Thank you, 2013.... Happy New Year!

Thank you, kind readers, for reading this blog, a place where ideas and conversation about swimming, coaching and learning can be shared.  I welcome all your comments.

To say farewell to 2013, here's a fun video, an underwater dream and tribute to the creativity of the work we do.  Some of you have seen this, but if you haven't, enjoy!







How this video was made:

Sun Yang....technique and training for efficiency leads to speed

Sun Yang won the 800m free in Barcelona this July.  Watch and learn.  His stroke is so easy, long, strong, and efficient.  He leads, barely kicking, just holding beautiful form, and then blows everyone away in the last 100m.  (He takes 27 strokes per 50 meters).




Terry Laughlin of Total Immersion talks about efficiency and training:

"Invite speed.  Don't chase speed, let it come.

Train in thoughtful, personalized ways.

Swimming faster has little to do with how many yards you swim or at what heart rate.

Speed comes as a natural outgrowth of the Kaizen pursuit of continual improvement.

The secret to speed isn't the yardage or intensity of the workouts but by making your strokes more effective, then maintaining efficiency while dialing up the stroke tempo in small, controlled increments.  

This kind of practice is mentally and physically energizing instead of exhausting."

What if we radically rethink our traditional methods and assumptions of swim practice and swimming?
Can we do more with less?
What kind of quality would the "less" have to have?
People have gone fast with lots of intense yardage for years... is it a traditional rite or passage or could we do the same with a focused swimmer in half the time and yardage?  In 1/3 of the time?  In 1/4 of the time?
If we increase quality and decrease quantity, what would the quality be made up of?

We say swimming "garbage" yards is a waste.  What does it take for a swimmer to swim every yard with a highly conscious, mindful focus?  Can we train swimmers to stay focused and not "zone out" during swims?  Swimming can be done in autopilot and you won't drown, unlike a rock climber who would most likely fall if they weren't paying close attention.  How do we keep the mind engaged, problem solving constantly, improving, learning and adapting at an increased rate?

The tools Total Immersion uses for training efficiency are stroke rate, distance per stroke and the tempo trainer, demanding totally focused conscious intentional swimming, solving puzzles with every set.

Read this by Joe Novak, an NCAA West Point swimmer who trained with Terry Laughlin:
http://archive.totalimmersion.net/2005articles/january/novak.html

H2O: Water, it tastes good

We produced this video a few years ago with 5 Lander swimmers who swam as young age groupers and through high school and several into college.    All strokes, turns and starts are included in this video.

Enjoy Aaron Steele, Mei and Willy Ratz, Erin Stotts and Nick Robinson swim and talk about swimming.

Thank you to Lander Swim Club for funding this project.

(One error in this youtube version is that Nick Robinson is mistyped as Robertson.  My apologies to Nick.)

Coaching video software

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Video feedback allows a coach to talk less and the swimmer to connect the feel of what they think they're doing to what they see.

I use my iPad every day during practice and lessons to show swimmers what they look like when they're working on a new technique, or for before-and-after views of a stroke change.  I use it with our beginner swimmers to encourage them and let them see themselves, maybe for the first time... "What do you see?" I ask them.  "I'm awesome!" they say.  They are so right!  Older swimmers will pick out things they need to correct all by themselves.  I focus on praising what looks good.  

Ubersense has an iPad app that I use.  Video is easy to take, play frame by frame or slow motion, draw circles, lines and angles, and compare side by side with another video.  I can email or post a video to a swimmer so they can watch it when they get home.  I can VoiceOver and record my comments,  Ubersense is free.  http://www.ubersense.com/

Coach's Eye is another very similar iPad app which costs $4.99.  This app has the same capabilities as Ubersense.... slow motion, drawing on the video in colorful pen strokes, voiceover comments.  http://www.coachseye.com/home/purchase

Are you using another software that you like?

Ruta Meilutyte: Watch and learn

Rebecca Soni and Jessica Hardy's breaststroke records have just been broken in October by Ruta Meilutyte (born in 1997, currently 16 years old), from Lithuania.  She won the gold medal at the age of 15 in the 2012 Olympics in the 100m breaststroke.  She currently holds the 50m and 100m breaststroke world records, just broken in Moscow World Championships this October.

Here's the 100m breaststroke world record swim in 1:04.35:




Here's her 50m breaststroke world record swim in 29.48:


We learn a lot by watching the best swimmers in the world.  What do you see in Ruta's stroke?  Her "shoot" forward?  Tempo and timing?  How she pulls her legs up and kicks backward?  What about her start?

What can you apply to your own stroke?

The Water is My Sky

This teaser of a new documentary being filmed by young swimmer and filmmaker, Brian Tremml, is about the world of elite competitive swimming. Specifically, the film is the story told in the book, Gold in the Water, by P.H. Mullen, one of the most suspenseful and exciting books I've ever read about swimming. If you haven't yet, read this book while we're waiting for the film to be finished.

 "One of the most important things to do in life at least once: chase a dream with every ounce of power and conviction we can muster." P.H. Mullen, Gold in the Water

 Rowdy Gaines starts this teaser by saying the sport is "cruel".   Pursuing any goal in life with "every ounce of power and conviction we can muster" may feel cruel, painful, taking us to the edge of our endurance and testing every fiber of our character and perseverance.  Athletics is an area where a person's character is revealed.  We learn the most about ourselves when we're at the edge and dare to be the best we can possibly be.

I love the work we do.  We teach swimming, and through this, we offer an opportunity for a person discover who they really want to be.  We present the opportunity.... the athlete decides.  Every day.  Every season.  Every practice.

"How much effort am I willing to put forth?  How badly do I want this?  What will I do when I am hurt or exhausted or discouraged or beaten?  Will I find a different way?  Will I find an inner strength that I didn't know I had?  Who are my friends?  How much inner ignition and desire do I really have?"  This is one way to discover the truth about who you really are.

Is practice over ALREADY?!

The young man is a swimmer, and enthusiastically plays many other sports, including basketball, which he is on this :40 clip is from Coach Trevor Ragan's blog, Championshipbasketballschool.com, playing at a basketball clinic.  Trevor uses him as an example of supreme engagement in an activity.  I love it!




Here are questions for us, especially coaching young developing 5-10 year olds at practice, daily, for years:
-- Are our swimmers excited to come to practice?
-- Do they smile, pay attention, and swim with intensity at practice?
-- Are they asking "When do we go to the hot tub?" or do they say "Wow, is practice over ALREADY?"
-- Are we coaches excited to be at practice and how do the kids know that?
-- Do we expect the swimmers to come with their full energy and attention and do we give them our full energy and attention?

If our swimmers are misbehaving, messing around, have chronic excuses for getting out of practice, what if we saw this as a nudge to think about how to make it more engaging for them?

What is our "fun" repertoire?  How many ways do we know to mix things up and do something unexpected and fresh?

Here are just a few ideas we use:
-- using different equipment and "toys" (fins, buoys, boards, balls, noodles, chutes, bricks, balls, clothes, water bottles, rings, mirrors)
-- mixing in water polo drills and synchro swimming
-- relays, sprint sets, starts and turns, challenge sets (timed swims), stroke count, heart rate, kick sets
-- partner swimming, calisthenics, vertical kicking, vertical floating, kookoo banana sets
-- swimopoly and other "random" workouts with playing cards or dice or stopwatches
-- personal, specific, positive feedback.... verbal, video, physical

What happens at your practice?  Is it our intention to make every hour at the pool something we all look forward to and enjoy?