The more we care, the further out of our comfort zone we’re willing to go because something matters to us more than the temporary discomfort.
In this lesson, the children got a good hands on experience on how their level of caring made a direct impact in the outcome of a drill they performed. By teaching them how to care, it increases how often they allow themselves to get out of their comfort zone and struggle. The more often they struggle, the faster they develop.
My first group of the evening was composed of 24 children between the age of 9 and 11. Most are at the regional level and a few at the provincial level.
The warm up consisted of 4 rounds of 25 shoulder roll log drill, 50 free catch up and zipper, 25 shoulder roll log drill, 100 free catch up and zipper and a 50 free fast enough to be within 3” of best time. The interval were not challenging and provided a lot of rest.
The swimmers knew both drills and could do them for the most part very well, but only for a short time, as their attention easily faltered, when not individually supervised.
Swimmers also have been taught the cheat catch up and the cheat zipper drills. The only difference between the cheat version and the regular version is that in catch up, the hands connect before the next stroke starts and in cheat catch up they don’t (just as when kids cheat when doing the catch up drill). In the case of the zipper drill, the thumbs connect with and drags alongside the body during the recovery, in the cheat version, the thumb is near the body, but doesn’t actually connects with it.
Having taught the cheat version as well as the right version, it gives me a way to help swimmers develop awareness of what they’re doing and to get more right than cheat version of the drill.
After two rounds of cheat catch up and cheat zipper, instead of catch up zipper, I saw an opportunity to teach and reinforce a very valuable lesson. The ability to be engaged, to be present and staying present (focus) is critical in determining how long it takes to learn something. The more and longer someone can be present, the faster one can learn. So, it is very important as an educator to take every opportunity possible to help pupils in learning to be ever more present, to care.
Change in plan
I got all the swimmers out of the water, telling them we would do a fun activity. A part of me wanted to be mad at them and couldn’t understand how they could allow themselves to perform so poorly in those simple drills and was worried that we wouldn’t be able to do all that was plan for this practice. But I knew better and was actually looking forward to where this guided improvisation would take us.
I divided the group into two and explained that I wanted each team to find one representative, to represent them in a catch-up zipper drill challenge. Each team was to test each of their swimmers until they had found their best representative.
Before sending them off, I made sure they understood the components to look for to grade their mates when looking at the drill.
- Hands connect at the front before the next stroke starts
- Thumbs touch and drag alongside the body during recovery.
- The elbow is high and pointed to the ceiling.
- Head down to keep the body in straight line even when breathing.
- It has to flow, can’t be choppy.
As each team evaluated their members, I watched carefully how they did their drill. You probably guessed that the quality of their drill was off the roof! In some instances, I was surprised to see how strikingly better some were performing the drill!
Once each team had selected their representative, I explained to the swimmers how they could compare the performance of the two representatives.
“When we do a drill, is it how fast or how well we’re doing it that makes our stroke style improve?”
It wasn’t hard for them to understand and many answered that it was how well that mattered.
“So, this is not a race, it’s more like judging figure skating, synchronized swimming or diving. Think in term of score. Do they show all the important points of the drill?”
The two boys swam a 50 meter and as it was pretty much impossible to tell who was doing better. I got everyone to sit out and debriefed the activity we just had.
“Before we start, let me ask you, when you were testing each other to see who would be your representative, did you do the drill the way you were doing it in the first two rounds?”
They were giggling, some even blushed and all agreed that they had done much better during the try outs.
I told them with enthusiasm that I was shocked to see how some of them could do that drill so well compared to the best I had ever seen them doing it!
“So, what was the difference? I don’t think any of you came here today with the specific purpose of doing less than their best.”
I pretended to be that swimmer talking to myself on the way to practice to make everyone laugh.
“So how come, in the first two rounds, the quality of what you were doing was so low compared to the try outs?”
I could see how the kids were wondering themselves how it had been possible.
We cared more
One kid answered that it was because they “cared” more.
“It’s true, when we care, when something really matters to us, we can go out of our way to make it happen. Even if it’s uncomfortable, we’ll get it done. The more we care, the further out of our comfort zone we can go.”
“I know all of you care deeply about your swimming, so how can you show all the time, how much you truly care? You didn’t stop caring during the first two rounds, it’s more like you forgot that you cared.
When you come to the pool you need to remember why you are here for today. This will help you.
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