Make It Look Easy

Last weekend we were at a local Junior Olympic meet. These meets are fun for us since we get to work with some of the younger swimmers on our team. May Ling is 12 and having fun with her swimming, and she loves to compete so we are all over that for the obvious reasons.

She was getting ready for her 200 meter breaststroke final and asked (don’t they always?!), “So how do I swim this race?” We thought we’d keep the instructions to a minimum so we asked her a question. “When you see someone do their “thing” what is your reaction to it? When Curry shoots a 3 pointer, or your favorite swimmer races or your favorite musician plays or sings, what does it look like to you?”

Of course setting her up like this she responded, “They make it look so easy.” So we said why don’t you swim your race so that all of these people watching you will be saying, “Wow, she makes it look easy.” We told her that it wouldn’t be easy at all. In fact, it will be everything but easy but when you make it look easy you will be staying smooth and evenly paced and all that other “coaching speak”.

It turned out to be a really exciting close race with 4 girls all pretty evenly matched. May Ling touched 2^nd .09 out of first. Her splits were 39.0 – 43.8 – 43.9 – 42.8…and she made it look easy. Mission accomplished.