Tuesday, November 1, 2011
COMMITMENT IS A VIRTUE!
It's the beginning of November and we have roughly over 2 months before Last Chance JO Qualifiers and a couple of weeks after until Junior Olympics. This is where the practices start getting more intense, quite a bit harder, somewhat longer (yardage wise), and ultimately more tiring. This is where it is the easy way out by using upcoming holidays as an easy reason why missing practice would be overlooked. I will be posting this on both PARENTS and SWIMMERS pages because of the importance of what I am about to discuss.
I am and always have been a family guy, someone who always makes it a point to travel the 400 miles home for the holidays, trying in vain to try to spend as much time with my family as possible. So I definitely understand the concept of family time. But this is real talk about the ramifications to missing extended periods of time in the water, something that must be brought up also in context to how that affects swimmers so close to rest meets.
First off, the old saying is that it "takes a month to make up for one week." There is another saying that is a play on words but absolutely true on both meanings; "seven days off makes one weak." The way I explain time off in the water is simple:
Physically, there is NOTHING that can remotely compare to the resistance one feels in the water swimming. Whether you play soccer, basketball, baseball, run track, whatever the land sport may be....walking to class, up and down the stairs at home, etc. still utilizes those muscles in a similar fashion, just at a much lesser intensity and extent. THERE IS NO EQUIVELANT FOR SWIMMING!!! With the younger swimmers, I ask to try to keep as committed as you have all season long, meaning if you show up 3x per week, continue to do so as best you can. If you are an older swimmer, you do everything in your power to make sure you are at every practice possible. Missing a practice every once in a while is much easier to overlook when it comes from an athlete that seemingly never misses a practice.
Now, it always makes me shake my head when parents and swimmers take extended time off in December (no problem with that!) but then turn around a month later at JO's and start openly asking me (I do have a problem with this!) why Little Johnny isn't swimming as fast or even better, sometimes asking rather pointedly, why ISN'T Little Johnny swimming as fast. Practices missed DO have consequences, but it's impossible to make tangible because it is based around the idea of wasted opportunity, something as hard to measure as air, but just as real. The question is, do you want to swim with regrets? If not, show up to practice. That way, you cannot question whether you showed up every day to answer the bell. You did. Now effort in practice is another post altogether....
