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What I Learned From A Little Old Lady

When we were on our holidays we had to go to the inevitable theme park. Something not on my bucket list. It’s been well ticked off but still it seems…What I Learned From A Little Old Lady

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Backstroke’s Ceiling Nightmare

I had a swimmer once who was more motivated than me. She desperately wanted to train more but I didn’t have additional hours. I compromised, after thinking about it, I thought why not, so I negotiated a small space for her to do a hard set of vertical kicking in mornings my squad wasn’t in. She did an extra three mornings per week. She did her sets and was out-of-the-way of the other (senior…

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Hey Coach, You’re An Asshole!

After the BBC Panorama documentary about abusive swim coaches hits the screen this evening, I have to concur, some coaches are assholes. I’ve met a few of them in my life, and yes it’s true, some coaches need to be in jobs that only include garbage collection and not interacting with youngsters. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4gmm2zv8no If that link doesn’t work the full wording is: BBC…

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The High Performance Coaching Skill Of Drying Socks

Once you’ve committed to a full taper, at the end of that taper, a coach should have nothing left to do. Except important things like drying socks. At the Commonwealth Games in 2002, the day of the final in 50m freestyle, a deluge of rain hit Manchester. Travelling together in a bus, our team got dropped near the front doors. The grand entrance to the pool stadium. It now had big puddles on a…

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Team Spirit

When a group jells it becomes a powerful force. A bigger force than an individual on their own. Honking a horn, repeatedly. Over and over. Is not creating team spirit. There is no cheering, there are no ‘come on Jake’ (or whomever ) there is not clapping loudly, and seemingly no high-fives. Those things are team spirit. Not honking. Honking a horn is just annoying. Not team spirit-like. Just a…

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Scottish National Age Group Championships (5-6-7-8-9 April 2025)

My first two nights of being the ‘colour’ for the commentary online-feed. Good swims and good colour… Commentary starts at 7:02 https://www.youtube.com/live/fnZKp7Ph-pY?si=Z3qtAX72I3-q6vJx The second night was a bit better but equally full of Gary’s stories. https://www.youtube.com/live/917lcnlrOus?si=NkYNLeRJ5oUn5eFB This competition is in Aberdeen Scotland which is a very old city. It is…

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Mimicry Learning

‘If you build it, they will come’; might work for fans but it doesn’t work for learning. You need to go find it or get pointed in the right direction. Swimming is very different from every day life. It exists in a strange horizontal plane. Gravity pulls us down in the air realm but our bodies make us buoyant in the water world floating us on the surface. How to move whilst between the water and…

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Mark Spitz Was An Unconventional Swimmer

A combination of a genius coach and an unconventional swimmer, resulted in a fistful of gold medals in the 1972 Munich Games. Mark Spitz became an icon as the first person to win seven golds at one Olympic Games. People might think that Spitz was simply godlike swimmer and that was it. His story is a bit more colourful than that. Without James ‘Doc’ Counsilman, there would not have been a seven…

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Swim Meet Warmups Are Stupid

If you went to a track competition you might see a difference in the way athletes warmed up for their events, compared to swimmers. Warms ups would be, prior to the particular race (or event), not en masse, and that warm up would gradually lead up to the performance without a long break. If you watched a rugby event, if a player were to get sent off with a yellow card, they would not sit down on…

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How Breaststroke Was Saved…Twice

Early breaststroke swimming was the style of proper gentlemen. A gentleman was not a gentleman unless he was kind, considerate and gentle in the face of anything, especially danger. His swimming style had to reflect that demeanour and be smooth and calm. Calmness in the face of danger was a hallmark of the upper class gentleman. Despite the danger of drowning, since most people in the early…

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Nose Blindness In Swimming

If you have been taught how to swim correctly but constantly swim without thought, then the nuances of your stroke can change unknowingly back to your ‘normal’ and lazy stroke. A swimmer will be lost in a type of nose blindness. They may unintentionally swim poorly without feeling their error by being blind to how it feels. On a pig farm, you will immediately notice the horrid smell. Most farms…

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The Celebration

I don’t understand people who don’t celebrate when they win. The fist-pump or shouting for joy should be a part of every win. If the race is important and you win, you must celebrate an unpremeditated action. I love seeing this ecstatic moment. It seems to be displayed in ways that are completely spontaneous. I don’t mean the choreographed group ‘line dance’ professional footballers devise but…

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Mermaid Day Is A Winner

Teaching swimming lessons to young children can be difficult. They don’t like getting their mouth or nose wet, get eyes wet, and certainly don’t want to submerge. Often they cry just getting splashed, so teaching at that point is not going to happen. Tears are not inevitable but very common. Then I found a Barbie mermaid. I brought the Barbie Mermaid to the pool for my lessons because I thought…

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The Wile E. Coyote Affect

What’s your favorite cartoon? My favourite cartoon has to be in the famous Road Runner series. Wile E. Coyote tries to catch The Road Runner, day after day, and day after day. I really wanted Wile E to catch the damn Road Runner. Now I know why he didn’t… The Wile E. Coyote Affect

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Understanding Distance Per Stroke

Many coaches work hard to get their swimmers to improve their swimmers’ distance per stroke (DPS). Without a very clear understanding of ‘why’ you should have a long stroke, a swimmer will, often, slowly shorten their stroke. The ‘why’ makes the process easier for consistent application. I believe the trick is to get the swimmers to understand the underlying reason for making a long stroke so…

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This guy is a bit grumpy but you’d be too if you were a spiritual being that’s being used as a fish-bonker.

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Dancin’ On The Ceiling

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place. When I was a young man I was lucky to travel a great deal. Often when you travel you feel out of place because you are! Tourists dress differently more often than not. Tourists often do things odd because they don’t know the customs. My young friends and I had been turned away from a club because we were underage. Normally we were of bar-attendee…