Fitness swimming

Originally posted by emmett ....Now, if I could figure out how to get loner fitness swimmers into clinics as easily as other swim-interested folks, I'd sing a different tune. I hear ya, on all of the above. I'm relatively involved with helping my coach advertize the clinics, and our experience has been close to the same. I haven't taken advantage of bike and sports shops advertizing (mainly because I wind up putting making a flyer on a lower priority, and not getting around it) My quanadry of the moment is how to even reach the loner fitnss swimmer and lure him/her in. I'm thinking back on my experience, where I was interested in swimming long before I found out about masters. I remember myself using the USMS website's places to swim couple of years before even learning about teams and how it all works. And this is WITH one of my bestest friends being a pretty accomplished masters swimmer (several top tens and one or two masters all American). Granted, pushing and marketing swimming is not her strong suit. So, I hate to admit, I swam laps for about a year or so at a local highschool. There was some sort of a workout group there, kind of self-organized, but with someone that looked like they knew what they were doing, and few people whom I've since seen competing. It all looked pretty intimidating, and all Greek to me. I didn't even have a clue what to ask. I taught myself flip turns by watching the 'workout group' which was many times in a lane just next to me. I think where I swan there is a very small masters group starting up or something to that effect. Even though they swim in a lane next to me, they seemed pretty unapproachable. They looked like they knew what they were doing, and I didn't even know what to ask.. so I didn't. I think there are even some posts on this bulletin board from me from that time, about learning flip turns. Other than seeing people involved in swimming, I had no clue what this is all about. The USMS website itself, I looked at it. With USA Swimming and number of quality looking and functioning websites out there USMS website looked like some sort of a dying organization website... dead links, lot of text that sounded all greek to me, and other than places to swim I couldn't find anything useful within my attention span. The website didn't strike me as the first and foremost organization on adult swimming, so I moved on trying to find something else. I stuck around the bulletin board because it seemed relatively active, which surprised me considering my first impression of the website. So, I started swimming laps. A year later... I went through some major changes in my personal life.... My fiend, the swimmer had a swim meet that she wanted to go to in Santa Barbara. Fun place to visit. So I decided to go with her, watch her swim in the morning, and then we were going to go have a few margaritas etc... This is about the 4th or 5th time over maybe 4 years that I had gone to a swim meet to root for her. This time I actually got to meet the coach, started telling him how neat I thought was that my friend is competing and all that... Then I told him how I love swimming, and had been swimming laps last year and need to get back into it, and if he knew a good place near where we live. Well, he was the first one that finally took the time to explain to me the 'birds and the bees' of the masters swimming. I was completely surprised that I fit into the category of people who can be on the team. I thought you had to 'qualify' to be on a team or who knows what... The next morning I came to the workout. I wonder how common of a story this is. By feedback of some of the newer people on my team, I'm under the impression that it's not all that uncommon. At times even for the former USA swimmers. I think with 'former USA swimmers' mom and dad used to take care of the 'administrative' end, and they may not really realize how it all works, unless they swam late in highschool or college. So... I wonder, how can we improve on this… on all levels of the swimming community? In comparison, should I ever be sufficiently out of my mind to get the urge to want to run or do a triathlon, the resources are so readily available, I'd know exactly where to go. Sorry about such long posts... I tend to think out loud.

Originally posted by emmett ....Now, if I could figure out how to get loner fitness swimmers into clinics as easily as other swim-interested folks, I'd sing a different tune. I hear ya, on all of the above. I'm relatively involved with helping my coach advertize the clinics, and our experience has been close to the same. I haven't taken advantage of bike and sports shops advertizing (mainly because I wind up putting making a flyer on a lower priority, and not getting around it) My quanadry of the moment is how to even reach the loner fitnss swimmer and lure him/her in. I'm thinking back on my experience, where I was interested in swimming long before I found out about masters. I remember myself using the USMS website's places to swim couple of years before even learning about teams and how it all works. And this is WITH one of my bestest friends being a pretty accomplished masters swimmer (several top tens and one or two masters all American). Granted, pushing and marketing swimming is not her strong suit. So, I hate to admit, I swam laps for about a year or so at a local highschool. There was some sort of a workout group there, kind of self-organized, but with someone that looked like they knew what they were doing, and few people whom I've since seen competing. It all looked pretty intimidating, and all Greek to me. I didn't even have a clue what to ask. I taught myself flip turns by watching the 'workout group' which was many times in a lane just next to me. I think where I swan there is a very small masters group starting up or something to that effect. Even though they swim in a lane next to me, they seemed pretty unapproachable. They looked like they knew what they were doing, and I didn't even know what to ask.. so I didn't. I think there are even some posts on this bulletin board from me from that time, about learning flip turns. Other than seeing people involved in swimming, I had no clue what this is all about. The USMS website itself, I looked at it. With USA Swimming and number of quality looking and functioning websites out there USMS website looked like some sort of a dying organization website... dead links, lot of text that sounded all greek to me, and other than places to swim I couldn't find anything useful within my attention span. The website didn't strike me as the first and foremost organization on adult swimming, so I moved on trying to find something else. I stuck around the bulletin board because it seemed relatively active, which surprised me considering my first impression of the website. So, I started swimming laps. A year later... I went through some major changes in my personal life.... My fiend, the swimmer had a swim meet that she wanted to go to in Santa Barbara. Fun place to visit. So I decided to go with her, watch her swim in the morning, and then we were going to go have a few margaritas etc... This is about the 4th or 5th time over maybe 4 years that I had gone to a swim meet to root for her. This time I actually got to meet the coach, started telling him how neat I thought was that my friend is competing and all that... Then I told him how I love swimming, and had been swimming laps last year and need to get back into it, and if he knew a good place near where we live. Well, he was the first one that finally took the time to explain to me the 'birds and the bees' of the masters swimming. I was completely surprised that I fit into the category of people who can be on the team. I thought you had to 'qualify' to be on a team or who knows what... The next morning I came to the workout. I wonder how common of a story this is. By feedback of some of the newer people on my team, I'm under the impression that it's not all that uncommon. At times even for the former USA swimmers. I think with 'former USA swimmers' mom and dad used to take care of the 'administrative' end, and they may not really realize how it all works, unless they swam late in highschool or college. So... I wonder, how can we improve on this… on all levels of the swimming community? In comparison, should I ever be sufficiently out of my mind to get the urge to want to run or do a triathlon, the resources are so readily available, I'd know exactly where to go. Sorry about such long posts... I tend to think out loud.