HAPPY HALLOWEEN 👻

This week brings about the end to a few things that have happened in the last nine weeks or so.  The first thing is that as that school 🔔 rings on Friday it will mark the end of your first grading period. A lot of you have already shared your school endeavors with us so we are sure that when those grades come out there will be some great marks.   Always remember that the title you carry is that of being a student/athlete and notice which noun appears first in that phrase.

I have finally finished reading all of your letters containing your goals and dreams for this season and it made for an interesting read with myself and. Henry.  As we read through them it dawned on me that setting that goal is not necessarily the main thing.  The important thing we would like you to consider is how you go about achieving it and staying with that plan.

We have already discussed the internal battle in your head between what we called “the force” versus the “dark side”. It is a constant battle all athletes have, and some will be won and others will be lost, but. How you respond will determine just how far you go this year. 

Working on a positive mind set daily will help you stay away from the dark side.

Here is a Halloween treat with that thought in mind!

May the force be with you.

       HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃 

OCTOBER OPEN MEET WRAP UP

We were very encouraged with the effort that was put out by all of our Junior Blue, Junior Gold and Senior Prep groups in the meet this past weekend.  The hard work that each of you are putting in shows in the way you raced over the weekend.  The way you approached those blocks and the way all of you exploded off into your starts showed us you came to race.  Great Effort.

We saw a big improvement with your underwater dolphins and streamlines, and make no mistake about it this is an area that needs your focus and constant attention during practice.  The coaches can not watch every single turn and it is easy for you to fall into the trap of taking a wall off.  I would say to you that if this is you, the old saying applies “You are only cheating yourself” and it will show up when you least expect it.  Take ownership these are your races to win or lose, no one else’s.  Perfect those streamlines and dolphin kicks.  The next natural progression now is to put in that good breakout stroke to carry your speed off the starts and turns.

We notice a couple of things on our turns that need our attention.  One of the big things is to get more aggressive in and out of those walls.  The wall is not one of those rest stops you see around the highways.  We need to get in and out of those turns as fast as we can, the reason, nothing good happens around the walls.  Coach Logan reminded me of something I use to try and get her to do, and that is increase your kick a little around those walls.  The reason.  Simple it will increase your speed to help you get in and out of that area.  The other thing we need to do is to work on setting up your last breath a couple of strokes away from the wall as to maintain that speed into the turn.  And for goodness sake pull with your bottom arm and breathe on the second stroke off the turn.  Let’s approach your turns in practice with a little more urgency to improve our races.

We are having a little trouble with our head position when executing our short axis (breast fly and IM) turns.  After we make contact and begin our transition our head should keep looking into the wall until our hand leaves the wall.  This is important and will allow you to get into a tighter streamline when pushing off.    Below is a short video to help you better understand.

Let’s keep up the good work at practice as we head into the month of November and the Marlin and Swim and Rock meets!   As the weather starts to turn let’s also make sure we have those sweatshirts on and hoods on to keep us warm.  We what to keep those germs away so we are not missing school and practice, and wash those hands a lot and do not share water bottles.  

RACE PREPARATIONS

Do you go into a meet or more specifically your races with a checklist, or do you just wing it and hope for the best results, and if good your confidence is high.  The only problem is that sometimes the results don’t meet your expectations.  Now what?  Do you fall apart and let it create negative feelings about yourself as a swimmer 🏊.

In the book “The Swimmers Mind” it talks about having a checklist ✅ with five performance priorities.  They are “Process, Presence, Enjoyment, Standards, and Control.”  Let’s look at these further. 

 We have always talked about how it is important to trust your training and the process that has gotten you to that exact moment you step onto the block. We don’t focus on the outcome of the race, or that Jo or NASA cut.  Now I’m not saying that those things aren’t important to you, but when your whole mindset is on those things you forget to race and perform the specific things during your race that you have been working on.  The Process!

The next ✅ mark is your presence of mind. We have actually talked about that during practice the last couple of weeks.  Without getting half way through practice I hear things like Are we going outside for dry land or can we do this or that, and this is in the middle of a set when your focus should be the set and what we are trying to accomplish.  Coaches can often predict a swimmers success or lack of just by observing your mental presence at the pool. As we have said before, just by showing up does not mean that you are practicing.  The same goes for when you step up on those blocks at a meet.  The race that is right in front of you should be the only thing on your mind, and as you stand behind the block you should be able to mentally see yourself starting and swimming that race.  That’s it nothing else matters, stay in the Presence at all times.

Enjoyment is the next ✅ mark you need to make.  Don’t forget that first time you jumped into the pool for your first race.  My guess is that you probably were not even aware of your time.  You were however aware of the challenge and the fun you had getting to the other end, through your little eyes it probably looked like a football field.  But you made it and you wanted to do it again.  Your older now and the races come with different challenges and pain, but that is what makes it so fun for you, and you can’t wait 😊 for that next race.  Look at all your events through the eyes of that little one not so long ago where the only thing that mattered was making it to the other end as fast as you could and maybe just maybe you beat some people along the way.

The next item on your checklist are the Standards that you set for yourself.  I know that as your coach I have set standards for each group and I will hold myself and you to those.  I expect the same from each of you.  When you step up on that block you should not only expect your best, but you should demand nothing less than your best.  If you are looking for that positive mindset you need to start taking pride in everything you do. Set your standards high.

The last item to check off is Control.  We have talked about the way you carry yourself on and off the deck.  At practice you arrive early and instead of just throwing yourself on the ground with your phones 📲, just maybe you do some light stretching to prepare your body for what you are about to ask it to do.  Take ownership of your swimming, don’t let others determine your fate.   This also goes for the way you approach the meets.  Walk onto that pool deck with a positive mindset, stand upright with shoulders back and go about your business and don’t let others get in the way.  I remember last year at the winter classic when during the warmup a swimmer hoped into our lane to finish warmup.  A few of you became annoyed that she just kept going.  She was in your head and through you off your game.  You know what needs to be done during warmups and warm down and you should not let outside influences get in the way.  Don’t let these outside experiences trigger negative emotions to throw you off your game.   

Stay in that positive mindset.  This is not magic it’s something that has to be practiced daily.  It takes hard work just like your swimming.  Start practicing this today and you will not only become a better swimmer, but a better person.

GO GET THAT POSITIVE MINDSET!

TALKING to YOURSELF

It’s 5 o’clock in the morning, time to goggle up and dive into the old watering hole for practice.  First words to coach are not hello but more like “I’m tired” and is it going to be hard today?  Not a great mindset to start a workout that is meant to get you to your goals, right.  The way you talk to yourself is as important as what you do in the pool, and what you eat.  If you say something enough subconsciously you start believing it and acting it out.

 

All the hard work you put in, the talent that you have and the physical ability you possess won’t help you in a race if you have a negative mindset, sure you may get lucky and have a good race once in a while but in the long run you will always come up short.  The attitude and overall outlook with which you approach your workouts, your swims, your meets, your warmups, your races and the sport as a whole will determine your success in the long run.  What you think on a daily basis the attitude that you portray your swimming both at and away the pool has a direct impact on your performance.  

 

There are two mindsets that each of you possess, the negative mindset which is when “confidence is low, the desire to compete isn’t quite there, you’re not really enjoying yourself, and you’re not focused on your race."  Then we have the positive mindset where “ confidence is high, you have the desire to compete, you’re really enjoying yourself, and you’re completely focused on your race.”  Like in Star Wars it’s the struggle of “the force or the dark side.”   The inner struggle between the two is real and difficult but the more you can stay with the force and feel good about yourself the better the better your performances will be.  Stay with Chewbacca and the force!

 

Think about this, you have a really bad swim and you don’t understand why.  One of the hardest thing as coaches we have to do is talk you off the cliff and get you to understand that as athletes this happens all the time only in swimming its much more in your face because of the 0:00::00.  Just because you had a bad swim does not mean that you did something wrong or all of a sudden you’ve become a bad swimmer, but unfortunately that’s the way we often look at it, and as a direct result we start drifting towards the “dark side.”  The key is having a positive mindset not only when workouts and races are going well, but learning to control that inner struggle with ourselves and staying in a positive mindset when things don’t go your way, and they will from time to time.  Now there are those times where you will have those races accompanied by less than desired results and it could be from missing practice, coming back from illness, lack of race strategy, or your technique was off.  Maybe you have been working on something different in practice and this is the first time you used it in a race and the result was below your expectations.  This will happen, but your mindset and the way work through it will determine how fast you are able to bounce back.  

 

Let’s face it, staying in a positive mindset when things are going well and you're dropping time is easy.  Like a birthday it’s your day with cake and ice cream after every race.  It’s when things go wrong that the hard work begins when there is a bad time, no cake and ice cream not even a present to unwrap.  If you have worked on the way that you talk to yourself getting through these times will be easy. The first step in all of this is not to let yourself get to high or sink so low.  Think of your emotions as a scale from 0-5. (0__1___2__3__4__5).  The more you can keep your emotions in check between the 3 and the 4 the easier it will be to stay in a positive mindset.

 

FILL THE BUCKET

PLUG THE LEAKS!

Now that we have our first meet of this young season in our bags, it’s time to look forward and see where we go from here.  That meet is done and we saw some great things from you all with the areas that we have been working on.

One area that I really wanted to see you buy into is that of becoming more of a process oriented swimmers as oppose to a results only swimmer.  We had talked about taking more of an approach of looking at the place you came in as opposed to your time in the race.  This was the first step in trying to change your mindset to help you become a better swimmer.  In the coming days and weeks we will delve further into this area.

In the first step I want you to think of your swimming as a bucket that contains everything that
contains everything you need to be successful in your swimming endeavors.  The fuller you can keep
your bucket the more you are able to draw from during your races.  The things that you should be
filling your buckets with might include the following;

OUTSIDE THE POOl                                                

• Proper sleep
• Proper hydration 
• Proper diet
• Keep up with school work
• Stay in a positive mind set

AT THE POOl

• Show up for practice
• Have the right mindset
• Have your water and DRINK IT
• Focus in on the sets
• Finish every set
• Streamline off every wall
• Dolphin off every wall fast
• Stop breathing on breakout stroke

What in the world does this have to do with a bucket.  Let’s use your imagination here and think of this bucket as something that you carry with you not only to practice but also to every meet.  The 

more of these things, or others that you may think of that you can add to this bucket the more chances  you will have to be successful as a swimmer.

The trick here is to try and keep the bucket filled because undoubtedly leaks are going to occur such as a missed practice, an illness, a negative thought and the list goes on, but you have to keep plugging those leaks in the bucket.  The more you can keep those leaks to a minimum the better your chances are and by all means DON’T open the faucet at the bottom where you let everything we have worked on fall apart!

PRISONERS OF THE MOMENT

With the first meet of the young season it’s time take what we’ve learned and move on.  As I be already told you I’m not a big fan of watching the score board this early in the season and although it can be a good read at times it doesn’t always give the entire story.  At this time of the year I take more enjoyment in watching you do the things well that we have been working on in practice, that is true progress no matter how the scoreboard reads.  

Two of the things we have tried to hammer the first few weeks of practice are the way we work our streamlines and underwater dolphins off the wall and the way we finish our races.  I saw a lot of great effort being put forth in these areas and believe are making some real progress that will carry us to some amazing results in March and April.

An area that I see we all have to work on and be better at is the way we talk to ourselves.  We need to have a lot more positive self talk and less negative self talk.  We talk about this all the time and have pointed out that the way you talk to yourself has more to do with your confidence or lack of than anything else you do.  This is as important if not more important than anything you do at practice.  Your first thought after getting a bad time is that was terrible, I did awful and I heard this over the weekend.  Make no mistake about it times do matter especially in the world we live, it provides instant gratification,.  But we have to dive deeper into this story because it is just important to focus and prioritize the quality of the race as it is the final results.  If you have accomplished everything that you have been working on in practice and are making progress then that should have been an awesome experience..   Understand this simple fact as coaches we can pretty well write your story line by the way you talk, and the way you walk as you walk onto a pool deck.  We can also write the second chapter watching you work though your warmup.  The biggest opponent that you will always face is the one “ between your ears” and it’s how we talk to that opponent that will go a long way in determining success or failure.

At this point of the season we should be taking more enjoyment from the quality of your races and not become a “prisoner of the results.”  As we talked about last week you are going to experience a wide range of emotions in swimming 🏊 as in life ranging from moments of pure joy all the way to those of pure agony.   My most memorable moment from playing rugby🏉 in college during a championship tournament. After three days and 5 games we had made it to the championship game and after 80 minutes we were headed to extended time.  Towards the end after a scrum I picked up the ball and headed for the try line and after diving realized I had come up about a foot short and would lose a few minutes later.  The bottom line is that although devastated I realized both teams played hard and I actually had more fun in that losing effort than any other game from the realization that I was exhausted and had left everything that day between the white lines.

Your always going to have those races that despite losing, or not getting your best time, the race itself was just an awesome experience to be part of.  It could have been one of those races that you and your opponent were head to head all the way to the finish but you ended up losing by .001.  It may have been a race that after your opponent got out to a huge lead you ran them down at the wall.  Maybe you had a great start,

                                                                                                                                                                                                  followed by a not so great turn only to have a great finish.  

Think about how challenging your races and other events are instead of what the outcome may be.  This is when swimming becomes fun and exciting instead of always being consumed by the end result, the time.  That can be boring and believe me you will fail often if all you worry about is the time.

In the end it comes down to this simple phrase “Trust your training” and believe in yourselves and it starts with the way you talk to yourself.