Be Careful With This One

We remember hearing from Dave Marsh that you can have a lot of good things happen to your program with an effective Masters Team. We have found 4 really capable coaches from our group of nearly 150 regular adult swimmers. One coaches exclusively in our Master’s program while the other three spend time in both Youth and Master‘s workouts. They bring a level of expertise and maturity that is a welcome addition to both groups.

Every now and then we get a gem of an idea from a Master’s swimmer. This one comes from Michelle…but you need to be careful with it. After you read it and smile, going, “Yes, finally some wisdom I can lay on my team in one sentence” remember that every now and then a swimmer tries it his/her way and gets it right. When that happens you as a coach need to be smart enough to recognize this occurrence and even change your perception of “how things should be done.”

This follows on our discussion of being able to suspend reality…have a great week!

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T

SUCCEED…

Try doing what your

COACH

Told you to do the first time

The Need to Suspend Belief

At this time of the season our athletes have made goal statements which we are reviewing. In our quest to help them get from “here” to “there” we are working on a simple yet profound concept; namely how to suspend what you believe to be true about yourself so that you can move to a different opinion – a new operating system if you are a fan of that type of analogy.

Madeline is my wife and shares my passion for helping people identify and then reach their dreams. As an artist and musician she continually is working on her own dreams. Our discussions about each of our passions (see last week’s comments from Ken) – my coaching and her creative endeavors – are lively and pretty much continuous.

About a month ago she dropped this sentence on me and its value was immediately so clear in my mind that I wrote it down, lest I forget. “To make a change you must be willing to suspend a belief in order to have a new reality be possible.”

In our discussions with our team we help them realize that when they set a goal they are stating that they wish to make a change. For them to be successful it helps enormously to suspend, at least for the present, their belief about what is true for them. The idea of a “new reality” – their goal – is exactly that…something real that is new. You have a very challenging time reaching that if you don’t exit the place you are in right now, in your mind’s eye.

An example might be the swimmer who cannot get out fast enough on the 2^nd 50 of a 200 such that no matter how fast s/he is on the back 100 the time cannot be met. The swimmer must change to a new reality of swimming that 2^nd 50 fast enough to be in the race for the last 100. So you work on that in sets in practice and give her/him the confidence necessary to “see” the “new reality”.

Any way you slice it, it is still the same. The change (goal) occurs first in the mind and then is expressed in the real world by the action.

Of course, once we as coaches perfect the teaching of this concept we will have a waiting list a mile long for our team! So, this notion does indeed apply to us as coaches as well!!

Passion & Joy

Usually I (Don) write this weekly blog having been inspired by some recent event, workout, swimmer, coach or article. More often than not it comes as a result of something that happens as Ken and I work with our team and the process of nurturing it. Today’s post actually was written by Ken for our team’s (North Bay Aquatics) newsletter. Ken said I could use it and so…thanks to Ken for this wonderfully crafted piece on coaching motivation.

"We coaches at NBA are passionate about working for this team … coaching our swimmers brings us great joy.... After 32 years of coaching here in Marin, how else can I explain getting up before 5:00 AM and actually looking forward to it?! "

Since I am just back from my one time of the year where I am not at a swim practice or a swim meet, my story this time around revolves around a concert. This summer, on a lark, my wife and I decided to travel up to the Gorge in eastern Washington to see the Dave Matthews Band perform (great venue and a great concert, by the way, for those that want to know).

While sitting in our seats waiting for the concert to begin, a couple who had to be at least 75 years old took the seats right next to us. Already feeling a bit on the older side compared to most of the crowd, I was quite intrigued by this rather ordinary looking couple and I couldn’t help but wonder why they were there. My first thought was they had to be relatives of one of the performers, either parents or perhaps even grandparents.

To my surprise, when the concert started, the woman took out a small box from her belongings and then stood on it in order see. She then proceeded to dance her way through the entire three hour show. Even more amazing was the fact that she sang along to all the songs, seemingly knowing every word to every tune.

When the concert was over, we asked her about her connection to the band. She told us that she had no connection -- other than that she thought they were the greatest. It was her 40th Dave Matthews show! Her passion was incredible.

On stage, one of the performers was a drummer named Carter Beauford. He is at the top of his craft, arguably one of the best drummers in the business. The big screen continued to show him close up and the smile on his face was genuine and constant. To see such joy from someone doing something they had done so many times before was very inspirational to me. I know the feeling, as I approach my 33rd year of coaching swimming here in Marin.

There are many components that make someone successful. Don writes in this newsletter about how important character is in the makeup of an athlete (or anyone, for that matter). Two more critical components are passion and joy.

Having a passion for something allows you to jump into the activity with both feet. It allows you to give freely of yourself while engaged in that activity. And attaining joy from doing the activity gives you the desire to keep on working on your craft. It never gets old when you receive such joy.

We coaches at NBA are passionate about working for this team. I believe I can speak for all in saying that coaching our swimmers brings us great joy. How else you can explain getting up before 5:00 AM and actually looking forward to it?! One of our goals is to find athletes we can share this with, and we continue to have great success in that quest. Our swimmers’ enthusiasm ignites our enthusiasm and vice versa.

Two Good Reads

Special thanks to Nort and Richard Thornton for sharing with us in Las Vegas the following title: S.C.O.R.E. by Jim Fannin. We are just getting into this book and have already found it helpful in our approach to coaching. It has also been useful for some of our seniors in high school as they sort through the maze of “which college do I attend”.

S.C.O.R.E. is an acronym for Self-Discipline, Concentration, Optimism, Relaxation and Enjoyment. When you can have all 5 of these working for you living in the Zone is possible. The Zone is where true champions reside…so if you are looking for tips this book is worth the read. We like it since it isn’t preachy and has simple tests to take along the way that helps light the path.

Here is a sample exercise to determine the power of the NOW. We did this with our team last week…easy and powerful. Give your athletes a small ball – we used tennis balls. Ask them to toss it into the air once about three or four feet high and then catch it. They all will. Now ask them to do three in a row. They will be successful. Now ask them to do it, first once and then three times with the other hand. They will be successful. Ask them if they were thinking about anything else – as in, what if I don’t, or is the person next to me doing a better job than I am, or what if my parent knew I might drop it, or my coach…etc. you get the idea. You weren’t thinking about dinner or homework. If you live in the present with concentration, your chances for success go way up.

The other recommendation is by Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code. His follow-up book is The Little Book of Talent, subtitled 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills. This is perfect for any coach or athlete, teacher or student. The tips are a small page or two and you can easily apply them to your daily workouts and your coaching.

A couple of Tips…#26 Slow It Down (Even Slower Than You Think). He writes, “Ben Hogan, considered to have perhaps the most technically sound golf swing in the history of the game, routinely practiced so slowly that when he finally contacted the ball, it moved about an inch. As the saying goes, ‘It’s not how fast you can do it. It’s how slowly you can do it correctly.’”

And this from Tip 22 Pay Attention Immediately After You Make A Mistake. He writes on this subject, “most of us are allergic to mistakes. When we make one, our every instinct urges us to look away, ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen. This is not good because as we’ve seen, mistakes are our guideposts for improvement…Take mistakes seriously, but never personally.”

Tip 27 Close Your Eyes. We will swim with our eyes closed tomorrow.

Have a great week in and out of the pool!

Early Season Workout

We love this early season time period where we can work on getting in shape and work on technique without the distractions of “”how fast am I swimming” to get in the way of progress. That, in addition to something Dave Salo said at the clinic about the focus being more on metabolic rates vs. heart rates, is shaping how we construct our training sessions this fall.

Here is what we did yesterday – Saturday, end of week two …short course yards, with our Senior 1 training group.

After a warm up of @1500 we did the following set:

1x1000 then a fast 75 kick followed by a 50 swim with five breaths, another 75 fast kick and another 50 swim with 5 breaths…into

1x800 as above with the kk and 50 swim

600 as above then kk and swim

400 as above then kk and swim

200...

The whole set is 4000. There was no interval. They had 60 minutes to complete. The 1000, 800, 600 and 400 alternated laps of free and stroke. All had 4 dolphin kicks off the wall – except for the breaststrokers - and all swims were negative split. The 200 at the end was all stroke, negative split.

The second set was 10x100/1:30 with paddles (except for the flyers)…progressive 1-10 with the 3^rd lap stroke. The stroke lap was always solid, the free laps got faster as you went along. There were no hand touches except for the last lap of #10.

The final set was 2x100 on your choice of interval – 3 rounds. They were asked to do something, or at least attempt to do something they had never done before. An example was 2x100/1:04…so you get in before the 4 on the first one and then leave on the 4 and try to get back before the 8 on the second one. There was no interval for the 3 rounds. This was an awesome way to end the workout as everyone bought in and stuck their neck out there. There was much success and some very noble deaths!

A very nice Saturday session to end of our 2nd week this fall. Let us know what you think.