My First Milestone!!!!

The biggest task, I have been working for last two days was ‘breathing drill’. Yes, the most important part of freestyle swimming. If you wish to swim lapse over lapse you need to be good at your stamina and breathing process. If your legs and hands are in rhythm and you are not able to breathe, you need to think about your continuation with swimming as a sport.

I have two trainees who have reached to their 7^th session with me and then comes the major challenge for them – to breathe. Trust me, it was a bigger challenge for me as both are good and both are 33 years old. One being a male has good stamina and other being a female has her grace. But the moment I started with the breathing session, they forgot everything they have learned in the last 6 sessions. I could see the frustration and eagerness to learn breathing in both of them. But to deal with their frustration levels and make them learn was a big challenge for me. The guy has different way of presenting his frustration and I have learned to handle his psychology whereas the lady is more expressive as she says “I know the trick but still why I am not able to get it”. My answer to them was ‘FOCUS and PRACTICE’.

I promised them that today we will not get out of the pool until you learn breathing. I changed my way to make them learn. I make them do lapse over lapse with practice of breathing. I instructed do not stop even if you forget the trick. Use your legs and hands to go forward. I am so happy to share that both of them did so well and they could learn breathing with less effort and loss of energy.

They left for the day and I felt so contented to see my efforts taking a great shape. I felt as if I have won a world cup. This was very challenging as I had to balance their physiological and psychological gap. But now when I think what drove me to do all that was a small thought – do not let it go like that! Keep practising and practising and practising........just the way a spider does not give up...I will not give up either. I stood for 2 hours in the pool, giving my feedback and motivating them. Finally, their focus and understanding could relate to my efforts and they did it....I am sure they will swim better than me.

As a coach that is what I want, my students should do better than me. They should be a step ahead of Archana!!

I am happy actually very satisfied....

CheerioJ