focus

Joy and Abandon

/ Jillcoach / 1 Comment

swim29Cannonball

Competitive swimming is about details, no doubt about it. Every motion is analyzed, from the position of the head to the angle of the hand on entry to the bend of the knee. We measure heart rate recovery, and the building of workouts consists of balancing elements of the different energy systems. Minutes of training, rest between sets, weight lifted, number of practices, stroke count, reaction time, breathing, and above all, time, time, time….we measure it all. It is easy for both coaches and swimmers to get bogged down and succumb to the tyranny of measuring the details.

You remember when you were little, and you swam wildly and happily, just because it was fun? You didn’t really care how it looked or how long it took, you just DID IT. Somewhere along the line we lose the ability to do this so easily, and it usually starts with a comment like “Hey, you could be really good at this if…”

If. If only you came to more practice. If only you tried harder. If only you fixed this or that. If only you started focusing on the details.

So we do. We like the idea of being good at something, and we like the idea of pleasing people, so we start to focus on the details, work harder, show up more, measure, measure, measure. The more we focus, however, the farther away “good” seems to be…no matter how much we improve, there is always a measurement that says we can be better, faster, stronger, or more dedicated. Before we know it, we can’t remember what it felt like to have fun swimming.

I could see the tension in my swimmers who were at this point, tension in the shoulders, in the face. They were flooded with disappointment in themselves when they failed to reach a measurement that meant “good”, and there was almost a sense of defeat in the realization that there was always another “good” to reach.

My advice to them was simple:  swim with joy and abandon. Separate practice from competition, and remember that practice is where we work, measure, and focus on details. Competition is the place to shut measurement brain down, and just DO, just BE, revel in the moment. Trust the work done at practice, stop thinking, and go. Just DO, just BE. Make the measurement of “good” whether it felt fun again.

Joy and abandon.

Life must also be this balance of doing the work and focusing on the details, and then throwing ourselves out there with joy and abandon, reveling in the moment, whatever it may be. Joy should be our goal, not some measurement that means “good” to someone else, not society’s definition of success. Joy should be the goal.

So absolutely, yes, work hard. Have integrity. Show up. Do the right things. Focus on the details. And then throw yourself wildly, with abandon, into the things that give you joy. Let go of caring how you look or what other people think or how you “measure up”, and throw yourself into your joy.

When swimmers could learn to let go and swim with joy again, they often ended up easily achieving and surpassing the “measurement” they were after, with the added bonus of not caring as much. They enjoyed getting there, having the time they were after, but the joy of reconnecting with the fun part of their sport became the goal. The more joy was the goal, the better they got, and the less they worried about it.

Talk about a win.

Breaststroke, Multi-Tasking and Change: A Ramble

/ Jillcoach / Leave a comment

breaststroke

From the USA Swimming rule book:  Swimmer should push off the wall into streamline position, face down or on the breast. The swimmer should sweep the hands out to just outside the shoulders and turning fingertips down, moving the arms back simultaneously, pressing hands toward the belly and squeezing elbows in toward the ribcage. The hands shall be pushed forward together from the breast on, under, or over the water. The elbows shall be under water except for the final stroke before the turn, during the turn and for the final stroke at the finish. The hands shall be brought back on or under the surface of the water. The hands shall not be brought back beyond the hip line, except during the first stroke after the start and each turn. As the hands are being brought back toward the chest/belly, the swimmer should bend their knees, drawing their heels up toward their buttocks, with toes turned out toward the sides. As the hands are pressed forward, the swimming should execute the kick, both feet moving in unison, whipping back with a slight outward rotation (similar to a frog kick). Throughout the race the stroke cycle must be one arm stroke and one leg kick in that order. All movements of the arms shall be simultaneous and in the same horizontal plane without alternating movement. During each complete cycle, some part of the swimmer’s head shall break the surface of the water. All wall touches must be two hands touching simultaneously in the same plane.

Breaststroke is the ultimate in “pat your head, rub your tummy”. Coordinating the kick and pull is hard enough, then throw in remembering how to hold your feet, where your hands should be, and making sure your head breaks the surface with each stroke and you have the ultimate in multi-tasking metaphors! It’s no wonder little kids struggle with it so much.

Multi-tasking can be trained into muscles—by virtue of repetition, muscle memory will take over and allow us to execute the movements correctly without having to think about each one. It gives us the illusion that we can do many things simultaneously, which excites the Brain, who then yells, “Awesome! I’m going to help!” And it all falls apart.

You see, the problem is that Brain can’t multi-task. It can do many things quickly so it appears as though it’s all happening at the same time, but it’s not. Every time Brain focuses “here”, whatever is going on “there” suffers. (Think about how many times you’ve arrived at your destination not remembering the drive. Brain was thinking about something else.) We see this regularly in swimming, when a coach will advise a swimmer to work on their kick, or think about their head position, and as soon as Brain starts doing what we’ve asked, the rest of the stroke gets messy.

This is another of the hard lessons of swimming. While a swimmer is working to correct a stroke, they will go through a period of feeling awful and awkward trying to swim it. They will get discouraged. They will wonder why they’re trying to make a change if it is only going to result in being worse. They will want to abandon the change and go back to the way they used to do it, because that was comfortable and familiar, but they can’t. They started to make a new habit and now the old way is lost. Even Brain isn’t sure where to focus.

This is a difficult but absolutely normal step on the path of major change. As you discipline Brain to focus on doing something entirely new, everything else will feel as though it’s falling apart. Getting through this is incredibly hard, but you must press forward. You cannot go back: Brain has forgotten that way. You cannot stay in this awful place, neither here nor there, with Brain completely unfocused. You must move forward, with persistence, reminding yourself that this is temporary, that you chose this way in order to grow and make progress, that repetition and focus will make a “new normal”.

Before you know it, there will be a new place and a better habit, one you won’t have to think so hard about anymore.

The Breakout

/ Jillcoach / Leave a comment

breakout

You wouldn’t think we would spend so much time talking about pushing off a wall, but I’m willing to bet that at least a quarter of our practice time was routinely consumed with just that: how to push, how to hold a body position, how long to kick, which arm to begin pulling with first, when to breathe. When you consider that a third of the race yardage in a short course pool takes place around the walls, the “breakout”, or how to get away from the wall and take those first few strokes, becomes enormously important.

Those first few steps in any endeavor are crucial. That’s where you set the tone and pattern for everything that follows. In swimming, a breakout done poorly, haphazardly, thoughtlessly, can limit what you can achieve and put you behind significantly, as well as waste your energy as you struggle to catch up. Being out of position or caught in your own turbulence creates resistance that tires you out needlessly and has a negative effect on you mentally as you fight to resurface and gain back that time just lost. A well-executed breakout, on the other hand, is an opportunity to leap ahead and improve one’s position, causing the swimming that follows to feel more powerful and efficient.

One of the uniquely beautiful things about swimming is that every length of the pool is a chance to start over, to do the breakout again, to readjust and set a different tone. It’s all part of the same race or the same training set, but it is still a fresh start in miniature. “THIS time I will push hard with both legs. THIS time I will squeeze into a tight streamline. THIS time I will kick hard. THIS time I will not breathe on the first stroke. THIS time my first strokes will be strong.” As a consequence, THIS time there will be a new outcome.

What an awesome life lesson! How many times do we face moments where we can choose to make some changes or continue on struggling? How many times do we choose the struggle simply because it’s familiar? How many times do we choose mindless habit, no matter how much it wastes our energy?

Our breakouts, our fresh starts, should always be mindful moments, moments of focus and concentration, because these are the moments where the pattern is set for what is to follow. Small, positive changes right there in that moment of pushing off and starting anew can lead to larger positive outcomes as you swim away. Capture those moments. Focus. Be mindful. It can make all the difference in your life.