Mark Twain said, “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime when you would have rather talked.” This thought can be applied to your swimming also. Coaches throw around the phrase “coachable athlete” a lot and most of the time it has nothing to do with how fast the swimmer is, although we suspect the two are very related to success. Coaches love to work with athletes who listens and absorbs the information we are relaying to them and then goes out and execute during workout.
Hearing and listening are distinctly different, hearing involves hearing all the noise and sounds that encompass your daily lives and this includes on the pool deck. Listening is the art of listening to the sounds around you, the words being spoken and the ability to understand their meaning and developing an action plan to take you where you want to go on this journey.
Generally the swimmers who improve the quickest are those who are 100% present during workouts. They are the ones who make eye contact with the coaches as they speaks (not talking or looking at their friends) they have the body language that says I hear what we want to get accomplished during this set and I am ready to go and execute this plan to help me in my journey.
The other swimmers are poor listener’s often distracted or disinterested in the information or even worse they are caught up in themselves or their egos.
When your listening skills improve you develop better learning skills which ultimately will lead to better skill executions and better outcomes in your races. What you learn and put into practice ultimately will lead you down the road of becoming a better student and swimmer.
TRAITS OF A GOOD LISTENER
- You have a open mind and are eager to learn
- You don’t interrupt the coach
- You are not a distraction while the coach is speaking
- You maintain eye contact when the coach is speaking
- You ask a serious question if you don’t understand
Listen more than you speak during workout yet.
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