Abigail's blog

The other night, I was working with 2 different girls with the same stroke problem.  Both of them barely bend their left elbows at all in freestyle and both of them consistently breathe only to their right.   One of the girls swims with her left arm wide, almost grazing the water, while the other girl does more of a typical straight arm entry.  With both girls, I emphasized how important breathing every 3 strokes would be to improving their stroke.  I told them that breathing to the left almost forces them to swim with a higher bent elbow.  As a disclaimer, in

Outside!

Hooray!  The start of semi-warm weather around here means that our club’s 50 meter outdoor pool opened last week.  This is great news on several fronts…it opens up lane space for the club since we now have access to two pools, the fresh air helps keep me from zoning out on the pool deck and it means that the long course season has begun—which of course means that summer is on its way.  I love summer and nothing beats swimming laps and getting a tan at the same time.

Ok, so this really has nothing to do with swimming, but lately my kids have been obsessed with Mad Libs.  Without fail, every practice someone shows up with a Mad Libs pad and a pencil.  One of the kids even gave us our own pad to keep in the office.  Thanks, I was worried we might run out.  In general, we don’t play a lot of games with the kids and this seems like a pretty harmless thing to do right after dryland and before we get in the pool.

Kids are funny.  As I mentioned in my last blog, one of my swimmers left our team and is now in boarding school in New York.  Upon seeing his older sister at the pool last night, one of my boys said, “I thought that their family moved to away.”  Molly, who coaches the group with me, tried to explain that when someone goes to boarding school the whole family doesn’t move, just the person attending the school.  Then he asked, “How will he get food?”  Followed by, “How will he know how to match his clothes?”  I guess that these are pretty tough concepts for a shel

One of my swimmers recently decided to leave our team.  Of course it happens from time to time that kids switch clubs or decide that they no longer want to swim, but this decision took me completely off guard.  This particular boy is pretty hyper-active, but loaded with talent and I envisioned him becoming a great swimmer once he matures a little.  Plus, he really seemed to enjoy swimming.  As it is with many talented kids, swimming is not the only thing that this boy excels in.  He was accepted to an exclusive school in another state to focus on singing.

One thing that cracks me up about the kids I coach is that it would never occur to them that I might not want to be at practice.  They complain about being hungry or tired or whatever other reasons they have for not wanting to swim—and let’s face it, there are plenty of reasons to not want to swim, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t cross their minds that I sometimes have things I would rather be doing.   For the most part, this is a fair assumption.  I mean, nobody becomes a swim coach for the money, so on some level, I really do want to be there.  To coach is a choice

Nachos.

Anyone who has ever been to an indoor swim meet knows that this is a terrible place to spend your weekend.  The air is stuffy, the stands are crowded and you wait around endlessly for a one minute race and then you wait some more.  Like most swimmers, I’ve been going to these meets my whole life and have come to accept the monotonous long days.  For parents, I’m sure this is some kind of torture, for a coach, swim meets are a little more bearable and as a swimmer you have nachos.

I’m a hypocrite.  This bothers me, but I can’t help it.  It starts almost as soon as dryland is over and the kids are getting ready to swim.  For me, and for a lot of other swimmers I know, jumping in the pool has always been the hardest part of practice.  It’s cold and I think our pool is especially cold, so cold that I don’t like working out there.  As I rush them to get on their caps, goggles, line up and just GO already, I am doing my first hypocritical act of the night.  Do as I say, not as I do-- right?  This continues throughout practice….don’t talk

One thing that I struggle with as a coach to 9-10 year old swimmers is how to balance the important stroke work in the pool while also keeping the sport fun for them.  Swimming takes a lot of discipline and while a 10 year old doesn’t need to be as disciplined as a 17 year old, I believe that they do need to begin to understand that it takes a lot of hard work to be a successful swimmer.  On the other hand, too much hard work at 10 can lead to being burned out by 17. 

When I started coaching 3 years ago at the age of 28, I was under the illusion that I was still basically a kid, or at least that I wasn’t a grown-up.  The club I coach for swims at a university pool, so on top of all the actual children I was seeing on a daily basis, I was noticing that I no longer could pass for a college student.  My first day of practice, I was completely intimidated by the 25 giggling, shouting, goof-off 10 year olds that surrounded me.  Sometime during that first workout, one of the kids called me “Coach Abigail” and that’s when I realized for the first