USMS SwimFest '09 (The SUPER Clinic!)

Ok, here is a swimmer's perspective of Swimfest. Both my wife and I swim, and we were at the faster, younger end of the swimmers attending. Saturday morning, all we knew is that we had to be at the pool at 8am and when lunch was. No idea what the structure was going to be like for the clinic. Rob Butcher was holding the door for us, told us how to get signed in and get our goodie bags. During sign in, you pick your first station. The shortest list was Open water, which I didn't care about, so I signed up for long axis, which was the list next to it. We were told there were six stations, and everyone would rotate through all six, so it didn't really matter where you started. We were also told that we would be using our snorkel, so we needed to open it up. After sign-in, you were left to your own devices to find your station. We picked a spot on the deck to dump our stuff and opened the snorkel. My clinic began with Long Axis with Jim Montgomery. We were given 4 lanes, and sort of broken up by speed. The fast lane was supposed to be 1:30 or better 100 pace, so there was a wide range of abilities in each lane. The longest swim was probably only 200 yards, so any discrepancies were meaningless after a reasonable lane order was determined. Every single coach who said anything to me had something useful to say, both the head coaches to the assistant coaches. What really set the head coaches apart from the assistant coaches was their confidence in talking to the swimmers. Some coaches feel the need to have a relationship with a swimmer before they are comfortable giving criticism. All the head coaches completely lacked this block, and were able to give criticism in a way that you were happy to receive it. Back to Long Axis. This station was exactly what you would expect, lots of drills, why we do the drills, how the drills combined help build a better stroke and some discussion about the ideal stroke. I have swam under six different head coaches, plus clinic work, and still a lot of these drills were either new to me, or an old standard presented with something new to think about during the drill. Comments from Jim and the assistant coaches were made to swimmers both about the drills and about their stroke as a whole. If you were crossing over, someone was going to point it out to you, even if it had nothing to do with the current drill. There was more than 1 assistant coach per lane, so I think the slower lanes got double the coaches. Overall, I think there were about 3-4 swimmers per coach at the clinic. I think each station was 50 minutes, with 10 minutes between each station. Seems like a long break between each station, but between some stations, you needed to either dry off or shower again. Dry land with Susan Ingraham. I can summarize Susan Ingraham quite easily, Yoga Master Ninja. There was a diving competition during the entire clinic, and I think the dry land station was in the echo point. We gathered close to be able to hear and see the demos, then we went off to our mats and made fools of ourselves. About 10 minutes into the station, Susan was demonstrating something where you balance on your tailbone, while pulling one leg into your body, holding the other leg straight, and then rolling onto your back, and then back into this balanced position. “If you don’t have the abdominal strength for this, well… tough.” Yoga master ninja drill sergeant? Then she taught us how much fun a yoga ball is. This station was a lot of fun, there were a lot of good new ideas for core work with a yoga ball and the assistant coach that was “helping” us had a hard time not laughing at my antics on the yoga ball. This was the only station where everyone was warm, which I will comment on later. After dry land was short axis with Kerry O’Brien, but first another shower to appease the shower gods. On the trip to the shower, I finally ditched my snorkel, which I had been carrying around unused for two stations. Short Axis followed the same format as long axis. We started with butterfly, and were told to do just as much butterfly as we were comfortable with. Everything was 25s, so no slapped wrists to worry about, and the coaches split up between the two sides of the pool to give commentary coming and going. My butterfly either was better than I thought, or was a lost cause, because I got more commentary on my freestyle. Whatever the reason for the decrease in coach to swimmer commentary, the instruction on both strokes was very good, and very helpful. This reflects on my lack of knowledge about short axis strokes. Kyle, a recent ex-collegiate swimmer, was asked to demonstrate some correct fly for us, and probably didn’t get the same benefit I did. Wet, dry, wet, dry! Time for video analysis. This was a rather intense station as far as knowledge being poured into your brain at one time goes. There were 22 people in my “team”, 11 went with Whitney Hedgepeth, and 11 went with Mike Collins. We each got to swim a 50 of whatever we wanted, and it was taped side view only. We lined up in a line, after the first person went, the second person would get in the water, and there was only enough pause between the two for the bubbles to clear from the finish, so the start would be clear. This part probably took under 10 minutes, which was important, because the rest of the time was spent on analysis. We dried off, sat in the football locker room and watched video for about another 50 minutes. We might have had the largest group. What you really wanted from the analysis session were several people to have a fairly decent stroke, with one or two flaws there were different from everyone else’s flaws. There was a lot of benefit watching the analysis of other peoples back, *** and fly. The timing was perfect, we had all gone through the long axis and the short axis drill and stroke explanations, and now here was underwater footage of the errors that we just learned to correct. Now the video analysis of my stroke was probably worth the cost of the entire trip, but it also outlines a problem with the side view only analysis. Mike pointed out that he thought my right hand was a little wide, and my left hand wasn’t pointing at the bottom of the pool, but he couldn’t be sure without front video. Well, he was spot on, and knew that one “I think” was a big deal when I corrected my left hand in the next station. It is gems like these that you hope for, and when they occur, make a clinic worthwhile even if you didn’t get anything else out of it. After the video analysis, you are given a write up that one of the assistants does based on Mike’s commentary with the strong points and weak points marked, with any suggestions written in at the margin. This way you have a written reminder, but sadly, you don’t get a copy of the video. One comment about Mike, I am pretty sure he is actually a standup comedian pretending to be a swim coach who does a lot of dry land dolphin kick. LUNCH. Ok, we have a 90 minute break for lunch, and by the time we got out the door, it really was a little over an hour. Extra video analysis time was a fair trade for less lunch time, but hunger had definitely set it. The clinic is a good workout. After lunch, is the open water station. Sara McLarty gets props because neither my wife nor I cared about open water swimming, yet we both really enjoyed this station. Sara was the only head coach to explain why she was the head coach for that station. This was good, because some people were skipping the afternoon session, some of us were questioning if we should have skipped and her “why am I here, and what are we going to accomplish” set the right tone to get back in the water. Even if it wasn’t after lunch, most of us were pool swimmers, and there would have been a high “who cares” value, even if it was the first station of the day. Sara didn’t stop there. This station was structure just like long axis and short axis, focusing on drills. But this time around, everything was new, and it just challenging enough that it was easy to learn but still be satisfying when it is mastered. The drafting swims were a lot of fun, and it was surprising how much difference drafting on the leg makes. Things like that changed this station from a “I wish I didn’t have to” to a “I am glad I did.” Ah, the toys station with Kris Houchens. This station was complete havoc. Not only was the station all about Finis toys and people just wanted to play, but also most of us were tired and ready to be done. Finally, we need our snorkels, and there is a HUGE problem with them. Probably 3 out of 4 people couldn’t use their snorkel without nose clips, but there are no nose clips. Water just poured into my nose when I tried to use the snorkel, I gave up, and put my snorkel away, and forgot about it. The mp3 players were neat, and the tempo trainer would probably be really useful, but the rest of the stuff was pretty normal. The structure of the station was that we would use one type of toy at a time across all lanes, about there was only enough toys for two people at a time per lane, with 4-5 people in a lane. I just ended up swimming a bunch of free to keep from sitting on the wall. Conceptually this is a decent station, but it needs to be rethought. Criticism: Cold was a real problem for some people. Each water station spends 40-50 minutes in the water, but the fast lane is swimming less then 1,000 yards. That is sitting on the wall twice as long as the time spent swimming. At least two people got out early because of the cold, as well as getting out and running to the showers to warm up during some of the sessions. Probably a warning to people who signed up that if they suffer from being cold at a swim meet, they will want to bring their parka to the clinic and maybe some hot drink in a thermos. The clinic was probably 2 sessions too long for one day. By lunch break I was ready to be done for the day. A little more communication up front would have been nice. What to bring, what to expect, schedule, things like that. At the end of the last station, I asked if that was it, and got a “Yep.” Got out, showered and headed home. Missed the group picture and I am not sure what else. There were a lot of little things like this that weren’t important overall, but the clinic would have seemed to run smoother if more people knew what the plan was. Overall, it was a great experience that was worth both my time and my money. My thanks to the organizers who were behind the scenes and all the coaches who came together to try to cross educate each other and some swimmers at the same time.

Ok, here is a swimmer's perspective of Swimfest. Both my wife and I swim, and we were at the faster, younger end of the swimmers attending. Saturday morning, all we knew is that we had to be at the pool at 8am and when lunch was. No idea what the structure was going to be like for the clinic. Rob Butcher was holding the door for us, told us how to get signed in and get our goodie bags. During sign in, you pick your first station. The shortest list was Open water, which I didn't care about, so I signed up for long axis, which was the list next to it. We were told there were six stations, and everyone would rotate through all six, so it didn't really matter where you started. We were also told that we would be using our snorkel, so we needed to open it up. After sign-in, you were left to your own devices to find your station. We picked a spot on the deck to dump our stuff and opened the snorkel. My clinic began with Long Axis with Jim Montgomery. We were given 4 lanes, and sort of broken up by speed. The fast lane was supposed to be 1:30 or better 100 pace, so there was a wide range of abilities in each lane. The longest swim was probably only 200 yards, so any discrepancies were meaningless after a reasonable lane order was determined. Every single coach who said anything to me had something useful to say, both the head coaches to the assistant coaches. What really set the head coaches apart from the assistant coaches was their confidence in talking to the swimmers. Some coaches feel the need to have a relationship with a swimmer before they are comfortable giving criticism. All the head coaches completely lacked this block, and were able to give criticism in a way that you were happy to receive it. Back to Long Axis. This station was exactly what you would expect, lots of drills, why we do the drills, how the drills combined help build a better stroke and some discussion about the ideal stroke. I have swam under six different head coaches, plus clinic work, and still a lot of these drills were either new to me, or an old standard presented with something new to think about during the drill. Comments from Jim and the assistant coaches were made to swimmers both about the drills and about their stroke as a whole. If you were crossing over, someone was going to point it out to you, even if it had nothing to do with the current drill. There was more than 1 assistant coach per lane, so I think the slower lanes got double the coaches. Overall, I think there were about 3-4 swimmers per coach at the clinic. I think each station was 50 minutes, with 10 minutes between each station. Seems like a long break between each station, but between some stations, you needed to either dry off or shower again. Dry land with Susan Ingraham. I can summarize Susan Ingraham quite easily, Yoga Master Ninja. There was a diving competition during the entire clinic, and I think the dry land station was in the echo point. We gathered close to be able to hear and see the demos, then we went off to our mats and made fools of ourselves. About 10 minutes into the station, Susan was demonstrating something where you balance on your tailbone, while pulling one leg into your body, holding the other leg straight, and then rolling onto your back, and then back into this balanced position. “If you don’t have the abdominal strength for this, well… tough.” Yoga master ninja drill sergeant? Then she taught us how much fun a yoga ball is. This station was a lot of fun, there were a lot of good new ideas for core work with a yoga ball and the assistant coach that was “helping” us had a hard time not laughing at my antics on the yoga ball. This was the only station where everyone was warm, which I will comment on later. After dry land was short axis with Kerry O’Brien, but first another shower to appease the shower gods. On the trip to the shower, I finally ditched my snorkel, which I had been carrying around unused for two stations. Short Axis followed the same format as long axis. We started with butterfly, and were told to do just as much butterfly as we were comfortable with. Everything was 25s, so no slapped wrists to worry about, and the coaches split up between the two sides of the pool to give commentary coming and going. My butterfly either was better than I thought, or was a lost cause, because I got more commentary on my freestyle. Whatever the reason for the decrease in coach to swimmer commentary, the instruction on both strokes was very good, and very helpful. This reflects on my lack of knowledge about short axis strokes. Kyle, a recent ex-collegiate swimmer, was asked to demonstrate some correct fly for us, and probably didn’t get the same benefit I did. Wet, dry, wet, dry! Time for video analysis. This was a rather intense station as far as knowledge being poured into your brain at one time goes. There were 22 people in my “team”, 11 went with Whitney Hedgepeth, and 11 went with Mike Collins. We each got to swim a 50 of whatever we wanted, and it was taped side view only. We lined up in a line, after the first person went, the second person would get in the water, and there was only enough pause between the two for the bubbles to clear from the finish, so the start would be clear. This part probably took under 10 minutes, which was important, because the rest of the time was spent on analysis. We dried off, sat in the football locker room and watched video for about another 50 minutes. We might have had the largest group. What you really wanted from the analysis session were several people to have a fairly decent stroke, with one or two flaws there were different from everyone else’s flaws. There was a lot of benefit watching the analysis of other peoples back, *** and fly. The timing was perfect, we had all gone through the long axis and the short axis drill and stroke explanations, and now here was underwater footage of the errors that we just learned to correct. Now the video analysis of my stroke was probably worth the cost of the entire trip, but it also outlines a problem with the side view only analysis. Mike pointed out that he thought my right hand was a little wide, and my left hand wasn’t pointing at the bottom of the pool, but he couldn’t be sure without front video. Well, he was spot on, and knew that one “I think” was a big deal when I corrected my left hand in the next station. It is gems like these that you hope for, and when they occur, make a clinic worthwhile even if you didn’t get anything else out of it. After the video analysis, you are given a write up that one of the assistants does based on Mike’s commentary with the strong points and weak points marked, with any suggestions written in at the margin. This way you have a written reminder, but sadly, you don’t get a copy of the video. One comment about Mike, I am pretty sure he is actually a standup comedian pretending to be a swim coach who does a lot of dry land dolphin kick. LUNCH. Ok, we have a 90 minute break for lunch, and by the time we got out the door, it really was a little over an hour. Extra video analysis time was a fair trade for less lunch time, but hunger had definitely set it. The clinic is a good workout. After lunch, is the open water station. Sara McLarty gets props because neither my wife nor I cared about open water swimming, yet we both really enjoyed this station. Sara was the only head coach to explain why she was the head coach for that station. This was good, because some people were skipping the afternoon session, some of us were questioning if we should have skipped and her “why am I here, and what are we going to accomplish” set the right tone to get back in the water. Even if it wasn’t after lunch, most of us were pool swimmers, and there would have been a high “who cares” value, even if it was the first station of the day. Sara didn’t stop there. This station was structure just like long axis and short axis, focusing on drills. But this time around, everything was new, and it just challenging enough that it was easy to learn but still be satisfying when it is mastered. The drafting swims were a lot of fun, and it was surprising how much difference drafting on the leg makes. Things like that changed this station from a “I wish I didn’t have to” to a “I am glad I did.” Ah, the toys station with Kris Houchens. This station was complete havoc. Not only was the station all about Finis toys and people just wanted to play, but also most of us were tired and ready to be done. Finally, we need our snorkels, and there is a HUGE problem with them. Probably 3 out of 4 people couldn’t use their snorkel without nose clips, but there are no nose clips. Water just poured into my nose when I tried to use the snorkel, I gave up, and put my snorkel away, and forgot about it. The mp3 players were neat, and the tempo trainer would probably be really useful, but the rest of the stuff was pretty normal. The structure of the station was that we would use one type of toy at a time across all lanes, about there was only enough toys for two people at a time per lane, with 4-5 people in a lane. I just ended up swimming a bunch of free to keep from sitting on the wall. Conceptually this is a decent station, but it needs to be rethought. Criticism: Cold was a real problem for some people. Each water station spends 40-50 minutes in the water, but the fast lane is swimming less then 1,000 yards. That is sitting on the wall twice as long as the time spent swimming. At least two people got out early because of the cold, as well as getting out and running to the showers to warm up during some of the sessions. Probably a warning to people who signed up that if they suffer from being cold at a swim meet, they will want to bring their parka to the clinic and maybe some hot drink in a thermos. The clinic was probably 2 sessions too long for one day. By lunch break I was ready to be done for the day. A little more communication up front would have been nice. What to bring, what to expect, schedule, things like that. At the end of the last station, I asked if that was it, and got a “Yep.” Got out, showered and headed home. Missed the group picture and I am not sure what else. There were a lot of little things like this that weren’t important overall, but the clinic would have seemed to run smoother if more people knew what the plan was. Overall, it was a great experience that was worth both my time and my money. My thanks to the organizers who were behind the scenes and all the coaches who came together to try to cross educate each other and some swimmers at the same time.