Last night I had a really strange dream... I had the worst possible bunch of kids in the world swimming together in a squad... And I was getting so angry and frustrated while trying to coach them. I would have to dive into the water to make them actually do anything that resembled swimming. But yeah... I was just yelling my lungs out on the side of the pool like a madman. I woke up thinking, "Thank God they aren't real kids!" But yeah... my work has began invading my sleep lol... Which reminds me that one of my fellow workfriends is getting fired over arguements about the manager changing her hours when the time sheets were signed by her and the swim school supervisor. But yeah... My workplace can get pretty bitter at times.
Neways I have a wedding to attend to soon... You can expect another massive blog post later tonight though haha... I have become very outspoken :P You'll see why. Neways gotta go
Showing posts with label Swimming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swimming. Show all posts
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
First Proper Training Session of The Year
Well... It is December, and throughout the whole year, friday nights have always been fully dedicated to UF, whenever there was uni anyways. And so I've skipped training for pretty much the whole year and thus my aquatic endurance had gone done the drain. Today, was the first FULL training session all year. I've cut into several training sessions half way because of classes, but this is the first time I've been able to get into the squad at the very beginning. Surprisingly enough, today I swam the fastest 25m's of butterfly I have ever swam. 14 secs... Now unless your a super pro swimmer and your reading this, that's pretty darn fast. My best freestyle 25m was like 13 secs... and that was at the beginning of grade 12 when I swam 3 times a week during my preparation for my school swimming carnival. Butterfly had never been a strong suit in my stroke repetoire, while backstroke was my best relative to everyone else. Although my freestyle was the fastest, a lot of people were wayyyy faster than me, the friend that I train with is 2 years younger than me, and he's best freestyle 50m was 26.6, my best 50m freestyle is like... 28.8... wayyyyy slower. However, I can easily kick his butt at backstroke though my backstroke was like 29.something or something around that time. Even in 25m I could still beat him by like 1/4-1/3 of the length. I believe all my 2nd place (and possibly all of my 3rd's too) ribbons from swimming carnivals were all either breaststroke or backstroke, cos relative to everyone else my freestyle and butterfly was too slow.
neways... It was a proud moment for me :P Though now I'm really dead and my muscles feel mildly numb from overexertion lol... yer...
neways... It was a proud moment for me :P Though now I'm really dead and my muscles feel mildly numb from overexertion lol... yer...
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Pleasing People...
Today at work I was given a private class at 12:00... It was of a kid, whom unbeknown to me, had had an accident with large bodies of water before and was pretty much petrified of the pool. I simply assumed he was the typical freaked out kid and simply analysed what he knew and just used one of my regular programs (each instructor is slightly different in how they teach the same skills and different approaches) for a child of his ability. At the level he was at, all we teach is pretty much kicking on their stomach and on their backs and learn how to paddle... But he didn't have goggles for one, and was petrified to go on his back...
One thing I hate about private classes is that parents are watching even closely as the only kids in the class are theirs and they pay like 4 times the price for the same half hour so they make sure they get their "money's worth" and they try to tell you how you should run the friggin class when they have no darn clue what is involved with swimming. And so rather than being bent around the will of the child and not do what he's afraid to do, I try to ease them into the exercises slowly and gently so they aren't as scared... emphasis on the AS, since learning means changing, and as we know, humans don't generally like change and the unfamiliar can be scary. But in swimming sometimes certain skills cannot be... reduced or simplified or stepped down any further for the beginner, such is to kick on your back... you're either on your back or you aren't... And some kids don't like the feeling of facing the roof in an unfamiliar medium not knowing whether he's floating or sinking or where the ground is or where the teacher is or where his parents are or other random crap (although if you were sinking its quite obvious lol...). And so swimming on your back is probably a relatively big step particularly for this little kid that I had today. He had a pool noodle under his back and around his waist and he was holding on to it and he is meant to lie down on it so he's floating on his back on top of the noodle while I held on to him to stabilise and support him cos face it, without certain skills, even a noodle can't hold him up completely (that's why it says "use under competent supervision" on the noodle). But that kid was kind of freaking out a little, making weird whinging noises, telling him that everything is going to be fine and told him that it is easy if he's just tries it (because everything will be ok, and it is actually incredibly easy (remember that video about the limbless guy, he swam on his back! because its easier than on your stomach)if you just brave it and give it a go.)
I was trying to get him to simply put his legs out straight and get his back straight so he can float... and although he would have whinged he would be able to get used to it and realise its not so hard to float on your back with a floatation device. But the dad interrupts me and starts telling me how I should run my lesson, telling me how I should let him swim on his stomach more first to build up confidence... But the thing is, he didn't even bothered giving his kid some goggles and unless you put your head into the water, you cannot swim by yourself sustainably unless you are remarkably strong (relative to a child's strength). There are some reason's for this, any gymnast, diver, decent swimmer and decent athlete would be able to tell you that the movement of your head determines where your body goes. When you play ball games and you try to evade someone, the first part of your body that moves is your head, then your torso and then your legs. Only cartoon characters can run with their feet in front of their body fast. Your head has to be first. Gymnasts when they do flips and stuff, their heads determine their direction and most of their success, no head movement = painful stacks. Divers will tell you the same as gymnasts. And the same goes for swimming, if you swim with your head up, your feet will naturally sink to the bottom, and unless you have powerful legs, you won't be able to swim with your head up for very far before sinking to the bottom. Without goggles most children refuse to put their face in, and so there was no point for me to teach that kid to swim forwards cos we wouldn't get anywhere and he wouldn't learn anything. So swimming backwards was a good option to teach him something without goggles, and the dad goes and interrupts me and makes me change what I was doing. I wasn't about to rip back at him, so I just changed it and wasted the rest of his $45 bucks on activities his child would not benefit any more from.
The father initially told me why he chose private classes over regular group classes was because his kid didn't seem to be progressing and he wanted him to learn QUICKLY because he was going into primary school next year (which means swimming carnivals). Now, unless you're really keen on learning, you CANNOT learn things quick. Quick learning means quick change, which means BIG steps. And his kid was not about to be able to take big steps. And so when I tried to satisfy the father's desire to get the kid to improve quickly, the kid will naturally be scared, which is reasonable, and my job was to help him get over that initial fear and get him to try the things that would get him improving. But, the father contradicts himself when he sees his kid getting a little uncomfortable with getting on his back and yaps at me. Which is ironic and stupid. I wasn't about to let a 30 min private lesson go to waste and was gonna get that kid moving along quickly as requested.
So I guess you can't please everyone, sometimes you can't please anyone, and sometimes you can't actually please someone. When I finished the lesson, I knew the father wasn't too happy about the lesson, and I saw him debating with my supervisor about the lesson, I would have butted in and explained why I thought it was necessary to progress quickly. But I thought I'd keep my mouth shut and not guilt trip the guy and make him look like an idiot with his inability to comprehend his own desires for his child's rapid progress.
One thing I hate about private classes is that parents are watching even closely as the only kids in the class are theirs and they pay like 4 times the price for the same half hour so they make sure they get their "money's worth" and they try to tell you how you should run the friggin class when they have no darn clue what is involved with swimming. And so rather than being bent around the will of the child and not do what he's afraid to do, I try to ease them into the exercises slowly and gently so they aren't as scared... emphasis on the AS, since learning means changing, and as we know, humans don't generally like change and the unfamiliar can be scary. But in swimming sometimes certain skills cannot be... reduced or simplified or stepped down any further for the beginner, such is to kick on your back... you're either on your back or you aren't... And some kids don't like the feeling of facing the roof in an unfamiliar medium not knowing whether he's floating or sinking or where the ground is or where the teacher is or where his parents are or other random crap (although if you were sinking its quite obvious lol...). And so swimming on your back is probably a relatively big step particularly for this little kid that I had today. He had a pool noodle under his back and around his waist and he was holding on to it and he is meant to lie down on it so he's floating on his back on top of the noodle while I held on to him to stabilise and support him cos face it, without certain skills, even a noodle can't hold him up completely (that's why it says "use under competent supervision" on the noodle). But that kid was kind of freaking out a little, making weird whinging noises, telling him that everything is going to be fine and told him that it is easy if he's just tries it (because everything will be ok, and it is actually incredibly easy (remember that video about the limbless guy, he swam on his back! because its easier than on your stomach)if you just brave it and give it a go.)
I was trying to get him to simply put his legs out straight and get his back straight so he can float... and although he would have whinged he would be able to get used to it and realise its not so hard to float on your back with a floatation device. But the dad interrupts me and starts telling me how I should run my lesson, telling me how I should let him swim on his stomach more first to build up confidence... But the thing is, he didn't even bothered giving his kid some goggles and unless you put your head into the water, you cannot swim by yourself sustainably unless you are remarkably strong (relative to a child's strength). There are some reason's for this, any gymnast, diver, decent swimmer and decent athlete would be able to tell you that the movement of your head determines where your body goes. When you play ball games and you try to evade someone, the first part of your body that moves is your head, then your torso and then your legs. Only cartoon characters can run with their feet in front of their body fast. Your head has to be first. Gymnasts when they do flips and stuff, their heads determine their direction and most of their success, no head movement = painful stacks. Divers will tell you the same as gymnasts. And the same goes for swimming, if you swim with your head up, your feet will naturally sink to the bottom, and unless you have powerful legs, you won't be able to swim with your head up for very far before sinking to the bottom. Without goggles most children refuse to put their face in, and so there was no point for me to teach that kid to swim forwards cos we wouldn't get anywhere and he wouldn't learn anything. So swimming backwards was a good option to teach him something without goggles, and the dad goes and interrupts me and makes me change what I was doing. I wasn't about to rip back at him, so I just changed it and wasted the rest of his $45 bucks on activities his child would not benefit any more from.
The father initially told me why he chose private classes over regular group classes was because his kid didn't seem to be progressing and he wanted him to learn QUICKLY because he was going into primary school next year (which means swimming carnivals). Now, unless you're really keen on learning, you CANNOT learn things quick. Quick learning means quick change, which means BIG steps. And his kid was not about to be able to take big steps. And so when I tried to satisfy the father's desire to get the kid to improve quickly, the kid will naturally be scared, which is reasonable, and my job was to help him get over that initial fear and get him to try the things that would get him improving. But, the father contradicts himself when he sees his kid getting a little uncomfortable with getting on his back and yaps at me. Which is ironic and stupid. I wasn't about to let a 30 min private lesson go to waste and was gonna get that kid moving along quickly as requested.
So I guess you can't please everyone, sometimes you can't please anyone, and sometimes you can't actually please someone. When I finished the lesson, I knew the father wasn't too happy about the lesson, and I saw him debating with my supervisor about the lesson, I would have butted in and explained why I thought it was necessary to progress quickly. But I thought I'd keep my mouth shut and not guilt trip the guy and make him look like an idiot with his inability to comprehend his own desires for his child's rapid progress.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Wetsuits!
Woot! I finally got a wetsuit today... which means I will hopefully no longer freeze to death every day at work now haha... though those things are bloody darn expensive... a long sleeved upper body shirt costed me $99.95... good thing I had a $20 discount... What WAS rather amusing was when I told my mum that I was gonna go buy a wetsuit, she told me to buy it in 2 pieces. So I thought for a minute, why 2 pieces when I can just buy a full suit which will probably be warmer and cheaper than seperate pieces?... When I enquired, the reply I got back was one I (if you know me well) should have considered the very second she said buy in 2 pieces, but it didn't occur to me until she told me... and it was "Don't you think you need to go to the toilet?" And truth be told going to the toilet with a full wetsuit would be a big pain in the ass seeing how the zipper is on your back below your neck... and you'd need to practically take the whole thing off lol, and when you haven't been to the toilet in 5 or so hours... you don't want to waste that much time on getting the thing off :P... Kinda amusing my mum thought of toilet stuff before I did though... considering me and my brother's reputations... haha
O and about updating this thing everyday or sometimes even less?... It'll probably die down soon... lol... we'll see how persistent I am :P haha... and it kinda is the holidays so I guess I have more than enough time to blog :P
O and about updating this thing everyday or sometimes even less?... It'll probably die down soon... lol... we'll see how persistent I am :P haha... and it kinda is the holidays so I guess I have more than enough time to blog :P
Friday, November 7, 2008
Laziness
Man... although I've been at the pool 3 times a week almost every week this year to teach, I've only trained twice this year... All through high school I would train like 1-3 times a week and would be able to swim a 2-2.4km session with relative ease... Today I thought I'd join my old swimming buddies again for the second half of their hour long session after my last class which started at the same time (which goes for half an hour)... and by then there was only 500m left of their session as they swam the other 1.5km in the first half hour or something... and I was already buggered lol...
It is quite amazing how the body takes so long to train up... but as soon as you stop using it, it will degenerate so quickly to a weaker state. Also fitness in one medium doesn't seem to transfer over to other medium either, if you are a hardcore gymnast, you jump in a pool and you will be crap even if you know how to swim. I run alot, and although I don't have many opportunities to climb stuff, I do it when ever the opportunity arises, so I guess I should be pretty fit... But doing that half km of decent speed swimming, now I actually feel tired lol...
I reckon if I keep jumping in for the second half of their session every week I'll be back up there in a few weeks though...
It is quite amazing how the body takes so long to train up... but as soon as you stop using it, it will degenerate so quickly to a weaker state. Also fitness in one medium doesn't seem to transfer over to other medium either, if you are a hardcore gymnast, you jump in a pool and you will be crap even if you know how to swim. I run alot, and although I don't have many opportunities to climb stuff, I do it when ever the opportunity arises, so I guess I should be pretty fit... But doing that half km of decent speed swimming, now I actually feel tired lol...
I reckon if I keep jumping in for the second half of their session every week I'll be back up there in a few weeks though...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
You know you are a swimming instructor when...
You know you are a swimming instructor when:
- Your skin smells like chlorine constantly
- Your tears smell like pool water
- You constantly have spare towels in your car
- You have 3 pairs of goggles in your swimming bag
- You have 2 pairs of togs in case you lose a pair somehow
- The boot of your car smells like pool water
- When you remember the names of every single student of the approximately 75 students you have
- When you walk past a pool and can see inside and you see crappy swimming you have the urge to correct them. And last but definitely not least;
- When you freeze to death for 8 hours in a giant puddle through the cold wind and rain survivng on a hot chocolate, a muffin and 2 nutella sandwiches.
- *EDIT* (I forgot the most important one.. silly me...) When you gain superhuman homeostatic abilities... ie working 6 hours without going to the toilet
- *EDIT2* (thanks for reminding me!) When your skin becomes so bloated and wrinked that the crevices and ravines in the skin begin to quite literally crack open.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Fear
Well... some people may know that I work as a swimming instructor, particularly for Learn-to-Swim... and so I deal with lots of kids, young and old, and there is one thing that really gets you thinking... and that is fear... Some kids are petrified of the water to an irrational level... and they will make your eardrums bleed and quite literally temporarily deafen you for a minute or two if they go off close enough to your ear... some kids are so scared that they stiffen up like a rock and whatever potential that they had to swim would be lost as they would just sink to the bottom and then get even more scared... some older kids that are just learning how to swim will keep saying... "I can't, I can't, I can't do it"... even on the simplest of techniques... like simply relaxing and lying on your back in the water and kicking...
What is interesting is that it the reason for that kind of behaviour is because of some kind of precieved outcome that they think will happen if they enter the water or if they attempt a particular technique... but the thing is that if they trusted the fact that the instructor would not get them to do something that they couldn't do without providing all the necessary assistance required, then they would all be able to learn to swim easily and extremely quickly. But to trust someone also means putting faith in their promises for action. Trusting that when the instructor says "I will catch you", that he will indeed catch you when you push off and swim out to him. The fear creates a sort of stubbornness that is in my opinion unequalled in anyway. A 10 year old boy today was in a class that I was taking and the other kids were several years younger... the other 2 children must've been about 6-7ish? and the other children when I said "OK, we are gonna go kicking on our back." and one of the kids would not even need to wait for my hand to be placed on their back before pushing off towards me. However the 10 year old kid would be telling me "I can't do it, I can't do it"... and even when I'm basically carrying him in the water on his back, he would still be as stiff as a rock and could not even let go of my arm to hold onto a kickboard with both hands just because I said I needed both hands on his back to hold him up (I had one hand on his back, one hand on his chest and his head was on my shoulder). But I knew that he could have done it, because every human being is capable of swimming, and swimming is incredibly easy... One time at school, some inspirational media people came in and showed us a video, and a section of the video was about a guy born with no limbs and only had one foot which was attached to his hip and it had 3 toes... and that guy COULD SWIM BY HIMSELF... now if someone with no arms and no legs could swim by himself... I'm pretty sure any able minded human can swim... The reason why that guy with no limbs could swim was because he believed he could do it... and trusted whoever taught him how to swim enough to actually give it a shot without holding back.
As a christian, I think that this very situation also applies in all of our lives as well. Life isn't a walk in the park, and we all have times when we think that we can't make it or there isn't a way to do something. But if we just trust that God knows what he is doing and that if we believe in him and give it everything we have then we will get through those troubled times and we will learn and grow so much. I'm sure my students do not know how the various exercise will actually result in them learning how to swim, as they always say, "but I want to do this" or "But I can do that already" or "but I'm not good at that". They don't understand that it is not about the drills but about the outcome that the drills produce and they don't understand the 'plan' that we use to create the final outcome, which is when they can swim properly. Likewise, we will probably not understand the processes and the ways that God will use to bring out the things that he has planted in us. And we also don't always understand why certain things happen to us but if we just trust that God knows what he's doing and that we are in more than good hands then we can deal with those bad times with confidence.
All in a day's work
What is interesting is that it the reason for that kind of behaviour is because of some kind of precieved outcome that they think will happen if they enter the water or if they attempt a particular technique... but the thing is that if they trusted the fact that the instructor would not get them to do something that they couldn't do without providing all the necessary assistance required, then they would all be able to learn to swim easily and extremely quickly. But to trust someone also means putting faith in their promises for action. Trusting that when the instructor says "I will catch you", that he will indeed catch you when you push off and swim out to him. The fear creates a sort of stubbornness that is in my opinion unequalled in anyway. A 10 year old boy today was in a class that I was taking and the other kids were several years younger... the other 2 children must've been about 6-7ish? and the other children when I said "OK, we are gonna go kicking on our back." and one of the kids would not even need to wait for my hand to be placed on their back before pushing off towards me. However the 10 year old kid would be telling me "I can't do it, I can't do it"... and even when I'm basically carrying him in the water on his back, he would still be as stiff as a rock and could not even let go of my arm to hold onto a kickboard with both hands just because I said I needed both hands on his back to hold him up (I had one hand on his back, one hand on his chest and his head was on my shoulder). But I knew that he could have done it, because every human being is capable of swimming, and swimming is incredibly easy... One time at school, some inspirational media people came in and showed us a video, and a section of the video was about a guy born with no limbs and only had one foot which was attached to his hip and it had 3 toes... and that guy COULD SWIM BY HIMSELF... now if someone with no arms and no legs could swim by himself... I'm pretty sure any able minded human can swim... The reason why that guy with no limbs could swim was because he believed he could do it... and trusted whoever taught him how to swim enough to actually give it a shot without holding back.
As a christian, I think that this very situation also applies in all of our lives as well. Life isn't a walk in the park, and we all have times when we think that we can't make it or there isn't a way to do something. But if we just trust that God knows what he is doing and that if we believe in him and give it everything we have then we will get through those troubled times and we will learn and grow so much. I'm sure my students do not know how the various exercise will actually result in them learning how to swim, as they always say, "but I want to do this" or "But I can do that already" or "but I'm not good at that". They don't understand that it is not about the drills but about the outcome that the drills produce and they don't understand the 'plan' that we use to create the final outcome, which is when they can swim properly. Likewise, we will probably not understand the processes and the ways that God will use to bring out the things that he has planted in us. And we also don't always understand why certain things happen to us but if we just trust that God knows what he's doing and that we are in more than good hands then we can deal with those bad times with confidence.
All in a day's work
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
