of the sums and products of fluctuating variables that comprise the "sets" they do in practice.  To fill you in, swim practices consist of repetitions of distances, named by the number of yards (or meters).  For example, an exercise might be to swim 32 x 25 yards, very fast, with a long rest after each 25, contrasting with another type of set that might be to swim 8 x 100 yards, at medium speed, with a short rest after each 100.  (Coaches design fast short distances with extra rest in order to work an athletes's anaerobic system; and longer slower distances with less rest to work their aerobic system).  Keeping track of these varying numerical instructions molds swimmers to be adept at math. 

Active children stay engaged while focussing on these numeric details as well as on the technical aspects of form in swimming.  The mother of Olympian Michael Phelps is a Middle School Principal who became an advocate for the public awareness of ADHD in children.  She indicated that swimming was a distinctive positive influence which enabled her son to develop strengths that were not compromised by symptoms associated with his ADHD diagnosis.

Competitive swimming bridges age gaps, joining older and younger children on one team.  It is one of the only sports that reaches across a broad age group arc, which includes swimmers less than 8 years of age, all the way up and through the age of 18. This model imitates a family structure and is family friendly. Typically a swim team is like an extended family that thrives in a climate of cooperation, leadership and admiration, where children of all ages support each other; the younger ones looking up to the older ones and the older ones demonstrating excellence and becoming role models for their underlings.  

Being both an individual and a team sport, competitive swimming promotes strong comradery among team-mates, who compete against other clubs for team recognition and awards.  But fundamentally, a swimmer is competing with his or her own self, trying to beat their "personal best" time.  The clock doesn't lie, and the gauge for improvement is ever reliant on the mantra "What you put into it, is what you get out of it."

Swimming is a win win situation.  While the main motive is to swim fast, there is an attainable and underlying beauty in the movement quality and physique that is gained through the rigorous training necessary to become great in the sport.  A swimmer becomes fit, engaging in a physically challenging yet meditative activity that centers the body and mind. Gratefully, there are relatively low numbers of injuries, and this activity can be enjoyed for a lifetime. This is:  the joy of swimming!

SEA LAND BIRD

Wouldn't it be great if we could fly?  Have you ever dreamt of flying?  Strangely, whenever I dream of flying, my sensation is that of swimming.  In my dream, the molecules of air are always as dense as those of water.  My dream flight speed is akin to that of mine awake and swimming in water.  Even the movement I use to propel my slumbering flight is a breaststroke pull, as I soar forward in my dream. Strangely, I've never dreamt of flying in freestyle, backstroke or butterfly.

I wonder how other people dream of unencumbered flight.

Swimming gives me the ability to steer up and down at will, like a bird; land locomotion does not.  That is one of the freedoms I love about water, diving under the surface and climbing back up to get air.  Soaring those hills and valleys are an unending thrill.  Ironically, in fast swimming, we try to minimize such up and down motion, in order to propel faster forward.  Holding an awareness of one's vertical (ascending and descending) movement in the water, and transferring the ideal proportion of that amplitude into forward motion through the water, can maximize speed and be useful for swimmers to optimize in all strokes. Novice swimmers can really benefit from a visualization of this concept, and by getting a sensory reference for how their forward propulsion is somewhat at the mercy of their tendency to bounce up and down along the way.  In butterfly and breaststroke, some vertical amplitude can be beneficial, but finding the precise degree of amplitude, which will maximize forward speed, is critical and is greatly dependent upon the distance of the swim versus the strength of the swimmer.

Swimming could be second best to flying, I imagine.  Although, air molecules leave something to be desired, not being nearly as soft or luxurious as water.  If we evolve into air mammals, and I am reincarnated during that future evolutionary period, I hope to Coach a Flying Team; something like the Hogwart's Quidditch Team, only without the brooms....

STANDARDIZED TESTS VS SWIM PRACTICE

This month, there will be lots of standardized tests administered in NYS.  It has come to my attention that some families are weighing their time management priorities in light of these tests, and are considering opting to delegate less time to swim practice (and as a result, swim meets) in an effort to optimize their children's chances of scoring higher on the standardized tests.

When I asked a ninth grade student and former competitive swimmer from Nest & M High School, if she thought that it was smart to miss practice in order to score better on tests, she replied

"I don't think it really matters if you go to swim practice as long as you get a good amount of sleep.  And, it's not good to miss swim practice because you can fall behind and get out of shape."  

Junior Athlete Rep for Metro Swimming, Julian Mackrel, shared this thought regarding the subject

"Definitely go to practice when you have tests because it helps you concentrate.  The practice relaxes you and increases blood flow to your brain."  

Senior swimmer Miles Blaney adds

"You won't get faster skipping!"

My own opinion is that families should maintain the normal balance of their children's lives and keep status quo during assessment periods.  My reasoning is based on empirical evidence of how mood and motivation are negatively affected when exercise is taken out of the equation.  A reduction of exercise causes a reduction in the release of endorphins in an individual's system.  Swimming is known to increase the production and release of endorphins.  These endorphins are known to make a person feel good, increase confidence, and reduce feelings of stress and frustration.

For these reasons, my position on practice attendance for swimmers during testing periods is that swimmers should continue their sport regimens, eat well and get plenty of sleep.  If I were to offer advice on cutting something from their routine, I would suggest that during testing periods parents should shorten the sedentary cycles that children engage in, namely to reduce television watching and video game playing...

ZEN AND THE ART OF SWIMMING

I often think of swimming in terms of archery.  The swimmer's mind is the archer, the swimmer's body is the arrow, the water is the traversing path, and each wall is the target.

With little or no knowledge of archery, I only use this analogy because of the image it conjures, one of extended, untethered flight, which I would like my swimming students to emulate in their streamlines and the ensuing path of their stroke.  I want them to feel a firm reach along their body line; extending upward (or forward) through the crown of their head and downward (or backward) through the tips of their toes, originating at each his own center of gravity (the location of which varies from person to person).  On a visceral level I want each swimmer to experience the source and direction of that extension, from the very core of their center of gravity, up and down through their spine, as rays of light emanate from the sun, which originate from a dense center of mass and reach out to infinity.

In the book Zen in the Art of Archery written by Eugen Herrigel, Herrigel describes Zen in archery as follows:

"(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art (...)"

The author describes the archer as "Becoming one with the perfecting of his technical skill" yet follows by saying that this cannot be achieved "By any progressive study of the art."  Perhaps the author believes that the archer experiences some kind of metaphysical evolution? But what triggers such a thing, if not a progressive study. Unless, the ability or readiness to be one with the perfecting of one's technique is somehow encoded (or not encoded) upon (for lack of a better description) an inner psychic map, or swirling around in the DNA of each individual student of archery... or swimming...

In trying to understand this author's perspective, the concept of kundalini comes to mind, which I find very relevant to balance, efficiency and awakening to the perfecting of one's technique in swimming....

FROM INFANT TO COLLEGIATE

This is Miles.  I started teaching Miles to swim when he was a wee four months old.  I held him safely in the water, moved his feet in a kick pattern and taught him to blow bubbles.  I continued to teach him for years afterward.  Last month he competed at Jr. Nationals under the guidance of his coach, Dragos Coca. 

I have to admit I am very proud of the work I did with this boy Miles.  

He's a pretty swift swimmer now!

Best Friends Forever

This is Thea.  I taught Thea to swim as an infant and a child too. 

Not all little swimmers grow up to be National caliber competitors,  but swimming can be a lifesaver in more ways than one.  Swimming gave Thea a physicality of length and grace that has defined her carriage into her teens.  She understands discipline and sportsmanship.  

And... she is still best friends with these teammates, five years later!

SWIM 4 ALL

Swimming is a skill that is basic to survival.

Some statistics:
•  Drowning is the 2nd leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children between the ages of 1 & 14
(Centers for Disease Control, 2003) 
•  Nine people drown in the United States every day (Centers for Disease Control) 
•  Two-thirds of all drownings occur between May and August (Orange County California Fire Authority) 
•  Approximately 75% of child drownings occur, because of a lapse of adult supervision of less than five minutes.

Swimming study 

VACATION

Our swim team (www.lgactwisters.com) is on Spring Vacation. After an exhilarating short course season the Corona Twisters are ready for a break. I coach this group of competitive 5-10 year old swimmers at the Flushing Meadows Olympic sized swimming pool. (The Corona Group is part of our much larger team, which inhabits two pools.) We'll rest for two weeks to get ready for the onset of long course season (50 meter). Coming off short course (25 yard) the Corona Group has broken two Twister Team Records and are holding 5 spots in the Metro Top Ten. These Corona Twisters are beginning to find their push and pull in the water, and are getting a nibble of what "achievement" tastes like.

Myself, their coach, I am spending the vacation nesting (I sound like a bird rather than a mermaid) and thinking of new ways to challenge these little swimmers, to reach new goals, and to embrace infinite possibilities.